Everytime I try to write a new article, I start with an idea. I’m not a professional blogger so I still don’t have the necessary skills for a full on writing session. When it comes to actually work, Paper by Dropbox is where my drafts are taking shape. Now write something brilliant - says Paper everytime a new empy .doc is created. Probably this is what we all try, but do we always succeed?
If we make an analogy, coming up with ideas is quite easy. We get ideas from anything if we look close. Writing about that subject, trying to do this and that, experimenting with stuff, but all comes down to execution. Most of us lack efficiency on this side. Just like Paper, our brains say “do something brilliant” but everything else doesn’t know how to, where to start, what is going to work or not.
I got stuck at execution many times, and gave up on more ideas that I remember. Sometimes I’m thinking that one of those ideas would’ve had a real impact on the world, but life goes on. In the past months I’ve got the chance to have a mentor, someone working on Operations. When we met the first time, we got to discuss a bit about what he is doing and the main idea I got from him was that today, when we have these busy lives, we try to work 50 hours in 40 hours per week and we push ourselves to the limit, we never got the time to look from the outside and apply some easy principles on what we do. For example, we tend to be busy rather than efficient, we focus more on ideas than on an execution plan. So let me share some tips on what I was learned to do and maybe you can take them as advice or engage in an open conversation on these:
No. 1: Chose the actions that have the bigger impact
I’m not telling you to prioritise, but to think about what can you do right now and it will have the biggest impact in the future. What are the key points in your plan that gives you context and a path for your next steps.
No. 2: Stop doing random stuff so you can say that you work
We tend to keep ourself ocuppied just so we can say that we are doing something. Usualy we pick tasks that mean nothing and keep going on with that until we panic or we let go to the idea. It’s just like a long market research when you actualy need to go on sales meetings.
No. 3: If you really can’t go forward with your idea, let it go
Yeah, give up. You don’t usualy hear that as an advice. If you try something and you did your best but still can’t figure it out, let it go. Maybe you are not the one for it, maybe it was just an impulsive decision for you to follow that. So it’s better to stop it earlier than later and maybe focus on something else. Also, be careful to not use this as an excuse because you are too lazy.
No. 4: Dream big
Something really important I’ve learned from every succesful people around me is that dreaming big is the key. We usually become self aware about it when we look at other people and think “how was that posible?”. For example, the Steemit team would have not created this if they weren’t dreaming big. For every random thought, there is a whole lot more behind and it can make a difference.
And just do.