43:1 Write every idea down

Welcome to Trailblazer FM. This is episode one of season 43. In this season, our mantra will be, slight changes, spectacular results. You can get the idea from that mantra that we are going to be sharing some really slight, minute, micro, tiny changes that you can make to your day-to-day agency life that will eventually yield spectacular results.

That is a big claim, but these are all tiny changes that I, and that we as a team have made over the years that have definitely had a really positive impact on our agency. The purpose of this season, therefore, is to help people find those slight, those tiny changes that they can make, that are achievable.

If we look out on the internet, we see all of these influencers, all of these people telling us that we need to redesign our websites, we need to remap our processes, we need to put content out every single day. There is all sorts of stuff that we are told that we need to do. And frankly, it is ridiculously overwhelming. And it has been, for myself at least, the cause of overwhelm and the cause of mental health issues, because I hit burnout trying to do everything.

Over the last few years, being able to do just a few small things has been completely life-changing. So without further ado, let’s jump into this topic for today, which is the simple process of writing down every idea. You see, our brains were not designed to store memories. We are not like a hard disc. We don’t have a folder structure. We can’t recall amazing ideas, or thoughts, or one-liners that we have. We can’t even recall those dreams with clarity.

Being able to write stuff down is a really useful tool for getting what occurs to us in our mind, at the most inspired moments, maybe in the shower, maybe on a drive, maybe on a run, and we get them down on paper for us to process later. That’s the really important part. Being able to see those ideas later to allow you to expand upon them and eventually take action.

So that’s the why. But practically, how do we outwork writing everything down? Now, it doesn’t need to be fancy. It can literally just be a small pad and pen or small pencil. In fact, that’s something that I’ve used for an awfully long time. You can also use an app on your smartphone. Because let’s face it, we have our smartphones with us pretty much everywhere. It’s actually possible you are listening to this episode on the toilet.

The act of writing it down doesn’t have to be complicated at all. Simply write down what comes to mind. And do not self-edit. Just go for it. And also be specific on whatever that idea is or that thought process is. You can usually do that in one sentence or a very small paragraph.

I recommend then that you come back to notes maybe at the end of the day when things are still fresh so you can remind yourself what you wrote. And then take those notes and convert them into something a little bit more substantial. You can expand upon those ideas in a document and perhaps even set yourself some follow-up actions if there are items in there you really feel will help move the needle forward. The act of translating those quick fire notes that you wrote down either on paper or in the app and then transferring them to a centralised document area helps you to really unpack that idea and to explore where that could lead.

Equally, you could decide that that particular thought or idea was something you don’t really need to pursue, but still at least you were able to capture it in the moment and you don’t have that regret of wondering what it was, what was that really cool saying that I came up with? What was that really amazing thing that I heard that I found really inspiring? What was that business idea that I had? How did I want to write that email to this particular customer? What was that amazing hook that popped into my head whilst I was in the shower which I’ve now clean forgot?

So this is ridiculously simple. It’s a really slight change that you can add to your daily life to yield spectacular results. Let me know in the comments of this episode, over on trailblazer.fm, if you are good at note-taking, if you take notes all the time and how it’s changed your life. Equally, if you’ve never written notes and you are going to start, also check the links for a video that I did, all about interstitial journaling, which takes this just a little bit further.

Folks, thanks for listening. If we don’t see you in the comments, let’s see you in the next episode.