The blog

On occa­sion, you get an idea or two. 
They are amaz­ing, mar­velous and excit­ing ideas and some­times even show a true stroke of brilliance. 

If you are in luck, they fit right in with what you need to focus your strength and ener­gy on right now. But they can often con­cern mat­ters which you can­not delve deep­er into at the moment since you have oth­er things you need to prioritize. 

It might be pos­si­ble to set the idea into prac­tice in a while, per­haps in six months. The clients are not ready now, but give them two years and the time to intro­duce your idea might be just right. 

It is easy for the idea to sim­ply slip your mind, to dis­ap­pear and nev­er turn into any­thing, if you just think ​“OK, just not now” and push it to the back of your mind.

Store them safely

This is the very rea­son you need to park them in a safe place so that you can find that one fan­tas­tic idea when the great oppor­tu­ni­ty to actu­al­ize it reveals itself.

But where should you park them? I here present you with eight pos­si­ble park­ing-lots for your ideas.

1. Get your­self an idea-list where you write down bril­liant ideas which aren’t pos­si­ble to real­ize today. Do not feel pres­sured to define any first steps or tasks for these ideas just for the sake of it, but leave them there until the right moment arises.
2. Write the idea on a note and place it in your idea-hang­ing-file which you flip through from time to time to see if you pos­si­bly could real­ize any of them now.
3. Cre­ate a mind-map on the com­put­er or on paper, where every idea is giv­en its own branch. That way you can devel­op the ideas with new branch­es and details when­ev­er you feel like it.
4. Pur­chase a small, black note­book which is reserved for ideas and which you always can car­ry with you. This way it is quick and easy to park an idea wher­ev­er you are, and when you have noth­ing bet­ter to do while wait­ing for your flight, what could a more inspir­ing reading?
5. Place an idea-jar on your desk, out of which you can extract an excit­ing idea when you feel like it.
6. Hang an idea-laun­dry-line in your office where you hang all the great ideas you get so that they con­sti­tute a con­tin­u­ous source of inspi­ra­tion; there might even be some­one who spots an idea, see the bril­liance in it and help you real­ize it.
7. Post the ideas you will not have the time or oppor­tu­ni­ty to real­ize your­self online, for instance on a site such as the Swedish web­site Idé­pe­dia, a bank of ideas acces­si­ble to all, and you there­by make it pos­si­ble for oth­ers to bring them to life instead.
8. Do as Duarte Design. Place an idea-white­board in a com­mon area at your office where you ​“post” ideas so that oth­ers can com­ment on and devel­op them.

Don’t let the ideas go to waste

If you have a quick and easy way to park the ideas you can­not actu­al­ize at the moment, you will take care of the bril­liant ideas you get to a greater extent than you oth­er­wise would. You will grad­u­al­ly build a valu­able bank of embryos to new busi­ness­es, new ser­vices, new prod­ucts, and new oppor­tu­ni­ties for your­self and for the busi­ness you are in. 

Even if the idea isn’t fea­si­ble right now, every­thing might fall into place when you at a cock­tail-par­ty meet a per­son who dreams of rid­ding them­selves of the prob­lem your idea would be the per­fect solu­tion of. Then you sud­den­ly know just where to look. 

How do you keep track of ideas?

What do you do with the ideas you chose not to go through with right now, so that they will not go to waste? And how do you go about putting them into prac­tice when the time is right? Leave a com­ment to share your ideas! The only bad ideas out there are those which no one gave life to!