The Ultimate Guide To Managing Your Ideas
The Map Is Not The Territory
Hello friends, and welcome to Day One.
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If I asked you what an idea was?
How would you define it?
For thousands of years,
Human Beings have created a lot of amazing things.
And the Genesis of everything created has always been ideas.
Talking of Genesis.
When God wanted to create the world, he first designed it based on the ideas he got.
That light in Genesis 1:3 was talking more about Revelation knowledge than light as you know it.
Because it wasn’t until Genesis 1:16 that the Sun and the Moon came into the picture
Even in this current age, we use a light bulb to visualize what getting an idea looks like.
Now back to ideas.
In Genesis Chapter One he declared (designed) how everything would be.
Then In Genesis Chapter Two, he started building.
The NIV Translation used the word “form” to describe this process.
One insight that stuck with me most is in Genesis 2:5
God didn’t send the rains or allow plants to grow until he created Man.
He only planted the Garden of Eden after he created Man ( Genesis 2:7-8)
Wherever there is no responsibility, growth cannot occur.
So as you read this article,
Understand that your ideas are seeds that need the right environment to grow.
And you are a major part of that environment.
Today, I want to help you simplify everything about ideas.
There are a lot of paths that this can take.
But I will draw a boundary for this article around these key points:
How to handle ideas you can’t work on yet.
How to create a personal roadmap that accommodates all your ideas (even the ones that don’t seem related)
How to compound efforts and build future ideas faster
Before I proceed, let me talk about what I call the theory of the complete thought
The Theory Of the Complete Thought
As you already know.
Ideas rarely come fully formed.
You need to brood on them and research before discovering a perceived best point of approach.
But how do you even optimize your brain to get the best ideas?
Some years back I started paying more attention to this problem and I created a theory on how to achieve this.
Imagine that an idea is a cartoon of Indomie
And your brain is a factory.
Your conscious mind is the loading dock
While your subconscious mind is the factory machinery that does most of the work.
Before a carton of Indomie makes it to the loading dock
40 packs of Indomie need to be neatly packed inside and sealed.
No matter how fast orders need to be delivered.
The factory will never ship out cartons containing 20 or 30 packs.
It always has to be that 40 packs.
The 40 packs in this analogy are the insight that you gather over a period of time.
My attitude towards reading dramatically changed when I got this understanding.
I remember telling an acquaintance in school then to read a particular book.
And he asked me, how much he would be paid when he was done reading the book.
I shook my head and smiled.
If only he knew.
As you study the works of people who have gone ahead of you.
It can be through text, video, or even audio.
You get a glimpse into their world and you gather insights that left on your own would have taken you decades to access.
As you go around gathering these insights
Your subconscious mind sorts them into cartons based on relevance.
This activity is carried out behind the scenes, you don’t feel or sense it happening.
Once a carton is full, your subconscious mind seals the carton and pushes it out to the loading dock (conscious mind)
And that’s how you get an idea.
You now have this thing that rocks your world without being able to fully figure out its origins.
A lot of things can fill up that carton faster.
I have found out that the faster a carton gets filled, the more likely you can guess where most of the insights that formed that idea came from.
This is my theory of how ideas are formed.
If you have any to share,
Hit the like button and drop a comment at the end of this article
All in all, a life devoted to learning is very important.
The more you read, the better the ideas you get.
Reading has a great role in managing ideas.
Let’s take a dive into the main article and see.
How to handle ideas you can’t work on yet.
I wasn’t always an online writer.
After I completed secondary school in 2011.
I knew that I would follow some unconventional paths in life when it came to building a career.
My foray into newspapers helped me discover blogging and Information marketing.
However, I lacked the resources ( a laptop/capital) to start.
These days with a Smartphone, you can start blogging.
There were not even smartphones then.
The closest thing that we had to a Smartphone then was the BlackBerry Phones.
With no resources or even a mentor.
It was easy to give up, but I didn’t
My uncle later gifted me his old Nokia phone in 2012.
It had Opera Mini and could access the Internet.
So I spent the next four years reading all I could about blogging and building an online brand.
I was privileged to get a Laptop in late 2016
However, I still lacked the resources needed to host a standard blog that I could monetize.
So I just set up a free WordPress blog and started publishing articles.
I had no traffic, so I shared the links with people in my circle.
Fast forward to January 2017.
I discovered Steemit, like Medium there was already an audience on the platform.
It was also easy to set up a blog there and start writing.
I did that and started publishing four to five articles weekly.
Within three months, I crossed 1 Million Naira in earnings.
Now you might say that I made my first million in three months.
But it took me five years.
Everything that I had learned from 2011 until that point made that earning possible.
Some people started blogging on Steemit when they saw my earnings but didn’t even make 10% of that after months of blogging.
Not because they were not smart.
They didn’t have my level of insight, and some were also discouraged when they didn’t get my level of results and gave up fast.
As a coach and mentor, I have had conversations with people who have ideas they can’t work on.
And it is mostly because they lack the skills needed to bring it to life ( especially technical skills)
They always tell me that they are learning the skill or waiting for when they can afford to pay someone to build the product.
Giving equity as payment rarely works.
The person would rather build their ideas instead.
And most times, people with ideas rarely want to give significant equity to those who want to accept equity.
You can’t have it both ways.
If you fall into this category, these are some steps that you need to take.
Learn and Document
My favorite quote on preparing to work on ideas comes from Abraham Lincoln.
I will study and prepare myself, and one day my time will come.
Imagine I stopped learning about blogging and building an online brand because I didn’t have a laptop in 2011.
I would have wasted those years and when the laptop finally comes, I will have to start learning from scratch.
Or worse, used it only for school assignments/projects and movies.
When there is no vision, you can’t take proper advantage of resources.
The Bible even went as far as saying you will perish.
The “perish” there is not physical death.
You kill your time doing things that don’t add to your future.
It’s the same way the death that Adam and Eve experienced after eating that apple was spiritual.
The essence of life is found in vision, you must live for something bigger than you.
So while you are waiting to work on that idea.
Learn all you can about it and document any resource that comes your way.
I am an expert documenter.
There are some things that I documented in 2017 that I just went back to this year.
Create an online portal and dump things that you discover there
Upskill Fast
It is impossible to master all the skills required to build a product at once.
But mastering one skill is a great start.
You will need to go deep into that skill and monetize it richly.
Your greatest issue at this point is distractions.
I made significant progress (Monetary and relationships) with writing before I even started adding other skills.
You can keep saving money and working for others until you learn what it takes to kickstart your own thing.
Now at this stage, you have the skill to bear part of that responsibility and then money or clout to get others to work with that project on you.
If you have a great track record in your field, it will even be easier to get people who will agree to accept only equity to work with you.
Most of the time people reject equity because they don’t have faith in you to pull off the product.
Think of the biggest people in your industry,
If they present with an amazing idea and tell you to be a co-founder that will get only equity for a start.
Would you accept the offer?
I can think of a few people I can accept such offers from.
But you need consistency and focus to get there.
Below is a roadmap framework that you can adapt.
How To Create a Roadmap for Your Ideas
Many companies create a public/private roadmap when launching.
It contains mini-projects that they have to complete to push their product forward.
Two years ago, I realized that companies aren’t the only brands that need roadmaps.
The purpose of roadmaps is to give a sense of direction and ensure focus.l
I needed that as an individual when it came to the things that I was building.
But having a list of things to do is not enough
How do you determine what to start first and when to add something else to the menu?
There are two filters that you can use:
Skill Based milestones
Income Based milestones
Now there are also two contexts for these milestones:
You work for yourself (digital/physical products and consulting)
You work for others (Full-time and Freelance)
There are two major skills required to create a successful product
Building skills ( Coding and Design )
Selling skills ( Sales and Marketing
For example, got an idea to build a savings app that allows crypto savings,
These are potential scenarios.
Scenario One
You are already working in a form of Financial institution,
And have the insights/skills/money needed to pull off the project.
If you lack any of the above, you can create a roadmap to get it.
Here are some things that can be on your Roadmap
Having a savings of 10 Million Naira
Learn basic coding to build version one of the app if you have only selling skills
Find a co-founder who trusts you and can code for equity.
Learn all you can about Crypto ( take an extensive course)
Another reason people reject equity is if it comes from someone without significant building or sales skills.
Whose major contribution to the product is only ideas.
Ideas are cheap, talk doesn’t cook rice.
Scenario Two
You have been building a personal brand around finances.
This is actually a great start.
You most likely have thousands of people following your content.
It is easier to get your first set of users/customers from them.
Here are some things to be in your roadmap
Having a savings of 10 Million Naira
Learn basic coding to build version one of the app
Leverage your brand to get an experienced co-founder
Learn all you can about Crypto and write about it to educate your readers/subscribers
Targets are powerful because they are part of the things that keep you focused.
If you not, you will jump from idea to idea without getting much done.
Targets will also help you know which business opportunity is temporary.
There are things that you need to work only on for a season to get funds.
Adding To Your Roadmap
Below is a visualization of my roadmap.
You can see that it is divided into two sections:
Building - Projects I am actively working on.
Brooding - Projects that require me to hit milestones to start.
You mostly like to know the projects under Building so I can show you.
But I have changed the names/business models of those under Brooding to descriptions for the sake of privacy.
And some have been outright censored.
Focus on the lesson, not the project.
The Building/ Brooding filter protects my time and energy.
Day One is a holding company for my brand.
There are times when you read about someone's stories or see a product out there.
Instead of picking up the lessons from the content/product, you have a desire to copy that idea.
Most of the time, you have no business building that kind of product, but the rewards grab your focus.
Now there might be a chance that such a product is a great fit for you.
What I do at this stage is to create a folder for it under Brooding.
Add some initial thoughts and move on.
If I keep getting more and more insights from that idea and keep seeing more and more ways what I am doing currently adds to it.
I move it up my idea rankings.
Currently, the next project that I am most likely to work on is the “Publishing Business”
And I will use how I am preparing for it to show you the power of compounding efforts.
How to Compound Efforts and Build Faster
Money is not the only thing that you can earn compound interest on.
You can earn compound interest on any efforts that you are putting into the projects that you are working on now.
Four years ago, I discovered a type of publishing business that was very lucrative.
That market is currently worth over $14 Billion
I ignored some years back it because I didn’t have what it took to start.
But it kept popping up now and then.
I finally added it to my roadmap but still knew that I had a lot of work to do.
No matter how course creators tell you, it takes a lot of work to build a brand and make money from something.
There are only a few cases where you can leverage the network/partnership of someone else to make money faster.
But you still have to work.
Going into that publishing business will take a lot of work.
And that work will take away time from Day One, Superday, and Sound Money.
So I checked these three things that I was building and pinpointed a place to compound efforts.
I decided to start converting one newsletter episode each month to a book.
The first book went live last week.
It was adapted from this article that I wrote in January.
February book is already cooking and will be out soon.
Publishing these books helps me achieve two things:
Grow Day One: The 40 Hours book launch netted me over 700 new subscribers
Master Publishing: When it is time to work on the publishing project, I will achieve faster results.
Another example is this
I have been learning how to. Run Ads to grow Sound Money.
As someone who has focused only on organic content for the past eight years
It has not been an easy experience.
But learning it will impact not just Sound Money, but it will help me grow other projects.
P.S. You mustn’t do this, you can pay just someone to run Ads for you. I have other reasons why I want to learn.
I have to stop here for the sake of brevity.
You can share some of the things that you are working on and other ideas in the comments below and I will give you tips.
P.S. Don’t share business ideas if you are not comfortable.
I am also opening three call slots next week.
One-hour sessions where you share your ideas and challenges
And I will personally help you set up a Roadmap that works.
Book a Slot with the link below, make sure to read the call description before booking one
Last week, I published a book on productivity.
It has been getting lots of thanks and testimonies since it was published.
I am not charging money for the book.
You can access it for free as long as you are a subscriber.
How impactful was today’s episode on ideas?
Do you have questions?
Drop your feedback in the comments below.
I respond to all comments.
This is really insightful. Recently, I have been having this in flow of ideas in my head as regards creating a product. Been documenting them. This just gives me more clarity.
Wow. Amazing piece right here.
Honestly sir, you know your onions.
I love what you did with the 3 stages in the other newsletter and blending it with building/brooding and the creating of a roadmap.
Can wait for the remaining part of this article. It doesn't look like this is all