Give your ideas life... If an idea is worth thinking about again, it's worth capturing what you've got so far and giving it a place to live and grow. Every time I have something I think is a really good idea, I buy an $8.95 domain, add it to my hosting account (important to have multiple domains on your hosting account with no additional charge), and throw together a simple web page using a free template for either FrontPage or Dreamweaver, or blogging software, i.e., WordPress. For less than $10, I have a place for my idea to start taking life, and for me to communicate my idea effectively to prospective collaborators and customers. If you're not as web-inclined, just jot down your thoughts about the subject and create a separate file folder for it, either in your computer or a manual file. Any time you have something to add, you've got the right place for it. Sooner or later, the good ideas will truly start having a life of their own, and you can say good-bye to those regrets about forgotten great ideas.
Make a schedule... You'll drive yourself and the people around you crazy if you just flit back and forth from one project to another (which is all too easy a pattern to slip into). As Stephen Covey says, don't prioritize your schedule, schedule your priorities. The only way to ensure that you are really focusing on the next most important thing is to put into your schedule - otherwise all those things that are urgent but not important will keep you from doing the things that are important but not urgent, and even sometimes the things that are important and urgent. If you want to focus, you have to give yourself time to focus, free from other distractions, and knowing in your mind that that's how you're supposed to be spending that time.
...and then break it. Circumstances change. Priorities change. And change is cheap if you make it that way. Agility and flexibility are a couple of the great advantages entrepreneurs have over larger organizations. Many opportunities come up that are time-sensitive, and if you're locked into an artificially rigid schedule, you'll miss them. The trick is to know the difference between a time-sensitive opportunity and a mere distraction. Perhaps we need a new serenity prayer for entrepreneurs:
"Grant me the serenity to say no to the requests that are mere distractions, the courage to act on the ones that are truly opportunities, and the wisdom to the know the difference."
Know the difference between maintenance work and growth work. There's no such thing as truly passive income. At the very least, you have to collect your check and deposit it, right? Most "passive" income still requires a certain amount of maintenance work. Rental property has to be managed, websites have to be kept up-to-date, etc. Maintenance work has to be done on a regular basis, usually weekly or monthly, and there are detrimental consequences if you don't get it done. Growth work, on the other hand, doesn't have anyone waiting on it but you. Make sure you know how much maintenance work your various projects require so you know how much time you really have for growth projects.
Work only one growth project at a time, and work on it 'til it's working for you. This one is above all the unique key to making this paradox work that most people don't know and don't do. There is absolutely no sense in spending a few hours a week on each of several projects keeping them all inching forward little by little. The trick to both finding focus and making multiple streams of income is to work on one thing at a time, and work on it until it is at the next plateau. If a project is first starting out, do whatever it takes to get it to the point that it has a life of its own. That may mean just getting it to the point that you can share it with potential collaborators or customers, or it may mean getting it to the point that it can start to generate income. Once a project has started earning revenue, let it work for you passively while you work on something else. Think about it - if you're working on four one-week projects, do you want to finish them all simultaneously at the end of four weeks? Of course not! You want to finish one the first week and let it work for you for three weeks, finish another the second week and let it work for you for two weeks, etc. Doing it this way, you get your projects working for you for six extra weeks vs. the other approach!
Follow these simple steps, and you'll soon learn how to live the paradox of focusing on multiple streams of income!
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