Do You Struggle With TOO MANY Ideas?

A friend of mine asked me this question via Twitter:

@Patrysha:

@HomeBizGeeks Any tips for those who have too much to say and therefore struggle to get one idea down?

I feel your pain! I’m one of those people who wakes up in the middle of the night with a million ideas and then I stay up until 3 a.m. trying to get at least one of them done. And then end up not getting anything completed because I worked on 10 ideas.

Over the years though, I’ve figured out some ways to cut through the noise and focus on one idea.

#1 Write everything down.

I keep a notepad (or my iPhone) next to my bed so that I can write my ideas down as I have them. If I can get them on paper, I feel less pressure to do everything and can pick the best ideas later. Like after I’ve actually slept.

#2 Stay focused.

If you are focused on your target market, you’ll chase fewer rabbits. In other words, if you have 10 ideas for articles you want to write about, you may be able to cross 5 of them off your list because they just don’t fit your market. So, I recommend writing down exactly who you’re focusing on and what you’re providing them. Then frame this is post it in the area where you work.

#3 Organize your ideas.

Just a few years ago, I discovered that if I took a bunch of related ideas and organized them in a logical fashion, I could actually write pretty quickly. For example, if I know I need to write a blog post about working at home and I have a ton of ideas ranging from setting up your home office to tracking the time you spend working, I create an outline. If I have too many ideas to fit into one topic, I create more than one outline.

You can download my outline here: Article-Post-Outline (PDF)

#4 Finish what you begin.

I know, it’s sooo tempting to stop the article or blog post you’re writing to start the new idea that just popped into your head. Don’t! If you must, jot a note on a sticky and then finish writing what you’re working on. Then move to the new idea. If you keep jumping from one idea to the next, you’ll never finish. Hey, that’s the only way I finished this artic…

#5 Hire someone else to edit.

Have you ever read (or written!) an article or blog post that started off great, but then part of the way through, the author just went off on a tangent. You know, like talking about dinosaurs, or sedimentary rocks. Or other kinds of rocks like igneous and metamorphic. Those rocks are really cool because….

I bet you get my point. An editor will be able to find those tangents that you aren’t seeing and get rid of them. Your writing will make much more sense — and you can always use those tangents on your rock blog…

Those are the five ideas that have worked best to help me start writing when I have a bazillion ideas — and stay on track. What about you? What tips or techniques do you use to handle the multitude of ideas that parade through your head?