Focus Digest: September 2023

Turning your Ideas into Action ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  Focus Digest: September 2023 Welcome to September, Friend. There is a lot happening this month in the community! Grab a beverage, find a spot to relax, and enjoy this month’s Focus Digest. If you are new to the digest...here's what to look forward to on the first Monday of every month: - A short article on a single concept around focus - A couple quotes that we've enjoyed thinking on - Links to interesting or related articles from our corner of the internet - Upcoming events and resource spotlights for our [Accelerator Members]( This monthly digest is for folks who want to create a more ideal schedule, get organized, and stay in control of the things that matter. If this sparks any ideas I’d love to hear from you! (If you'd rather not get the focus digest you can easily opt-out via the link at the bottom.) * * * Starting September 14! The Ideas to Action Focus Booster 🚀 Double your creative output with a simple system for organizing — and actually acting on — your ideas. - #1: Capture Your Genius → Create your own digital idea incubator. You’ll learn how to leverage tools like Notion, Obsidian, and more to organize every spark of inspiration worth saving. - #2: Develop Your Ideas → This is where the magic happens. Connect the dots on your ideas and unlock the creative energy to see them through. - #3: Execute Your Vision → Turn inspiration into action so you can finally share what’s in your head with the rest of the world. - Bonus: Yes Yes Notion → Discover how to make Notion your command center for turning ideas into action in this 2-part bonus workshop. If you’re brimming with ideas but struggle to bring them to life, you don’t have to keep stalling out. The Ideas to Action Focus Booster shows you how to translate your notes, thoughts, and plans into rapid progress (instead of getting stuck at the start). 👉 [Become an Accelerator member]( and get instant access to the Ideas to Action Focus Booster content. (FYI: As a member, you’ll also get access to our entire course library and resource vault, including the advanced Time Management masterclass, our Margin Course, and our complete library of tools, templates, and cheat sheets.) Sign up now to get full access, AND save your spot for the next Focus Booster, Ideas to Action, launching September 14. 🚀 thefocuscourse.com/accelerator [JOIN NOW »]( “Accomplishing a goal is a lot less like taking a train across the country and a lot more like driving a bumper car.” — Jon Acuff Turning Ideas Into Action(Originally appeared on [The Sweet Setup Blog](, by Mike Schmitz) One of the biggest motivators for me in applying intentionality to my technology is creating the time and space to think. By purposely turning off the fire-hose of information, I'm able to process and develop my ideas. Sometime those ideas turn into articles, like this one. Sometimes they become a new course or product. But without regular thinking time, they almost never see the light of day. We recently conducted a survey about the biggest pain points people experience when it comes to capturing and managing ideas, and one of the things we heard over and over again was that it was difficult to turn ideas into action. Here are a few of the responses we received: "I'm pretty good at brainstorming — it's finishing projects that I have difficulty with." "I don't have any problems with coming up with ideas or even seeing the results of the ideas. It's the organizing and implementation of the work of the idea itself to get to the results." "Nothing more frustrating than having a great thought and losing it." I get it. I've kicked myself many times for not jotting down a great idea when I had it, then forgetting about it later. Or capturing something and letting it sit for so long that by the time I saw it again, it was no longer of any use. Over the years, I've worked on building my own idea development system. This is what I do to develop my ideas, turn them into action, and make sure that nothing slips through the cracks. The Process One of the mistakes that people make when it comes to developing ideas is that they assume the idea will be complete the moment the inspiration hits. While that can happen, in my experience it is extremely rare. More often than not, I need to marinate on an idea for awhile before I see what it really turns in to. For me, the ideation process has a couple key steps from start to finish: - Capture - Develop - Action You can modify the tools or the approach, but if you're really going to fully develop your ideas to produce the best possible results, you need to have all three. First is the capture phase. This is where you just want to get the idea down so you don't forget about it. It's important that this step has as little friction as possible. If the process or tools you use to capture your ideas are cumbersome or difficult to use, you'll find yourself resisting the act of actually capturing it. You may even think to yourself that you'll remember it later, but chances are you won't. It's important you capture your ideas so you don't forget about them. For me, this is always [Drafts](, and usually my iPhone. Whenever I have a thought I want to capture — whether it's something I need to do, an article I want to write, or something I want to add to a course — I jot it down in Drafts first. From there, I clear out my Drafts inbox every couple of days and decide what to do with each item or idea that I captured. The important thing is to have a place for everything. For example, tasks go into my task manger, phone numbers go into contacts, etc. But they all start in Drafts — the moment inspiration strikes, I pull out my phone and jot it down. But that's it. I don't take action on it yet because I know it's not fully baked. I know that when you get inspired, it can be tempting to to just jump in and start working while motivation is high. But I want to caution you not to just jump in and do the work without thinking about it first. Resist the urge to begin a project as soon as you see the first thing you need to do to get started. You’ll save yourself a lot of headache if you take a little bit of time to think about it first. The next step is the develop phase. This is where I noddle on an idea and flesh it out before I start doing anything with it. This is the piece many people miss, and one of the best uses of mind mapping in my experience. Building a mind map is a great way to consider all of the angles and perspectives of an idea before you take any action on it. Have you ever jumped into something and worked on it awhile, only to discover halfway through that you should have actually done something else? You can avoid that wasted effort by spending a little time developing your ideas before you start working on it. I find this extremely important whenever I want to write a longer article or build a product like a video course. By spending even 30 minutes creating a mind map, I usually find that while my initial idea was pretty good, there's a better way to approach what I really want to create. It also helps me to establish the skeleton or structure of the post or product, making it easier to just sit down and write when I need to. As a result, I don't really struggle with writer's block, and I believe it's largely because I spend a little bit of time mind mapping before writing. The last step is the action phase. Many people try to jump straight here because it feels like they are being more efficient by just doing the work. In my experience, taking action without spending time to develop the idea first is a huge mistake. Only when you have developed the idea do you even know whether it is worth pursuing! Many times I have captured an idea, developed it in a mind map, then decided that it just isn't worth the time and put it on the back burner while I move on to something else. Mind mapping the idea first is a form of an idea filter and saves me from doing things that aren't the best use of my time or not in alignment with my vision, values, and goals. The ideas that do make it through are well-defined, so in addition to knowing that I picked the right ones, it makes the work I have to do to execute on them even easier. There's a couple things that make this process work for me: - I do it consistently. I build thinking time into my regular routine. It was difficult at first as you assume you're too busy to take the time to think, but doing so makes the work you do more effective. Once you see the fruit, it's easier to prioritize. - I put it on my calendar. I even schedule an entire day once per quarter for what I call a "Personal Retreat" where I just think about the previous 90-day period and plan for the next one. - I'm specific. I don't sit and think generally about high-level topics like the meaning of life. Instead, I pick a project or problem that I'm trying to develop or solve. - I don't rush it. If something isn't ready yet, I just leave it alone for awhile. Because I've made thinking time a habit, I always have a backlog of ideas to pick from. Whenever I hit a roadblock, it's easy to just move on to the next idea and see where that leads me instead. The end result is that I constantly am moving ideas from capture to develop to action. There's always several things at each stage, which allows me to keep the pump of creativity primed. Conclusion The next time you find yourself struggling to turn ideas into action, try this: - Turn off the fire-hose. Is there an endless feed or infinite pool you get sucked into somewhere? Might you be able to use that time to develop some of your ideas instead? - Schedule thinking time on your calendar. Scheduling even an hour just to think about your problem or project may give you the clarity you need to move forward with confidence. - Resist the urge to jump straight from idea to action. Spend some time noodling on the idea first. Try fleshing it out in a mind map using an app like MindNode (the [best mind mapping app]( for Mac and iOS users). You might just find that you are much more creative than you ever gave yourself credit. Upcoming Accelerator Membership Events - New Accelerator Member Welcome Call: Sep 6 - Creating Your Notion Productivity System (Workshop): Sep 14 - Notion Office Hours: Sep 18 - Organize Your Notes in Notion (Workshop): Sep 19 - How Shawn Writes (Workshop): Sep 26 When you're ready... An all-access pass to every single course and tool in our library, plus a community to help you get clear, take action, and keep going. ✓ Unlimited access to every on-demand course in our library ✓ Instant access to all the tools, workflows, and resources in our vault ✓ Monthly office hours and Q&A with our team ✓ Gain accountability and breakthrough with the community You'll also get access to our complete library of templates for time management (including the brand-new 2023 Digital Planner). [Join Accelerator and get instant access to everything]( Noteworthy Reading For more on the topic of turning your ideas into action, dive into the articles below! - [Margin For Creativity]( - [Shawn Blanc’s Writing Process: From Idea to Published]( - [Quick Wins for Being Creative and Productive]( - [A Professional’s Approach to the Creativity Flywheel]( - [Chuck Frey’s Simple 5-Step Process to Find Your Big Ideas On Demand]( “To be good at one thing you have to be bad at something else.” — Jon Acuff That's it for this month's Focus Digest. Have a great September! — Isaac Smith Director of Accelerator [Unsubscribe from Focus Digest]([updates](. Or, to unsubscribe from everything, for ever and ever, [here](. Blanc Media, 714 Main St., Grandview, MO 64030, United States