·

It’s about to get strategic around here.

And I have mixed feelings about that? On the one hand, it’s been great wandering from topic to topic, writing to you about whatever bubbles up.

On the other hand, while it’s been fun for me—and you don’t seem to mind— trying to build a business with that kind of aimlessness is a little …adolescent.

Time to grow up.

Because the folks I know with thriving businesses have one thing in common: a big picture they’ve painted with a unifying theme and a well thought out plan.

And thanks to my business Muses—Laurie, Lea, Michele, Nina, Nona, and Reese—I finally have a plan that works. And there ain’t no room (or time) for any more aimless wandering. Focus is the focus.

Which means the Bulb and I are splitting up.

Because, among other things, it’s become hard for me to cerebrally separate the two. And I don’t much like being at real-world gatherings of online people and introducing myself as “Big Bright Bulb”. That’s not me, that’s a website…ya know?

Overall, I imagine it will be good to arrange things so I can take my work here seriously, but not personally.

The Me Side

So to keep up with the Me side, please do hop over to CrysWilliams.com and subscribe to updates. I’ll write about all manner of stuff. There’s no schedule and no plan, I make no promises and take no prisoners :-)

Also, if you follow me on Twitter at @bigbrightbulb you may also want to follow me at @crystalwilliams, because that’s where the chatter will be from now on. The Bulb’s Twitter feed will be more focused, too. Not serious, because I don’t do that, just less banterific.

The BBB Side

And what will be happening here? Welllll…the tagline says “ideas and tools for tiny online businesses” and there are currently, like, 121 posts with ideas and only 12 posts on tools. Way past time to balance that out.

You’ll see.

Recap

BigBrightBulb.com: all work, some play, more ideas, many more tools
CrysWilliams.com: all play, no work, no plan, no prisoners
@bigbrightbulb: more links, more facts, less chitchat
@crystalwilliams: all chitchat, goofiness, and thanks for sharing

As always: I’m glad you’re here.

And I hope to see you over there, too :-)

Just one more _____________.

·

How many times do you say that in a week…or a day…or an hour?

If you’re like me, you say it quite a lot, with all kinds of stuff filling that blank:

I’ll hit the snooze button just one more time.
I’ll send just one more tweet.
I’ll read just one more page.
I’ll knit just one more row.

I can fit just one more to-do on this list.
I can run just one more errand before my appointment.
I should do just one more chore before bed.

Just one more minute.
Just one more time.
Just one more bite.
Just one more try.

Sound familiar?

If not, then: Yay, You! When you get a moment, please bottle up some of that sensible restraint and mail it to me? Send me a PayPal invoice, k? Thanks!

:-)

But if that does sound familiar, then I have a suggestion for adding just one more thing—

Don’t.

Underline that in your mind. And surround it with happy faces.

Because despite its brevity, it’s that important and also the most positive negative I know.

Because when I don’t—Don’t!—add just one more thing to the list, do just one more thing before I go, or add just one more cookie to the plate, the most amazing things happen.

Like—
I’m in bed early enough for a full night’s sleep.
I have time to make and eat a healthy, leisurely breakfast.
I have time to make and eat a healthy, recharging lunch.
I get to savor the satisfaction of finishing everything on my list.
I finish work with time and energy enough to cook for my hardworking hubby.
I arrive on time for appointments…or even early (imagine that!).
I don’t grind my teeth.
I don’t feel rushed.
I have a clearer head.
I have better ideas.
I lose weight.

Amazing.

The less I do, the more I have.

Said another way: The more I Don’t, the more I do.

So.

It feels nutty, you know?

For three-plus years I’ve been suggesting what to do. And here I am suggesting that you Don’t.

But it’s the perfect time for it.

Because we’re almost halfway through the year and it can be really, really tempting to pick up just one more client, squeeze in just one more contract, push through just one more project, or crank out just one more product…all so we can feel even better about our mid-year review.

But how ’bout we Don’t. And feel even better about that, instead.

Oh…Just One More Thing

Heh.

Just kidding.

;-)

My grandmother has a talent. She can make two biscuits.

But her friend, Martha, has a Gift.

She can make one.

***

I don’t mean one pan of biscuits.

I mean: One biscuit.

Folks who bake a whole lot or very little may not appreciate the significance of that, but I marvel over it. Especially because she doesn’t measure the ingredients. Not with utensils anyway.

As I remember it, she chatters away as she weighs out flour in the palm of her hand, then adds a pinch of this and a titch of that and a teensy taste of the other thing. She massages it together right there on the counter, and then folds the dab o’ dough into a single, simple pocket.

And here’s the thing: Martha can make just one biscuit because she spent fifteen years getting up at o-dark-thirty to make one hundred.

Yes way!

She was born on a farm in the Carolinas, if I recall, and was making morning biscuits for fieldfolk before she could reach the counter—they made her a little stool.

And by making half a million biscuits over the years, she can now offhandedly, even elegantly, make one.

And whether she makes one or one hundred or some number in between, each biscuit tastes the same kind of awesome…every time.

The Story In the Story

There are plenty of stories inside a Gift like that…stories about mastery and craft, and how a little Learning and a lot of Doing become a deep, lasting Knowing.

And then there’s the one about Scalability.

Because baking is science—as well as art—and its recipes don’t readily scale. It’s a tiny miracle that Martha can do what she does.

It’s not like making a pot of soup, which can be simmered up or watered down with decent results.

Doubling or halving the ingredients in a baking recipe is hazardous. The chemistry can go wonky, and there’s every chance the goodies won’t rise, won’t cook, or won’t taste quite right.

A recalculated recipe will yield the expected count, but there’s no guarantee of quality results.

Designing products and services is just like that, dontcha know?

Designing for Scale

Methods and objectives will vary, but three things will always be the same. Mostly.

• Time doesn’t scale. Much.
• Labor and materials do. Usually.
• Just because it can scale doesn’t mean it should. Because sometimes making less is worth more.

So.

I spent all winter and half of spring deciding what to offer and helping others do the same, and it always bubbles up: Can we earn more by doing more…or even by doing less.

Maybe the same thing is on your mind?

If it is, then I have a suggestion for that moment when the brainstorming ends and the critical work begins. Before you hunker down to the nitty gritty—

·

·

Think biscuits.

.

I love my new sneakers.

I love them so much I couldn’t wait to put them on this afternoon and go walk somewhere…anywhere. Just so I could wear them.

This is a big deal.

Because it’s really difficult for me to find comfortable shoes. I have a wide toe box, a narrow heel, and no arch. I’d resigned myself to a life of bare feet, flip flops, and UGG boots!

But the gym won’t let me in without sneakers and I threw away all my painful pairs—which was every pair—in a spasm of self-care.

So this weekend I went shopping for a great pair of sneakers.

But not a Perfect pair. Because I don’t do that.

Perfection

It’s nuts to seek perfection and expect to find it. At least, it drove me nuts until I tried something else.

Instead of looking for Perfect, I look for a perfect fit: What suits my purpose, my priorities, and my budget at the moment. Which makes sense because what’s perfect for me now may not be perfect for me a year from now…or even 15 minutes from now.

And that’s the thing about Perfect. With everything forever and always changing, Perfect is a perpetually moving target. I’ve got better things to do than chase down something so ephemeral that even when it’s caught it can’t be kept.

So I shop with purpose but without expectation, both skeptical and hopeful, willing to be surprised and also disappointed.

And by knowing what I want, but not what I’m looking for, I find things I never would have imagined.

Like these great sneakers.

Compromise

The thing about them is I went looking for crosstrainers but came home with running shoes.

I don’t run—and won’t unless chased—but my husband said they’d be just the thing. And, indeed, they fit well, have lots of cushion and support, and are so comfy I forget I have them on.

They’re an unfortunate shade of gray with lavender stripes, but how they look doesn’t affect how they work. Color was an easy compromise when they fit my Purpose, Priorities, and Price.

That said, if they’d been neon pink, I wouldn’t have bought them regardless of the rest. If I hate how they look I’ll hate wearing them despite how well they—literally and figuratively—fit.

Because along with everything else that matters most, there’s Preference. So while I could buy a fine pair of pepto-shoes, they’d stay on a shelf in my closet instead of on my feet in the gym. That, or I’d be self-conscious and unhappy on the treadmill.

And so it is with shopping: I can be walking contentedly through Compromise Country and in the next instant I’m feeling real shitty in Sacrifice City.

So I don’t do that.

Governments collapse, economies dissolve, businesses fold, marriages fail, and souls are lost because people don’t realize when they’re settling for too little or giving up too much.

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to know where compromise ends and sacrifice begins.

Because.

Living a purposeful life requires a lot of shopping.

That is to say, living on purpose requires us to—

• Decide what we want,
• Clarify our priorities,
• Draw lines between what we will and won’t do,
• Honor our preferences, and
• Make choices that align with our intentions.

Or Shop, for short.

So.

We need to Shop for our brilliant business idea.

For the products and services we’ll offer.
And for the customers and clients who’ll buy them.
For the tools that will run our business.
And for the partners and vendors we’ll work with.
And especially for the colleagues and friends that will have our back.

We need to Shop for our car, our clothes, our home, our partner, our friends, and maybe even our faith.

We need to Shop because otherwise we’re just buying, or buying into, the first thing we see.

Or what’s easiest.
Or what’s shiniest.
Or what everyone else is doing.
Or what the cool kids are using.
Or what costs the least. Or costs the most.

And that would mean we’re trusting in impulse, fate, luck, and other people to define our lives.

And we don’t do that.

Right?
.

My husband loves video games.

He used to manage an arcade, in fact, so beeps and bangs are music to his ears and some virtual worlds are as interesting as the real one.

So when he said, “Hey, Babe! Some guy’s gone rogue in Call of Duty!”, I listened carefully for the lesson.

And by golly, it was there.

The Rogue’s Call

In case you don’t have a teenage boy or a geek husband, Call of Duty is this immersive war game where you play a soldier who’s dropped into hostile territory. There’s an endless stream of gunfire while players form teams, defend their positions, protect each other, and kill the enemy.

You know…Man Stuff.

And like many modern video games, Call of Duty can be played online so you’re competing with and against real people rather than digital folks your computer concocts.

So the gameplay is very human, with split-second decisions, unfortunate missteps, unexpected successes, and lots and lots of bullets. As with any battle, it’s very team-oriented…very Us versus Them. I mean, it’s a war. And no one goes into battle by himself.

Except this one guy.

He hops from game to game without a team and, notably, without a gun.

All he uses is one knife and, apparently, he has just one goal: Kill everybody.

And because he wields so little, he moves faster than other players. Instead of trooping across the battlefield, he sweeps through shadows. Rather than confront opponents face-to-face, he sneaks up behind them.

He doesn’t play the Us versus Them game that everyone else is playing. For him, the game is Me versus All Y’all.

And he kills everybody. Everybody.

He has a record-breaking, or at least a record-nudging, number of kills.

And other players are very, very pissed at him.

Why They’re Angry

They’re angry because their tried-and true strategies can’t save them when he’s in the game.

They’re angry because they’ve spent hours of game time earning a massive gun collection.

They’ve studied the advantages and limitations of each weapon.

They’ve crafted technique to carefully take aim for the perfect killshot.

They’ve assembled the optimal team.

But this guy has no thoughtfully curated collection. No interest in weaponry. No patiently honed craft. No concept of teamwork.

And he beats them every friggin’ time.

He’s not beating them because he has the best collection of weapons. He has one knife.

He’s not winning because he has the most firepower. He has one knife.

And he doesn’t play with a top team. He’s all by himself.

He doesn’t win because he’s tougher, stronger, bigger, badder.
He wins because he’s relentless, agile, swift, and wily.

As you’d guess, he ain’t popular. But he is much admired. And also much despised.

Because when the game is over, he’s consistently at the top of the scoreboard.

Winning the Rogue’s Way

We can appreciate the other players’ frustration, right? He’s not the better player. They’re not losing through inferior play.

They’re losing because everyone moves within the same virtual environment, but he’s playing an entirely different game.

And yet it is very much the same game. He has access to the same weapons, is bound by the same rules, and has the same risks—when he isn’t stealthy or quick enough, he ends up just as dead as anyone else—and he has the same primary objective as everyone else: Survive.

What’s different is what he’s willing to do to win—

• By working alone, there’s no energy spent protecting others, he can focus on himself,
• By carrying a light weapon, he can move so quickly it’s easier to both defend and attack,
• By not committing to a single game, he can hop around and collect more kills in an hour than others collect all evening, and
• By not taking the game too seriously, or caring what others think of him, he’s free of all expectations.

He almost always wins. He leaves other players in tears. And he’s damned unapologetic about it.

Other players see how successful he is, but there don’t appear to be any copycats. They hate/love/envy his success, but don’t want to play like him to achieve it. They’d rather savor their craft, exchange gunfire, and enjoy the camaraderie.

They want to play the game, while he wants to win it.

So.

If you think any of this article was about a video game, scroll to the top and read it again ;-)

And.

We’re in business, right? We share a battlefield, have access to the same weapons, and the FTC makes the rules. That said—

What game are you playing? Are you sure?

Who, or what, is on your side? Who, or what, is the enemy?

Are you playing to play, or playing to win?

And are you striving for a bigger gun, more ammo, and perfect aim
when what you really need is to
travel light and fight fast with a sharper knife?

.

Funny thing.

My job’s always been to look out for the outlier, tag the typo, discern the difference, and find the flaw.

To sift for clues, kill the clutter, focus the lens, get to the point, and make things clear(er).

Essentially: I criticize. For a living.

And yet my spiritual path curves toward comprehensive compassion.

Acknowledging everyone’s differences comes easy. Accepting all their differences…? Not so much.

And it is so evident in my Twitterfeed now.

I went on a social media sabbatical so I could get (and keep) a clear head for my work. I came back because I realized Twitter wasn’t the problem, but the group I followed was. And so was its cacophony.

So.

I unfollowed the 100% self-promoters, the ones who know how everyone else should work and live, those who talk nasty politics, and the folks who get on my last damned nerve but I felt obligated to listen to.

I unfollowed people who’re retweeted so thoroughly that I never need to hear them firsthand, friends of friends I followed out of courtesy, A-listers I only followed because they’re A-listers (don’t judge), and people I simply don’t like anymore.

And I even unfollowed people I like quite a bit who were simply…discordant.

I’ve fine-tuned my feed, and now it’s a place of respite instead somewhere I need to avoid.

Not that everyone I follow is the same. Or even similar. And it ain’t all rainbows and roses in there. There are people who are unruly, some who are downright unkind, and a few I wouldn’t want to meet in person. Ever.

And yet when stirred in with everyone else there’s a harmony that’s just right: Challenge without aggression, wisdom without condescension, snark without being sinister. Brave, bodacious, and brazen but not bitchy.

Everything I wanna be. And much that I am not.

It’s just right for me. At least it’s right for right now.

Because who wants to hear the same tune over and over again? Who wants to write a one-hit wonder?

So if you find that I’m not following you, you can take it personally, but don’t take offense.

It’s not you, it’s me…

…trying to get through this next bit of work and life by—and while—singing to the right song.

And.

Come to think of it—

Who are you listening to these days?

And what song do they have you singing?

.

In Part 1 we talked about keeping an idea private until it’s ready to share.

In Part 2 we listed three ways to protect an idea from overexposure, i.e., keep it a secret from competitors while it’s a work-in-progress.

In this last bit we’ll talk about ideas being copied after they’re out in the world, how it can be a very good thing, indeed, and why copycats deserve pity instead of ire.

How to guarddog your ideas from underexposure

PSA: Great ideas get copied

Trust me, it’s no picnic to see your work mimicked and marketed by someone else. It’s bad enough when they have a wider reach than you. It’s worse when they start getting undeserved credit for the idea.

An awkward situation. And unpleasant. Really.

And best that I can tell, there’s no use in making a public campaign about it being your idea. There’s zero benefit in being cast as the victim or the victor or the petty whining douche.

Instead, we’re better off expecting our ideas to be copied. In fact, let’s make it a goal, eh?

Think about it: It could be quite effective to have attributed copies of your idea all over the Internet. Imagine “Inspired by <your name>”, “Hat tip to <your name>” and “Special thanks to <your name>” with links back to your site.

Nice, right?

So while frustrating and heartbreaking, imitation is not only flattery, it can also serve as free marketing and build your authority.

But those last bits only work when everyone knows the great idea originally came from you. So…

Market it like you stole it

Have you seen the bumper sticker “Drive it like you stole it”? Well this is the business version. Because if your idea is any good, it won’t be long before someone else claims it for their own.

So a soft launch is fine, but a shy one is not.

If you want to be acknowledged as Ground Zero for your idea, you’ll need to spread the word before it’s snapped up by bigger fish. For example —

• Post your product prominently on your website
• Send an email or two…or twenty…or two hundred
• Publish articles about your product and its idea
• Get interviewed about your product and its idea
• Mention your product on social media. Often.
• Tell friends and family (even if they just don’t get it)

Someone who copies your idea is gonna make a big fat hairy deal out of it, so you may as well get all big and fat and hairy yourself.**

Copycat Karma

It’s as simple as this: Anyone who copies an idea is hurting themselves more than they’re hurting you.

For one thing, websites like You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice and Flickr’s Design Theft Pool are cringe-inducing collections of repurposed, repackaged, regurgitated, or just plain plagiarized designs.

I expect it’s really, really embarrassing to find yourself busted for copying someone else’s work.

Another thing: Your great idea was likely selected from dozens or hundreds or thousands of other shiny bits that are rolling around in your head.

But a copycat either doesn’t have any decent ideas, or doesn’t believe they do…that’s why they copy. Sucks to be them, eh?

Especially when copying other people’s ideas reinforces that sucky feeling of not having good ideas of their own.

While you, by comparison, have so many ideas you’ve started sprinkling them on your breakfast yogurt just because you like their crunch.

So.

Having your product copied and sold by others is crappy, but it can work to your benefit when you’re seen as the origin of the idea.

And copycats may win the sprint, but in the grand scheme of things I’d rather be someone who can see their idea copied, get really (really) mad, get another idea, and then get back to work.

That said: I’d better get back to it.

All the best,

** Hate self-promotion? Me too.

So here’s another thing that a wise woman helped me see:

We do an idea, and ourselves, a disservice when we put our whole heart into its manifestation and then half-ass its marketing and promotion.

So when you release your product, toot your own horn…and do it loud and proud!

Or.

Keep your product tucked away until you’re ready to shout about it. If something just like it is released in the meantime, c’est la vie. But don’t give the idea away by abandoning the product on your website for someone to find and dupe. Let them think it up themselves, yeh?
.

In Part 1, we looked at using technology to protect our ideas from prying eyes and our own impatience: Secure channels and simple storage are ideal for working on ideas in private.

But at some point our great idea needs to get out and meet our advisors, our work team, and then the world.

Based on my recent experience, from the moment our idea first leaves our lips until the moment it’s launched, we need to protect it from exposure—first overexposure and then underexposure.

How to guarddog your ideas from overexposure

You really don’t wanna be working on an idea and witness that exact same idea being launched with great fanfare and success by someone else. Especially when it’s someone you know.

You really don’t.

So your idea needs free rein among the people working with you, yet protection from competitors who’ll work it without you. Here are a few uncommon common sense ways—

Get a signed NDA

Like any legally binding document, a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) is more about clarifying expectations than suing someone’s pants off. I mean, it’s just a piece of paper. And if you use a clever online service like OurNDA.com, then it’s not even that.

And yet it’s a critical step when bringing in people to work on your ideas, whether they’re giving advice, making it happen, or creating marketing materials.

When an NDA touches the table or reaches an Inbox, it’s clear that the casual chat is over, that you’re sharing an idea that means business, that loose lips do indeed sink ships, and yeah, okay…if they run their mouth and bust your show then you’ll likely sue their pants off.

But an NDA is icing. Enforcing contracts is expensive, time-consuming, and expensive. Did I mention it’s expensive? It’s also irritating.

To keep things cheap and easy, you should first….

Be (very) careful who you tell

The kindest, most well-meaning friend can spill the beans and jack you up.

For example: I recently shared a personal concern with a trusted friend in confidence…who then shared it with one of their trusted friends as a helpful anecdote.

Based on the chain of events that followed, it appears my apparently-juicy-very-personal-but-clearly-not-private story passed through at least two more trusted friends before it found its way back to me at the end of the day.

Seeing how gossip has legs of its own, remember that ideas can be just as juicy and they can also make money…and things grow wings when there’s money involved.

So be very, very careful who you tell your business to. Between Twitter, Facebook, email, and chat, the Internet is a surprisingly small place.

All to say: You may be your worst security breach. I was.

So my suggestion, offered with much love and endearment and smothered in smiley faces, is to…

STFU

I tried to make it pretty, but there it is. Abrasive, offensive, and all.

Even if you’re absolutely bursting to talk about your idea, say nothing until you’ve considered both who you’re saying it to and where you are. I do. At least, I do now.

I no longer talk about business ideas in public, which includes grocery lines, coffee shops, and restaurants. Anywhere folks are contained, idle, and stationary is a really, really bad place to discuss ideas.

That said, they can be fabulous places to gather them. Try it sometime —

Step 1: Find a busy, popular food court or restaurant near any business center.
Step 2: Sit. Eat. Listen. Take notes.

Every Panera I’ve ever eaten in has loudmouths with good ideas. I die a little inside when I think of the many meetings I’ve held there in the past?

But it’s nothing new. Just yesterday I overheard a similar story from someone who worked at NSA back in the 60s and 70s. Apparently, operatives perched themselves in local restaurants at lunchtime and reported back on the conversations of adjoining tables.

As I heard it, you could always tell who was spying because they were the only ones who weren’t drinking.

Good times.

So.

Any idea worth implementing needs to be shared, and any idea worth sharing needs to be protected. Get a signed NDA.

And not everyone you trust can be trusted.

And like my grandmother told my mother, who then told me, and now I’m telling you—

Don’t be in the street saying something out your mouth that you wouldn’t want me to read in the [Washington] Post the next day.
Because I might.

.

Next time: How to protect your ideas from underexposure

.

I carry around a lot of ideas.

They roll around in my head like ball bearings made of Jello, bouncing off each other, merging together, and splitting apart. They are always in motion, either ambling or whizzing by…and it sometimes takes a glass of wine (or two) to get them to rest.

So while I do my day-to-day, they simply roll around and roll around and roll around in my head, taking good care of themselves.

Until one rolls out.

And then I’m the one taking care.

Grrrr..rrr..rr..rrrr!

Most ideas that find their way out get tossed back in. They’re all worth keeping, but not all worth acting on. Either it’s not the right time or it’s not the right place or I’m not the right person…or all three.

So when the rare Idea Worth Acting On pops out, it’s worth protecting, yeh?

Now, I don’t mean Rapunzel-level protection. A hidden idea is an unhappy idea. A happy idea is worked on and played with and wondered over. It has to be seen. It has to be shared.

So the intention is to balance mobility and safety, like when we cross the street: We look left-right-left to make sure it’s clear before we step out into traffic, otherwise that next step might be our last one.

Guarddogging ideas is as simple and sensible as that. Most of the work happens in the background, it just takes a little prep and sometimes a little cash. Here’s how I do it—

How to Guarddog Ideas from Prying Eyes

Private WiFi

Your home network is probably secured, but the public WiFi at your favorite coffee shop or local library is surely not.

I resolved that issue with a MiFi mobile hotspot from Virgin Mobile, which is way portable, way private, and connects anywhere I can get a cell signal. Now I can work almost anywhere—not just places with free WiFi—knowing all my webwork is secured.

Bummer: $50/month. Bonus: It’s pay-as-you-go, so no long-term contract to maintain.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

SSL is a security technology that keeps your information private while it’s in transit, even when you’re on a public network. If you do online banking, use Gmail, or buy things online, you’re already using SSL.

When you see a web address that starts with HTTPS and a lock icon on your browser, SSL is doing its job. These are signs that whatever you type will be invisible to digital passersby after you click the Pay, Send, or Buy button. Anything sent through a website not using SSL could be read by anyone watching. Yikes.

That’s why I require SSL in any web application I use for storing, working on, or sharing my ideas…even if I have to pay for it. For example, Gmail and Basecamp include SSL security for free, but Toodledo and MindMeister require a premium account for protection.

How to Guarddog Ideas from Impatience

An idea requires action, but I’m not a big fan of urgency. Seth Godin says: “Hurry, but don’t rush.” I say: If an idea is worth doing, then it’s worth waiting for, even if it takes a month or a season or a year. Or two.

I used to get an idea and rush headlong into a project, investing weeks of time and energy before I’d tested the market, considered the obstacles, or even thought it all the way through. Invariably, those Ideas With Urgency either had false starts, fell  flat, or made little or no money.

Now I have folders in my Inbox for each Idea Worth Doing, so I can take immediate action with minimum investment. It’s super-simple: I create a folder in my Inbox that starts with “Ideas:”, add the idea name, and then fill it with the goodness that appears in my Inbox.

Email newsletters, articles from blogs I’ve subscribed to, notes from friends…if it’s related to an idea, it has a safe place to go as it arrives. I even email project notes to myself, especially when I’m away from my laptop. My phone is always handy for emailing on-the-go thoughts and photos from the real-world.

As you can imagine, ideas bloom or wither in their folders. If an Ideas folder is still sparse after a month or six, I delete it and forget about it. But if it’s bulging to burst, I roll up my sleeves and get my butt in gear.

So.

Those are some ways to protect your idea when it’s moving around the Interwebs and quietly gathering its momentum. In Part 2 I’ll point out ways to protect it from yourself and the other people you know pretty well.

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I want an iPad. Badly.

But as super-freaking-cool as it is, I can’t justify the expense — and oh, how I have tried — so it remains an I Wanna and not an I Gotta.

There was a time when I would have pulled out my credit card and paid for it with interest, month by month.

But…

…this is not that time. Stealing from my future is a habit I’ve, thankfully, broken.

This is the time I decided to (gasp) save up for what I wanted, and I bypassed the techno-ease of automatic transfers for the manual old school method: a piggy bank. With a sticker on it.

Yes, I’m 12 years old again. And it’s great to have something fun to look forward to, day by day.

Funny thing…

I started out by saving stray bills…a buck here, a fiver there. And after a month I pulled out the cashwad to see how close I was. The grand total?

Not close. At all.

So I picked a date in the near future (my birthday) and how much I still needed (a lot) and then poked at my calculator to find: I needed to stick $57 in the pig every week to get what I wanted, when I wanted it.

And so I do. Week by week.

And I’m re-learning what I’ve been taught a zillion times before:

Anything worth having is worth waiting for.

Not done by the end of the day.

Not finished by tomorrow.

Not get-it-now-interest-free-for-90-days.

Wait and work. Work and wait.

An unpopular, yet true, view…and there’s proof everywhere that the results are worth it—

…

I watched Think Vitamin video tutorials every evening last week to refresh my CSS skills. I learned a heckuvalot in just a few hours because they worked a heckuvalot over most of a year. They built their mighty (and mighty helpful) learning library video by video.

Working on the Blog More, Stress Less sales page snapped me back into blogging mode. As I edited and tweaked, I remembered Laurie nudging our class to approach blogging as the execution of a craft…not a pasttime or an indulgence. Or a reflex. Or an obligation. But as thoughtful, care-full writing that respects our readers and earns their trust, post by post.

And as I prowl through 5 years of Before & After back issues for color palettes, techniques, and sparkles of ideas, I see their reputation for practical, notable DIY designs was built the hard way—page by page.

So.

Yeah, I’ve learned the lesson. But I didn’t live it until I began paying the pig.

And ya know what? It’s not about having a flawless plan, doing it with unwavering regularity, or even enjoying it all the time. But it is about taking the time to think through a plan, and then having the energy to follow it through to the end.

It’s also about the Wait between the Work, which is a fine time to totally change our minds or make a tiny change in direction, to recenter ourselves or just reevaluate our position.

Heck…it’s worth a Wait to see if we want something today as badly as we did three months ago. Or to give time for something better to come along—like the iPad 2, huzzah!

And ya know what else?

Sometimes it’s about mastering impatience and seeing it for what it truly is: lackmindedness masquerading as urgency, feeding the fear that if we don’t get what we want right now it will escape us forever, that an opportunity is being lost that will never come again, and that we’ll nevereverever have what we want most. Not ever.

And yeah, sure…sometimes it’s about working hard and fast to stay ahead of the game, our fear, and maybe the bills. It’s definitely about that, sometimes.

But sometimes it’s about earning what we want day by day. Week by week. Video by video. Post by post. Page by page.

Sometimes, it’s about taking the long view…and the slow satisfaction of paying the pig.

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