Often my clients call me their rock.  They are like beautiful balloons, flitting in the air with one brilliant creative idea after another.  I serve to help them ground their ideas into a lucrative step-by-step plan – a plan that supports them to make money, while still pursuing their creative ideas (one at a time).

Many of you struggle because you have too many ideas and you don’t know which ones to institute first, second, third.  And you often start one project, only to get distracted.  Then you start a second project, and a third.

You may suffer from a combination of ‘bright shiny object syndrome’ – catching anything that looks pretty (and profitable) and ‘get bored when it gets hard syndrome’ – you stop going when something becomes challenging or hard to understand.

As a result you may get close to your goals, but you rarely reach or surpass them. And you find yourself always super busy, but not quite having the results that show your hard work (in client numbers and/or income).

Others of you surpass your goals, but you are swamped with tons of work and very little life.  You are buried under your projects.

Here are some steps to help you ground all those ideas into a solid plan to have you work less and gain more:

1.  Sort Ideas Into Lists.  Write all your ideas down.  Capture them. Love them. And then sort them.  Sort them into three groups.  Keep these as running lists that you add to all the time.

* NOW: Focus on in the next 30 days,

* SOON: Do in the next six months

* LATER: Do Later

2.  No More Then Three Ideas/Projects in the Now Category.   You can only really work on between one and three projects at a time.  I swing more towards one or two projects at a time.   For example, if you are trying to fill a group program, you can’t re-paint your house, find a new school for your little one and write a book on the side.  I know it is tempting.   But, the truth is that you need all of your focus and energy to fill that program.  It isn’t going to be easy, but once you’ve filled it, you can use that revenue to get someone else to paint your house 🙂 .

3.  Plan. Plan. Plan.  I know I preach about it often, but planning is the key to success.   For every big project you have, it will most likely take 8-10 weeks to execute it well (and sometimes longer).   Create a plan that shows the step-by-step actions, numbers and delivery due dates. The more you focus on just implementing and executing one step at a time – the more you’ll be able to push away those other ideas during that 8-10 week ramp up period.

4.  Remember the Bread, Butter and Jelly.  Realize that you aren’t breaking up with the ideas that are on the six-month or the later list.  You are just executing them later after you have successfully finished the first group.

I like to use the Bread, butter and jelly story to explain this.  Most entrepreneurs build their bread and butter businesses first – the ones that will make a solid amount of money consistently over the long term.  Then they create their jelly business, the one that is sweet and fun and may not be that lucrative.  The bread and butter sets the foundation for the jelly.  Now keep in mind, the bread and butter is still yummy, rich and satisfying.  It just may not be as sweet as the jelly.

So if you are deciding on which projects/ideas to implement first, pick your bread and butter.  It will set the foundation for your jelly.

Let your beautiful ideas fly.  Just list them.  Sort them.  Plan around them.  And pick the ones that are bread and butter (unless of course you are already on to the jelly).

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think about your ideas, balloons, bread, butter, jelly or anything else that suits your fancy…