Move Your Ideas from Mediocre to Magnetic

“Measuring busy-ness is far easier than measuring business.”

In late 2010, Seth Godin posted a blog (Measuring Busy-ness) which stimulated an idea for me that might well prove to be the single smartest thing I do for my business this year.

VIID – Vision, Innovation, and Implementation Day. One day per month where there is no email, no phone, no Facebook, no distractions.  Just me, my Big Ideas, and a whole day to unearth the heart of why my ideas matter, who they matter to, and how I’m going bring them to life and connect them with the people who are eagerly  waiting to hear about them (even if they don’t yet know it).

Multitasking Yourself to Mediocrity

It’s not news: the best and brightest among us are hemorrhaging focused attention and multitasking ourselves to mediocrity in the process.  In the words of B. Alan Wallace in his book, The Attention Revolution:

“Might ‘genius’ be a potential we all share – each of us with our own unique capacity for creativity, requiring only the power of sustained attention to unlock it?”

Genius… you?!?  YES!  …Me too!

But, first you have to ditch the excuses that you can’t create the time for focused attention, and then you have to create a system of support so you will create the time for focused attention… again, and again, and again.

Five Steps to Move Your Ideas from Mediocre to Magnetic

A mediocre idea is…

• One that everyone else in the industry is also doing, and think it looks different because they’ve slapped their own logo on it.
• One that has the potential for genius, but experiences lack-luster implementation and impact because it never benefited from the focused time to get it fully developed.
• One that highlights your products and not your unique intellectual capital, giving your clients and prospective clients one more reason to view your services as a commodity,  rather than seeing your support and advising are indispensable.

Enter: VIID.

Step 1: Pick a consistent day and block it on your calendar for the rest of the year. I picked the last Friday of every month and I’ve already blocked my entire 2011 with the sacred VIID.

Step 2: Write an auto responder for your email. You’ll eliminate one more excuse not to follow-through if you have this pre-written and use the same one every time.  To keep you accountable to yourself, and make it super easy, ask your support staff to set a recurring reminder for him/herself to post the auto-responder the day before your VIID, and to not take it down until at least the end of business on your blocked day.  Here’s mine (feel free to swipe it and use it for yours):

Step 3: Record an Out of Office greeting on your phone. Set a recurring reminder in your task list that pops up at the end of the day prior to your VIID.  Before you close down shop for the day, record your out of office greeting and don’t even look at your phone again until VIID is complete.

Bonus Idea:  Be Willing to Be a Courageous! You may be tempted to be less-than-transparent on your email and phone messages (you know, to say something like “I’ll be in meetings all day” or “I’ll be at an off-site training all day”)… challenge yourself to question whether that’s really necessary.  In some organizational cultures, it may feel like the safe thing to do… but you are an industry thought leader.  What would happen if you owned the innovative way you do business?  What if it was actually your brand and you were more magnetically attractive because of the authentic way in which you exhibit it?

Step 4:  Track your ideas throughout the month. We all get flashes of insight and glimpses of genius at the most random times.  When you have one, capture the idea and put it in an “idea file” or list to be explored with focused attention during your VIID.  I’ve created a VIID “idea folder” in Omnifocus (the uber-slick task manager made specifically for Mac) where I capture my ideas.  You can create similar system in Outlook or other task management software.

Step 5: Prepare yourself. The night before your VIID pick the one or two ideas from your VIID file/list on which you will dedicate your focused attention.  Determine what you want to accomplish with the idea(s) you’ve picked.  Are you:

• Conducting a competitive analysis?
• Creating a high-end offer for your best clients?
• Designing a launch plan for a new, innovative program to engage with clients?
• Conducting a feasibility study on an idea?

Be clear with yourself: what do you want to have tangibly accomplished and when are you going to “ship” your idea? Don’t give your gremlin mind any reason to heckle that your VIID was anything less than the greatest investment you’re making in your business this year.

I’m willing to be that it will be.



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