Tyed Art Tips: Edition 1

The other day, I was asked by a friend of mine, how I was able to stay motivated and organized with all the different ideas I have on a regular basis. The mere fact that I actually came across to someone as being motivated and organized in the first place made me feel pretty successful in an of itself. I don’t always feel that way. What I do always feel, however, is busy.

The truth is, I really do have quite a lot of ideas, and they come at me all the time. Sometimes they come when I’m looking for them, but more often when I’m concentrating on something else entirely. In order to keep all these ideas from slipping away and lying idol along the dusty walls of the back of my mind, I’ve learned how to bottle, catalog, and shelf them for later use. You might think of them as “pickled epiphanies.”

My first Tyed Art Tip is to keep a RUNNING LOG OF IDEAS. You can call this log anything you want, but the concept is universal. I call my running log of ideas, my BrainVomit book. I call it that for semi-obvious reasons. More often then not, my ideas come in a very random order and often at very inopportune times – kind of like when you get sick and launch your lunch – it’s not exactly planned or convenient. The difference between the regurgitation of food and that of the mind, however, is that I love it when my brain vomits ideas. It happens often enough these days, that I’ve learned how to always be ready for it. I learned a long time ago to trust my unconscious mind. I've also learned that my mind never shuts down. Whether my conscious mind is occupied with something challenging & intense, or peacefully sleeping, my unconscious mind is constantly brewing up something valuable. This is why catching these ideas when they chose to manifest themselves is so important. I never know when they’ll come, but I always know they’ll fascinate me, and I never want to forget them.

When I’m near a computer, I have a digital version of my BrainVomit book that consists of nothing more than a single Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that is 100% dedicated to these random thoughts, ideas, and epiphanies. The file is made up of many different tabs. Each tab represents a new idea, and within each tab, the idea is expressed and explored. When I write in here, I rarely concern myself with things like plausibility, grammar, or spelling. This is free-flowing environment where anything goes. Many ideas go undeveloped and even half-written. The point is to record something and bookmark the concept for later visitation. That's it. I keep all my ideas in one file so that I can keep track of them all. When I’m not close to a computer, I have a notebook version of BrainVomit that I carry with me wherever I go. Things written here eventually get transcribed to the computer version for simplicity.

My second tip is to create a LUNCHTIME POWER-HOUR for yourself. My “day job” (Booooooo)required its employees to take a mandatory hour-long lunch break from 12:00pm to 1:00pm every day. I’ve never like mandatory breaks. I’m the kind of person that would actually prefer to just work through lunch. Yes, I eat, but because of the type of work that I do in my “day job,” I can do that while I’m working at my desk.

Interestingly, over the years I’ve observed that most people spend this mandatory hour of “non-working” time actually NOT working. Meaning, that in this lunch hour, many of my colleagues play games on the internet, read magazines, socialize, and “go out” for lunch. I find this very interesting because of its contrast to my way of thinking. Let me explain. Just because I’m required to NOT work on “day job” tasks, does not mean that this hour should be spent lazily.

I decided years ago that, for me, this lunch hour could be much better spent eagerly investing in myself. This investment of time could be better spent developing my ideas, furthering my education, pursuing my interests and exploring my hobbies. Here’s the way I think about it;

With every work week, this single hour represents a total of 5 hours, right? I can easily spend 5 hours creating a Tyed Art Word Design that sells for about $300. Each pay period, this hour adds up to 10 hours, or the equivalent of 2 word designs. That’s roughly $600 of value. Every month, this time can accumulate to 20 hours, or about $1,200 worth of product work. In a nutshell, by the end of just one working year this otherwise wasted lunch hour has amassed to about 250 potentially productive hours (give or take holidays and days off)!! That’s the equivalent of nearly 10 full days of project productivity, or about $15,000 of potential Tyed Art income!! Power Hour indeed!

Now, of course I’m not always going to have a Word Design order to work on, but because I’ve got my BrainVomit Excel file, I’ve ALWAYS got something productive that I can work on. It could be a new book idea, developing an idea for an invention, a software product like LittleLDS, website improvements or marketing, or perhaps just simple business system ideas and organization. The best part of the lunchtime Power-Hour is that it is totally MINE! Just think….I’m “trapped” at work, with a computer and the internet at my uninterrupted disposal. I may as well use it to work on strategies to get me out of the proverbial “rat race.”

Simply put, when planned and spent properly, this one hour of each day could be the most important hour of my day. Call it overstatement, but it could even end up being worth more to me in the long run than the other 8 hours surrounding it, for which I actually get an hourly pay!

Try it…see if you don’t even “eventually” accomplish one of those long-term tasks!! Read book for that hour. Write in a journal. Do SOMETHING beside playing internet games and chatting! You’ll be glad you did.