The "Good Idea" Paradox

Although I’ve always known it as common sense, I’ve only recently admitted to myself conscientiously that a “great idea” isn’t always a “good idea.” Allow me to clarify…

For a very long time now, I’ve been morphing increasingly into, what my many of my friends call an “idea man.” I love ideas. I love the excitement they conjure up inside me. I love the energy, innovation, creativity, and development of new ideas. Not only do I love coming up with my own ideas, but I love helping other people develop their ideas too. Intrinsically speaking, of course, I recognize this as a good thing. I mean, who doesn’t want to have good ideas, right? Practically speaking, however, it’s a very inconvenient thing for me. The very prospect of a new idea can derail me from whatever I’m currently working on faster than a pebble can derail a whole train from a set of steel tracks. It doesn’t seem to matter what I’m doing… If a new idea occurs to me internally or is introduced to me externally, the result is the same… DROP EVERYTHING! It’s my natural instinct.

I noticed the beginnings of this phenomenon about 10 years ago. At first, I had some good ideas, and they were manageable as that... just a few individual projects. However, before they were fully explored or developed, more ideas would accumulate. It seemed the muses started gathering in masses and forming lines at my side, each with their own project ideas. Invention ideas, sketch concepts, business ideas, books I could write, ways I could organize the way I did things, ways to be more effective and efficient… Before long, it felt like the muses were actually competing with each other and yelling over the top of one another to be heard rather than quietly and subtly whispering into my ear. Soon, it felt like I was a super-charged idea magnet sucking in every idea that hung floating in the air around me like iron filings.

Okay… sure, I’m being a little dramatic here. It’s not like I’m the John Travolta character from the movie “Phenomenon” or anything, but still… I have had a LOT of ideas over the years.

A few years ago, I started to capture and “pickle” my ideas for later development using a technique that I've coined “BrainVomiting.” It’s really just free-flowing your thoughts into written (or typed) documentation for later sorting and processing. This blog, for instance, is a form of this process, but back then my BrainVomit consisted mostly of a large note book that I used to tote around to record all my ideas, their dates of conception, and a brief (or sometimes lengthy) description of each as they came. The physical book, over time, became a bit cumbersome to heft around everywhere, so I eventually converted my process into a digital method. I created a single Excel file on a flash drive which I now carry with me everywhere I go. This one file is made up of many, MANY tabs. Each tab represents ONE concept or idea. Some are very well developed, while others are simply meant to be book markers to just get the idea documented so as to not be forgotten.

Some of my own ideas have been fleshed out, by not many. Some have made it through the spreadsheet exploration phase, past the drawing board, and even on to production and publication. Ideas of mine with actual real-world development and/or recognition are rare and highly valuable to me. And herein lies my problem.

I rarely get past the BrainVomit part of any idea before another one comes bursting into my brain like a ticked-off S.W.A.T. team! Next thing I know, I’ve completely shelved a perfectly good adolescent idea for another infantile one. There’s little growth.

The other day, my wife approached me with an idea she had heard about on the news. Of course, she knows me well enough to know that I can’t just hear an idea without exploring it, if even just a little. Without going into detail about the idea itself, it's sufficient to say that it had a lot of merit. It wasn’t her idea, and it certainly wasn’t a new one in and of itself, but it was a good solid idea. In fact, it was such a good idea that I, fell right into my typical pavlovian response of promptly dropping every other project I had been working on like lead weights and took it with me to one of my next Fulcrum Group meeting. I was sure that this new exciting idea would get some attention and traction there. I told my friend about it and he lit right up just as expected.

"It's a no-brainer! LET’S do it!!"

Newly refuled with the familiar and intoxicating excitement and zeal that I always feel at the prospect of a new GREAT IDEA, I started to develop it in a new tab in my digital BrainVomit file. However, something different happened this time. The more I worked on developing it, the more I started to rethink it the whole thing. Not the potential of the idea itself – no question there... it’s still a GREAT idea – no, I started to rethink my idea-flowing method. All of a sudden it hit me, as though I hadn’t ever considered it before (although I must have done at some point before) that jumping to a brand new idea now might not be…ironically… a good idea. Not the BEST idea anyway.

I ended up talking to my Fulcrum Group friend about my concerns, and it turned out that he was feeling exactly the same way about this new project, and had anticipated bringing it to my attention. I was really glad that he, in fact, felt the same way. We mutually agreed that, despite the legitimately GREAT opportunity this particular idea had presented us with, it was ultimately not wise to pursue. I’ll be honest… It was unsettling to do this. I wasn’t used to intentionally deciding NOT to chase another great idea.

What I’ve learned; it isn’t always a good idea to chase a GREAT one.