Honor your creativity, don't drown in it

I can say from experience what it is like to be an entrepreneurially minded person: I'm in one of those moments now -- they happen every few weeks; at times every few days: I look around and realize I'm excited to be pursuing about ten ideas when all I can handle is one, at most three. I surf from one exciting possiblity to the next idea that is too fascinating and too good to put down.

Before I know it I am lost in a cloud of more and more ideas, moving and an ever faster pace, swirling around with no center. I am stuck.

Entrepreneurs, a wise person once told me, can either move mountains or burn out in despair. I do have a technique for getting out of this, if I remember to use it. You can use it too.

Buy a notebook and label it "good ideas." Use it as a place to note ideas as they come along: honor them. Write a few lines so you are sure you remember what's there. And then take the ones that have traction and leave the rest behind. You will not have lost them. They'll be there in a year or five when their time has come.