So, here I am. I guess I have to own up to not completely following through on an inspiring idea. Remember when I announced to take part in Andrew Wicklanders 30 Day First Follower project? Well, I only got as far as reviewing Andrew Dubbers second idea before being drawn into a whirlwind of activities for De Ondernemers and New Music Labs. Alas, priorities took over…
I just emailed Andrew Wicklander a sort of apology for falling of the grid, and thought I would share my thoughts here as well. Because it helped me (again) in getting more insight in how my minds works. Perhaps you might find these ‘revelations’ interesting:
- 30 Ideas is a lot. Especially if they’re pretty decent or even very good ideas. Just processing them, considering their impact, appeal etc. was more time- and attention consuming than I thought.
- The end result: I did not even get round to considering all ideas, so I would not know if there is one that truly excites me 🙁
- There is only so much I can do to help. I will not commit to learning how to code, for instance, like Andrew Wicklander did when he selected the idea of the Numberless Calendar to execute. (well done!, Real impressive decision, perhaps even more important than the First Follower idea), but just blogging or whipping out a WordPress-site only goes so far… This made me hesitant in responding as well.
- I was a lot more busy with projects for my companies than I expected, which is extremely good news (since my priority is making those companies work), but also reduced my involvement in the project.
So, the initial enthusiasm not withstanding, I failed in this project. As in: I did not contribute to the actual realization of the selected idea. I kind of set the rules for that myself, when I worte:
- First off: I feel lucky to spend most of my time on stuff that I already am excited about doing. So it really needs to tickle me in certain places first to get me going at all;
- Secondly: I need to feel I can contribute. So it needs to match one or more of my capabilites I feel good about.
- Third: I need to believe in the idea enough to set aside a sufficiently big piece of my mind and time to execute
This experience has added to this initial set of checks. It has added the notion that:
- Being excited and inspired only gets you started;
- Unless you really get ‘hooked’ on an idea, it will just hover in your neighborhood;
- To commit to an idea, you need to invest. Best way: utilize the idea to learn yourself a new trick, like programming.
