Why Write Down Your Ideas?



Learn Management Articles on management-info.biz. Why Write Down Your Ideas? article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

Whether you're a manager, professional, or entrepreneur you need to think ahead. When you do it in a formal sense, it's called it planning, when you do it informally it's something like speculating.

Whether you're planning or speculating, the exercise represents just the tip of the iceberg. For the plans or scenarios to amount to something, they have to be implemented. In turn, that usually involves other people.

Which takes us to the subject of communication: How do you convert those ideas in your head into instructions or position papers or even real plans?

I recommend writing, as in the sense of spending at least a few minutes to put the ideas to paper. Several benefits come out of the writing process:

First, you'll force yourself to clarify what you're doing and what you want others to do. As long as an idea remains in our heads, it's not made accountable, so to speak. We don't subject our ideas to rigorous scrutiny when they're just thoughts.

But, when we write out an idea, the strengths and weaknesses show up rather quickly; we force ourselves to look at the idea more critically. When I wrote the publishing plan for Abbott's Communication Letter, for example, the writing process uncovered many key issues.

But, writing it down assumes even greater importance when we need to communicate with others. Since most thoughts for the future are inherently complex or uncertain, a written version of your plan enables you to explain much more.

As you've probably noticed, you can't really deal with much complexity verbally, unless you're making a speech or presentation. In face-to-face communication, for example, a train of thought often gets derailed by questions or interjections by the other person.

A written plan also communicates to others a broader scope than a verbal plan. After all, when you're writing, you can bring in the past, cover the present, and look into the future. Or, you can illustrate your points with more detail than you can in a verbal report.

So, let's subject this article to the writing test, to see if hangs together.

First, the article opened with the idea of looking or thinking ahead, and I assumed -- note, I assumed -- that this thinking implied future action.

Second, you'll see the idea that to take action, or to get others to take action on our behalf, we need to be clear about the 'what' and the 'why' before we start. Of course, not every action needs this kind of launch; perhaps I should have said 'For important projects....'

Third, I suggested the way to get this clarity is to write it out, but in retrospect, perhaps that simply reflects my bias toward writing. Perhaps you manage well simply by thinking, and don't need to write.

Fourth, I next listed a couple of benefits that flow from writing, and looking back I see a that I had bigger projects in mind when I wrote it.

So, all in all, subjecting this article (at least the first part of it) to the writing process did have the desired effect, and I discovered a couple of assumptions that I wasn't conscious of while writing. And, if I was writing a plan, especially a plan for a big project, those would be worthwhile discoveries.

In summary, the act and process of writing down an idea will help you implement the idea, because it will help uncover some of the assumptions and expectations underlying your idea.


Stand-Up Comedy Secrets! - Next Generation System For Quickly Developing Funny Stand-up Comedy Material. Eliminate Writers Block & Get The Big Laughs!
Practical Report Writing. - Write greats reports with this report writing kit.


Article Index: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81


More Articles:


1. Well-Defined Processes – How to Create By Chris Anderson
Interested in learning how to reduce development time, save money and stay in control? Business professionals can learn how to create well-defined processes with the easy-to-manage Process Approach of Plan-Do-Check-Act.Real Tools for Real Business ProcessIn MBA courses, students come across a lot of buzzwords and the theories behind them. And in the textbook, the terms look and sound great. But after they finish with their classes, they think to themselves: so now what I can I do with all of t…

2. Quality Staffing: Stop Placing the Wrong People in the Wrong Jobs By Marcia Zidle
You can possibly teach a turkey to climb a tree – but it is a lot easier to hire a squirrel. Quality staffing means selecting the right people with the right skills for the right jobs and at the right time. A good hire can take the weight of the world off your shoulders. A poor one can eat up your time and energy and weaken an entire team. So, why do so many leaders place so many people in so many wrong places? Here are five key reasons.Failure to prepare. When leaders are so busy dealing wi…

3. Creating content for Articles or Ezines Effortlessly
The benefits of writing as a marketing strategy have been well documented. Articles build credibility, provide lots of links back to your website, and can generate business for you. All good stuff. This is all well and good as long as you have something to write about - right? Finding content ideas can be one of the dilemmas that stops us from making the most of writing as a marketing opportunity. But I can assure you that each on you has enough content already on hand to write dozens of article…

4. Effective Management – 4 Ways to Inspire Loyalty in Your Business By Kunbi Korostensky
Today as people become increasingly conscious of their worth, they are no longer willing to stay in a job that has become intolerable and impersonal to them.This means that in the corporate or business world, it no longer suffice to have a system in place and expect people to just comply by them.Without some form of human connections, things won't work out for long and the strength of commitment from your employees will simply disintegrate.Whether you're an executive, a business owner with emp…