Quick! Grab those ideas

This week, my quest to make my business office more “green” went to hell.  I’ve been sitting on – oh, about 50 ebooks that I’ve been dying to read.  I sit in front of my computer screen for over 12 hours a day and I’m just not loving the idea of spending another few hours reading.

I broke.  I gave in.  I printed my top 10 reads.  I’ve been reading everything from how to use Twitter in your business to an interesting read from StomperNet.

What’s the point of all this?

Ideas.

See, if you don’t ever do anything different, you become relaxed.  You go into auto drive.  You perform what needs to be performed – and you may even do it really well – but you don’t excel.  You become settled.  Stuck.

If you’ve ever tried a workout regime, you probably know what I mean.  The pounds fall off until you plateau, then it doesn’t matter what you do – nothing seems to get that last 5 pounds off. What do you do?  Change it up.

So that’s what I did.  I’ve been reading more.  Writing more.  And it seems to have shaken something loose up in the old noggin’.  Ideas seem to be popping out everywhere. Sometimes I can’t keep up.  Sometimes I’m just not prepared for the idea.  Sometimes I keep up too well and become overwhelmed with all my new schemes.

“The value of an idea lies in the using of it.” – Thomas Edison

…but in order to use those ideas you need to get working.  Ideas are likely going to come to you at inopportune times so you’d better be ready.

{Case in point – as I’m writing this, I had a great idea for the next talking point, but my cats distracted me and it’s now gone}

Keep a pad of paper handy, keep NotePad open on your computer, or use a voice recorder.  Different strokes for different folks – do what’s going to work best for you.

Don’t worry if the idea seems out of this world.  Albert Einstein quipped that if at first the idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it.  Ideas aren’t too big, too small, or too crazy.  After all, the entire history of mankind is really just a huge series of ideas.

Here’s some of the firey business ideas I’ve been tossing about.  Who knows – maybe it’ll spark your next idea.

• Move away from hourly work and into packaged deals (why?  because my goal for 2010 is to stop trading time for money.  More on that later)
• Create and publish a series of ebooks.  {psst…the volumes will be published under the title The Rules of Social Media}
• Create a new niche and rock it out – You won’t want to miss this announcement – it’s going to be great.  I know I’m a little biased.  I’m just saying.
• Mini Consultations.
• Passive Income {this is one of those areas where the ideas seem to come in a constant nearly overwhelming stream} I won’t bore you with all the details but it does involve a launch process for ebooks and webinars, Tutorials for popular programs, and membership sites.

How about you?  Did an idea spark?  Where do you get your best ideas?