You’re the master of dreaming up big new ideas and you’re really wanting to start taking action on them. If you could monetize them, you’d be making a ton of money. If you were able to take action on them, you could really impact somebody’s life. You might not have a great track record of being able to get things done with your ideas before somebody beats you to the punch.

The ideas in your brain that are worth pursuing, let’s take action on them. Decide now that you’re going to make it happen because the end result is worth it.

Last week we talked about how to decide which ideas to actually start taking action on! If you missed that, I’d go back and check it out and come back to this one.

5 Tips for Getting Your Big Idea Launched

TIP #0: Prevalidate it

Once you have an idea for what the project is going to be, share it with people who are your ideal client. You need to make sure that your creating something isn’t in vain. Make sure that there are potential buyers for the thing you’re about to invest time and energy (and possibly money) into!

TIP #1: Commit to that idea

First you have to convince yourself that you are married to this idea until it gets done. You have limited time and limited energy and you can’t commit to anything else (except client work and other regular up-keep of your business) while you’re working on this project and seeing it to completion.

Start talking to people about your concept and the fact that you’re working on it. It gives people an idea of what’s happening behind the scenes and that is definitely an allure!

Whatever you have to do to make this a real commitment to yourself, do it. This is now a legit project and find something that makes you feel like you’re owning this project.

TIP #2: Make time to make it happen

Many people think that just by making a commitment, their goals will happen. That’s not how it works – you have to create space in your calendar to make it happen. Whether it’s official work hours and you take on less client work, or working evening hours, you have to make a commitment and sacrifice in order to accomplish something more than the status quo. It’s also important to know that it’s worth that sacrifice too!

How much time do you want to allocate to actually making it happen each day or each week?

TIP #3: Have a deadline

Which leads to the next tip. You need to work backwards! Create a deadline for yourself knowing how much time you want to spend each week. Most of us will overestimate how much we can get done in shorter periods and underestimate what we can do in a longer period. I would give yourself enough of a buffer period to accomplish something, knowing that life might get in the way of completing pieces of your project.

If you have a buffer, you won’t get discouraged by not finishing everything – you have time to recover before the big deadline. I’m not telling you to double the time you might need to get things done but give yourself a few weeks or an extra few days to make up for time that you might lose from something that might come up unexpectedly.

TIP #4: Make a plan

This is where it can get tricky. If you’ve never been the kind of person to plan much, I could write a whole series of blog posts about this one tip. But here’s the main rule for making a plan. Create an outline for all the steps that need to happen.

Here’s an example:

If the project that you want to complete is launch a website:

1. The whole sandwich (Tier 1) – this whole project might be done in a day or in a week, it really depends on what goes under that tier.
   • An ingredient of the project (Tier 2) – this part of the process might feel like you could make many lists from. You should be able to complete each item in a day or week.
     • A bite-sized task (Tier 3) – Tasks are something you should be able to sit down and complete in a 30 minute to 60 minute chunk of time.

Here’s an example:

1. Hire a web designer
   • Get suggestions from people
   • Look at portfolios
   • Contact them individually
     1. Email with them
     2. Interview them on the phone

Writing all the pieces might seem tedious but without this, your to do list will look massive. If you put “hire a web designer” on your list, it might take you more than a week to cross that off. What you should be putting on your list are the ingredient of the project  (tier 2) or bite sized tasks (tier 3). So make sure you qualify what goes on your to do list before you write it down. You’ll feel better if you just implement this tip!

TIP #5: Get support and accountability

Nobody expects you to do it alone! Find somebody who wants to support you and give them the opportunity to support you and to give you the tough love you need when you need it most. Their role is to ask you, “why aren’t you getting what you said done, done?” and “Do you think that’s enough time to get it done?”

Announce publicly that you’re launching it in a particular month, if not the date. There’s nothing like social accountability to get your booty in line.

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