Sharing thoughts/idea

How often have we decided to share an idea or a thought with a colleague only to find out that they have run with the idea and now what you thought was your idea suddenly appears to be their idea. This can happen far too often, and we all need to understand that just making simple comments to a colleague can change who owns the idea.

So often in a work environment people are bouncing around the various thoughts and ideas as they are trying to figure out if it is a good idea or not, but little do they know that the sharing of an idea could result in an idea being “stolen” as used as someone else’s idea. There are a lot of times when someone has an idea, and they aren’t certain if it is a good idea or not, but they will start to talk to over to with colleagues and a colleague may shoot it down saying they don’t think it will work. Well, the idea is such a good idea that the colleague decided to take that idea and decided to suggest it to management. All a sudden your idea has become an idea from a colleague and management likes it, who really gets the great for the idea, well it is gong to be the person that when to management with it not the person that originally came up with the idea.

So often there are times where an idea might not seem that great of idea, but it is just the seed that starts others to do some thinking and your small idea because a bigger idea and you don’t get any credit for it because your colleague has taken it as their idea and moved it forward. When we have even a basic idea, we all need to ensure that we keep the thoughts to yourself until we can at least find a way to let a bunch of colleagues know the idea not just one person.

Sharing a thought or idea might seem like such a simple thing to do but we need to ensure that we aren’t giving away too much detail because that idea might suddenly become an idea of someone else. Yes, it is nice to be able to share thoughts and ideas with others, but you have to be careful the amount to detail your share because your idea might become their idea.

A collaborate team is so much better as now one know where the original idea comes and everyone is given create for the work. No one can say they were the main contributor to an idea.

 

Figuring out how to organize ideas

It is always interesting to sit back and see if how I organize all of my ideas is actually working for me at a given time. Lately I have been trying to figure out a better means of keeping all of my ideas with me so that I can write whenever I want to write.

There is always a challenge for a person with lots of ideas and that is capturing all the thoughts and ideas as they are racing around in your head. There have been times when I have thought of a wonderful idea but by the time I try and capture it I can't remember what it was. Yes, that happens to everyone so just making sure you can capture a lot of the ideas is better than not capturing any of the ideas.

One of the methods that I use for tracking all my thoughts and ideas is just a simple word file that I can edit when I have the various thoughts. I also track some of the thoughts if I cannot get to the word file on a piece of paper or even on my mobile device. Yes, capturing the idea as quickly as you can is the best thing to ensure that you don't get frustrated because you keep losing all those ideas that you have. Of course, not all the ideas are going to be the best ideas that you have but at least writing all of them helps you figure out which ones you are going to use and which ones will stay on the list for ages.

The ability of capturing all the ideas is getting a lot easier now with the ability to have a tablet with you most of the time. No, my tablet doesn't end up in the bedroom but it normally close to me the rest of the time so that I can capture those thoughts. I do have a notebook beside the bed so that if I get ideas when in the bedroom I can capture them as well.

The other thing that you need to figure out when you are trying to capture your thoughts is how much detail are you going to capture. I try and capture as much detail as I can about the idea because then I will know where I was heading with the thought instead of just a quick note and I will have no idea what I meant. There is always the challenge that as soon as I start writing one idea down I get a bunch more so then the list looks really interesting as I bounce between the ideas and try and capture all of them.

Being able to organize the various thoughts and ideas that you have is very important. No, you don't need to complete an entire thought as soon as you have a spark of an idea. The spark sometimes will never get further than that spark but at least noting it will help. The original spark may never get further but it could result in a bunch of other ideas that do end up resulting in something or even a bunch of somethings. I know that I have noted an idea and it has ended up no where but just getting that idea out resulted in a lot of clearer ideas.

Now, organizing your ideas will change over time and it is something that you just have to deal with. I have bounced between a number of ways of capturing all of the ideas that I have and I am still trying to figure out what works best for me. Your ideas are yours and you need to figure out what works best for you. You are different than everyone else so listen to what they suggest and maybe try it and then see what works best for you.