The brain’s most impressive faculty isn’t memory and relying on it too much as an entrepreneur can be detrimental to your success.

Let me tell my take on why this is important, especially at the start of any creative endeavor (like starting a business).

The reason humans have survived as a species for so long is that we learned to use tools to our advantage. Before our discovery and use of fire, we were basically prey. But by thinking through things and leveraging different instruments, we survived and grew to the top of the food chain.

While I was explaining “phase 1” of my process for planning to someone who was having an issue getting all their ideas out of their head, I realized this wasn’t the first time I met someone with this problem.

I think it’s a common thing creative professionals go through. There are so many opportunities, so many things to do, it’s hard to keep track of them all, to bring them all together to form one multi-faceted enterprise.

Storing and organizing all that in your head, or even a notebook, is a disaster.

Everyone has their own way of dealing with this problem, but I’ve found a great process that helps me get my ideas out of my head and into an organized outline to form a plan of action. That way, I can start executing on all the important stuff.

My process is simple, and I’ll share it with you here. I do what the early humans did: think through things and leverage different instruments.

Here’s what I do:
1. Brain dump – I transfer any accessible knowledge or information I have about a particular endeavor from my brain to a notepad
2. Mind Map – I relate and connect the contents of my brain dump while transferring them onto a mind map with hierarchical categories
3. Organization – Now I have one giant spider diagram of my ideas in front of me on screen that I can revisit, add to, remove from, and reorganize.

The instruments I use are:
1. Pen and notepad
2. A free software called “MindMaple”

I think the secret is in HOW this is done though. My intention with this process is to make my endeavor seem as simple as possible. I’m constantly asking myself, “If what I’m trying to do was simple, how would it look?”

This makes a huge project seem easy and accomplishable because instead of this GIANT endeavor you have in front of you to conquer, it’s now a series of tiny baby steps to take.
This is the exact process I use in business, and it’s the one that helped me pull my book to the finish line.

P.S. – Here’s a picture of the outline I created for Wired for Success. It’s huge and I can’t fit it all into one picture, but it has everything I needed to know to write the book.

P.P.S – I had created a separate one for marketing. And it’s just as big, lol.

P.P.P.S – I’m super excited to share it’s been the #1 Best Release in Professional Development and Eastern Philosophy since it launched—4 days now!