I’d been thinking about telling you this for some time and kept forgetting. But last week, I captured the thought on paper and the result is you’re reading about it right now.
You and I do a lot of thinking each day the experts tell us. You may be surprised at this, but research estimates you may have 40,000 to 60,000 thoughts each day. Even though that sounds like a tremendous amount of thinking, most of your thoughts are repeat thoughts.
Thoughts like:
- What’s the temperature outside?
- I need to clean the house
- What’s for lunch?
But, mixed in with the business-as-usual thoughts are great thoughts and ideas. Your best thoughts and ideas about your business and personal life bubble to the surface in your conscious mind and then are lost faster than cash at the race track betting window.
Thoughts and ideas like:
- Marketing your riding lesson program to home schooled children
- Calling two good candidates to lease your underutilized lesson horse
- Checking out pricing for an indoor arena and financing possibilities
- Approaching a part time employee prospect for helping with weekend barn chores
- Starting your own electronic newsletter
Thoughts like those above and thousands of others are lost each day. Some times they resurface for you, other times the thought ocean undertow claims them for others to discover and put into action.
There are almost as many ways to capture ideas for your horse business as there are bits for a horse’s mouth. But just like bits, the favorites should get tried first.
Index cards– don’t leave them in the package! Spread them around. Keep a few in the barn, in the truck, on your desk, next to your bed and in your pocket. Collect them daily, rubber band them and look at them several times a week.
Post it notes-buy 3-M brand only. The sticky part on the knock-off brands is as useless as a 3 foot lead rope. If you use a pencil based calendar planner, stick your thoughts on the pages of the calendar on the appropriate days.
Spiral pocket notebook– buy pocket sized only, in multiple packs. Get in the habit of carrying one with you.
Moleskine– these are impressive and this classic notebook of choice of writers and artists. Not only cool looking, it frames your thoughts as you re-read them. Good enough for Hemmingway, good enough for me.
Cell phone: Dial, dictate, done. Call a phone number and your words are automatically transcribed, captured and e-mailed back to you with service called Jott.com
PDA’s Once you make the shift to electronic notes, these are extremely useful tools for capturing thoughts and converting them to notes. However, even though PDA’s are durable, they’re not as forgiving as paper when your horse’s foot is standing on it.
Personally, I log a lot of my work day at a desk focused on a computer screen and talking on the telephone. It requires concentration and as a result, my best thoughts do not occur while I’m engaged in work. I’ve used the above methods to capture brilliant and not so brilliant thoughts while feeding, mucking stalls, being a tractor jockey and cooling out a horse.
If you want to make more money in your horse business, capture your ideas and take action on the best!