Word From Our CEO: Put it Down to Get it Done!

Thanks to our CEO/President Gadi Binness for the following post. Learn more about Gadi and connect to him on LinkedIn.

I belong to a group of local business owners here in the Tri-State area called The Alternative Board (TAB), which meets once a month to discuss and coach each other on a variety of topics and issues that we experience as small business owners. Participating in TAB meetings has helped me gain perspective on my business goals through hearing about others’ successes and failures, as well as sharing my own.

Professional gatherings like this can be an incredible source of ideas that can be implemented in your business right away. However, it wasn’t until recently that I realized that there is one thing I must do at these meetings to make sure I actually benefit from hearing others’ ideas—write it down! It may sound obvious, but in the past I had sometimes neglected to take notes and it was those times that my business probably did not benefit as much as it could have from those meetings.

That is to say, if I don’t put things in writing, I will forget about them. Whether your style is to use a simple notebook or to type notes on a laptop, the act of taking notes is a critical first step in turning new ideas into action. Not only can I refer to my notes later, but I find that I actually remember ideas better after I have physically written them down.

There is probably some psychological or scientific reason for this (and please feel free to look it up and send me your findings), but the bottom line for me is that I would not have gotten all my business ideas in place unless I wrote them all down at some point. Thus was born my new mantra (which I’ve repeated endlessly to my employees, friends, kids, and to myself): “Put it down [in writing] to get it done!”

What methods do you use to turn ideas into business practice? Please feel to share with us and our readers in the comments section below.