You know those ideas I wrote about in the last post? Those ideas will only ever remain ideas if you don’t actually put time into making them a reality.

The most difficult part of it all is our ideas aren’t usually something small that you could complete in an hour or two. They usually involve days of work. They also probably involve other people to help turn those ideas into reality. At this point, I’ve often found the mountain almost to high to even attempt to climb, which I guess has been my biggest downfall. This time, I’m trying something new. Using timelines. (I hate using the word deadline, because I’ve missed countless deadlines in my working life and not once have I or someone else died from it. I can’t say much for doctors that have deadlines though!)

Vintage calendar found on Flickr

I’ll let you in on something, I’ve taken an idea, shared it with 2 other guys and we all keen to work on it. It’s not the next greatest web 2.0 web app, nor is it something to do with <insert latest and greatest technology / keyword here>. Its something that if the 3 of us pull off, it will help us realise some of goals we all have in common. It will rock, that I can promise.

Back to the timelines thing. The only way we going to get this idea off the ground is if we break down the process to building it and stick those little milestones to a timeline. I’ve stuck the idea into Basecamp and added dates to all the milestones. By the end of today, for example, we all needed to penned our ideas for a name for this project into Basecamp. By Friday, we need to have whittled those ideas down to 3 names and then the domain hunting begins.

So as you can see, setting attainable targets with dates to your idea / project helps you get things done and also gives you the feeling of accomplishment as you tick those milestones off. Its the small victories along the way that are going to keep us motivated.

To summarise if you have managed to read this far: Break down your idea into attainable milestones and attach dates to them. That will give your idea the small pushes it needs every few days to keep the momentum going and ultimately, see those ideas made into reality!