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How many times do we have a great idea ... a true light-bulb moment ... and without giving it another thought we rush right in to make that idea happen?

Just lately we've been so busy that the light-bulb moments my partner and I have been having lately have had to wait because we just didn't have the time to rush right in and implement them ... and that's been good. While we may have been wanting to get stuck into them and make them happen the pressure of work has held us back and that's given us time to think things through ... and see that some of those great ideas weren't going to be so great after all.

Sadly while we have had time to think there have been other people who have had some light-bulb moments that weren't so great and managed to impact on us as well as them.

Take our neighbour for example. He decided that it would be a great idea to lop about six inches off the top of all the tall bushes that line the fence that we share with his property last week. Maybe that was a great idea for him but if he had taken a moment to think things through he might have seen that it might have been better to leave that trimming exercise till the end of summer as he usually does.

You see when he took six inches off those bushes he took away all the shade that protects my partner's office from the afternoon sun ... and here where we live that afternoon sun can be very intense. So now from about 2pm every day the sun comes straight through the windows of Steve's office and it becomes a sauna.

Just six inches off the top of some bushes has cut back on the number of hours he can work in the office and that's pushed out the time frame for some of the projects he's been working on.

So the next time you have a great idea or a light-bulb moment don't rush in to turn that idea into a reality. Take a deep breath ... make some notes about it ... and then go back to whatever it was you were doing before that idea popped into your head. I would suggest that you don't do anything about that great idea for several days and I know that can be hard.

Of course you can think about it ... you can even draw a little mind map to help you see where your great idea might take you. By all means think about how rich your idea could make you ... think about all the different directions that idea could take you in ... but don't just focus on the positives.

Factor in some negatives in your thinking too ... add them into your mind map and explore the impacts that those negatives might have on your great idea and the future of your business. Look at the different paths those negatives might force you to go down and look at ways of either combating those negatives or turning them around to make your great idea an even more positive outcome for your business.

No one really wants to think of all the bad things that could impact on a great idea they might have had. It's much more pleasant to bask in the warm fuzzy feelings that great ideas always seem to give you but if you're serious about making those great ideas work then you do have to spend time looking at them from every angle and factoring in all the negatives you can think of.

That's why you need to leave those great ideas just sitting for a while. It takes time to start thinking about the negatives so you have to give yourself time to let that happen.

As I said earlier, it's hard to resist the temptation to drop whatever you're doing and jump headlong into your great idea but if you really do want to see that great idea turn out to be a winner for you then you really do have to sit back and just think about it while you go on with the boring stuff that just happens to be putting food on your table right now.

Don't be surprised though if, after giving your great idea some thought, it begins to be less like a great idea and more like a brain fart. But just because some of your great ideas do turn out to be smelly gas clouds don't get into the habit of ignoring every great idea you have because there will always be some that can be turned into winners and you wouldn't want to miss those now would you?