I’m a scatter brain and think this is a common trait amongst creative entrepreneurial type people and readers. If something isn’t worth my time and focus, I get bored and usually put my mind to use in other ways. Think daydreaming. But like most entrepreneurs, inspiration comes at little notice. What do you do with them? “Just remember them?” Yeah, right.

The argument I’m making is get a process down, now, as to how to remember your ideas for business, startups, or lifestyle design. It’s much easier said than done, but be ready for ideas all the time, and be ready to take notes all the time.

My idea book: I failed and failed again at storing my ideas digitally in various word documents that I can no longer find. If you can do this, more power to you really. But I use a simple, clean notebook and pen stored safely at home whereever I am.

Mobile inspiration: At almost all times, I’ll have either paper and pen to take quick notes with or a mobile phone to save a memo to. Both definitely handy, but only temporary. I stress to you centralize your ideas asap to your idea book.

Review and evaluation: Continual review of your ideas (depending on quantity) is probably best, but at least sit down to review them all in one sitting a couple times a year. Organize and cut the lists often – revist your analysis for your favorites often.

Important especially when…While this post may be nothing more than just a friendly reminder to you, a little on where this topic idea came from: I’m currently studying and living in Bangkok until December and the first few weeks I was here I was constantly learning new things and was interested in how business and processes were working differently. It’s amazing how different some businesses and products are over here, and living in a different culture offers just a wealth of insight on entrepreneurial ideas.

So even if you’re fine just remembering things and going from there, I stress that when you reconsider if you’ll be traveling. You never know when or where or how subtle your first big idea will be.

We have a lot of things we need to do – write a report, draw up a business plan, send an email, etc. Often these tasks aren’t that difficult, but for various reasons, we labor over them for hours, even days. One main culprit is excessive self-correction. It’s not a bad habit necessarily, but you’ll need to control the urge to edit or else you’ll never get anything finished. There’s a time to be critical and a time to let go.

When writing the first draft, be easy on yourself. Write down anything that comes to mind about the topic and do all the editing much later. Promising concepts will only be useful if you put them in black and white. At this time, you should just be concerned about having a large pool of ideas to draw from once you buckle down and get serious. Right now, keep your fingers away from that DELETE buttton. Remember: nobody will see this draft so it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Use this session as your chance to think about the whole project, from start to finish. See how you can bridge these two ends into one coherent piece. In effect, what you’re doing is building the foundations. It may not look pretty, but it’s strong and has plenty of support because you’ve looked at it from every angle. Once you commit all the details to paper for your first draft, give yourself a much needed break, then come back later with a fresh mind to start on the trimmings.

I strongly believe that America’s educational system (and maybe elsewhere in the world) encourages faker mentality. The idea that success is wrapped up in perception, not performance.

So, many of us get trained from the very beginning that what’s important are things like getting an A on an exam or paper. Well, if my experiences are like anyone else’s, my grades rarely tracked my effort. I mean, sure, I had to at least go through the motions and show a certain level of competence, but at the end of the day, the behavior that was consistently rewarded throughout my educational experience was my ability to “fake it” – to make the professor think that I understood the material. Or, to make my parents think I was smart by getting good grades. Good grades which were conditional on establishing the right perception in the Professors mind.

Anyway, I think you get the idea. But this gets more serious when you consider how these behaviors become habits. Pretty soon, if we are not careful, we become fakers… and it can trickle into our professional lives. It becomes a dependency. And we can end up making our living through smooth talking and false promises rather than real solid productive work.

As a side note, I actually think this “faker” epidemic is one of the root causes of our current economic troubles. Too many people fake themselves and their banks into thinking they can afford more of a home than they really can. Just the same, too many people faked their way into thinking that bullshit assets could somehow be made valuable.

Anyway, this brings me to the point I wanted to make. A successful entrepreneur should commit to becoming a maker and avoid the easy temptation of being a faker. Buckle down and do the hard work. Stop the smooth talking. Stop the false promises. Look reality in the face and do what needs to be done.

Otherwise, you just might spend your life running away from responsibility and propping up a permanent facade.

Be a maker. Take pride in being productive.