Steal My Ideas, Please

This CAN’T be original … it’s more of a realization sinking in. I constantly criticize strategies I see as pointless … and yet my own strategies are often pointless, too. Aha, I realize: You need to figure out how to give yourself advice.

OK, let’s try that painful exercise.

The Mucha rules:
(1) Do some market research! Know your audience! Stop doing things that no one cares about!!!
(2) Identity the most promising avenue to expand — and cash in on that before watering down your efforts with a competing, ambiguous parade of ambitions.
(3) Identify pointless projects and ax them.

Hone! Weed! Water! Clear the branches blocking the sun! 

Always let one patch grow wild … but don’t count on wild growth to avoid producing vines that choke the life from plants that might yield fruit.

OK, self, respond: Uh, well, maybe I’m not a business. Maybe I’m a set of whims wishing to be a business. OK, that sounds lame. How about this as a plan? (Notice he still objects to focusing.) I have three gardens. In one, I pick a project and go everything I can to make it flourish. In a second, I cultivate three backups, understudies, waiting their chance if numero uno flops. The third is that wild patch for experimentation / karma / luck.

The trick is deciding: What’s number one? The strategy game I’m struggling to write a patent for? The card games? Puzzle books?

Or is it more of a publishing choice: Focus on the Web vs. find agents or publishers vs. publish things myself.

Start small. Start with something that will work. Remember the Royalty Rule: The route to freedom is getting paid multiple times for the same piece of work. Plant once, harvest for years.