A big blank canvas? Scary. A new Powerpoint deck with no slides? Scary. Designer notebooks packed with crisp, white, empty pages? I’ve abandoned dozens.
My big ideas are built out of small ideas.
I try to capture my small ideas in small, simple ways. Index cards. Plain text files. A few words added to a mindmap. Digital sticky notes on Trello.
Not unlike a LEGO set (or, you know, real bricks), I construct big things out of my piles of little things. I shuffle and test and play until something starts to take shape. If I get tired of what I’ve built, I pull it apart to build something new with the pieces.
If you’re waiting around for a big idea, you’ll be waiting a long time.
Start building big ideas with smaller paper.