If you’re creative, you have a billion ideas. You have ideas that sprout from ideas. It can become this wild tree of ideas that becomes so heavy it starts to jeopardize the strength of the root structure!

You’ll begin executing on a task and find a new idea that emerges about how to create some new system or product or spreadsheet or article idea that will help with X.

Not allowing new idea branches to distract you from your primary, current objectives requires focus.

For me, I have to constantly ask myself, “What are the three things I can do today, right now, to move me closer towards my specific daily and weekly goals?”

And then to avoid my creative mind from distracting me from the execution of these tasks I have to set specific time goals to complete them.

That’s it.

Execution for creative people is all about asking the following two questions constantly:

1. What are the three things I can do today that will help strengthen the existence of my idea in the world?

2. What is my specific time goal for how long getting this task done will take?

I literally “gameify” all tasks this way. I set a timer on my computer, write the task out on my to-do list like, “Get the email introduction to John written by 1p.”

And then I race to hit that.

It’s tiring but effective. And can be fun too. Because getting way more done is fun.