“Nothing.” He replied.
I looked at all the papers filled with words and said, “You are obviously doing something”
He replied somewhat irritated “Of course I’m doing something. I’m always doing something even if it is just breathing. I said I was doing nothing because I’m working on a zero draft and zero is sometimes considered nothing.”
“So what is a zero draft?”
“It is the version that comes just before the first draft. You don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar or form. The purpose is to get the ideas flowing without any limits”
“So how is that different from a first draft?”
“A first draft has to have enough form to be readable by another human being and the spelling has to be good enough that the reader doesn’t burst out laughing. The zero draft is for me only. I don’t want to think about the potential criticisms, I just want to get my ideas on paper.”
“So a zero draft is another way to prevent mediocrity”
“You got it!”
The biggest problem I have in writing these monthly articles is deciding on the topic. Once I’ve chosen the topic, I’m amazed at how many ideas related to the topic start popping into my life. All of my inputs seem to relate to the topic. Friends talk about it, newscasters, magazines and even my cats seem to say or do things that relate to the topic.
The point is that solutions present themselves once you have defined the problem.
James L. Adams in his book “The Care and Feeding of Ideas” on page 14 gives four stages to problem solving. 1. Don’t know you don’t know 2. Know that you don’t know 3. Know you know 4. Don’t know you know
The example he gives is tying our shoes. You start out not knowing you don’t know how to tie shoes. You barely know that you have feet. Subsequently you learn that other people can tie shoes but you can’t. Then you learn how to tie shoes and finally it becomes second nature.
In the business world you can use these steps to keep your business growing. The hardest part is step one. You are totally unaware of a problem in your business or a potential market that you could fill. The only way I know around this is to constantly be exposed to new and different ideas. Join professional organizations, network with people in your community and read everything you can get your hands on. Don’t focus entirely on your own profession or industry.
