Ideas Are Easy. Execution Is Difficult.

Ideas Are Easy to Come By

Have you ever heard the following?

"Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything." – Scott Adams

It's a quote used frequently in business startup land. Turns out, ideas for my newsletter are easy. What I do with those ideas is the hard part. I've found this to be true of every piece of writing I've worked on as well. It's not so binary, though. While searching where this quote came from, I stumbled across one I like better.

"Ideas are just a multiplier of execution." — Derek Sivers

He even has a fancy little chart to explain.

While digging into this idea a bit, I found that some people find both quotes extremely offensive. I suspect it's because ideas aren't easy. That's the thing—nowhere in either of these quotes does anyone say that ideas are easy.

So, I just said it. I'll repeat it.

Ideas are easy. Execution is difficult. — Me

What I mean is that, in terms of effort, ideas are easy. I can come up with hundreds of ideas for writing (and I have), but executing any of them takes a lot more time and effort. Coming up with an idea is a sprint. Executing an idea is a marathon.

What's New?

• I wrote a horror flash fiction piece—10 words about a New Year's Resolution. I like how the super short flash fiction pieces turn out.
• I've expanded my big bucket of ideas for this newsletter into nearly 100 topics. So, no shortage of exciting stuff coming.
• The next part of Absolution is now live. Check it out: Act I.