What to do when you have more ideas than time
A question I often hear: I have too many ideas. How do I choose?
I was listening to a podcast two years ago that sparked an idea—Maybe I should do a fellowship. I did a bit of research, then tucked the idea away like a seed, waiting to see if it would take root.
For me, such sparks happen fairly often. Ooh, I want to do an artist residency. Ooh, I want to travel to see Monet’s gardens at Giverny. Ooh, maybe I want to go back to school and get a Ph.D. Ooh, I’d like to create a community of practice. Ooh, maybe I want to write another book after all.
In the moment, the ideas hold promise and delight. I leave myself a voice note or capture them in my notes app. But as they stack up, overwhelm arrives.
If I go back to my annual planning documents over the years, I’ve noticed a pattern. Many ideas that held so much energy and conviction at the time didn’t move forward.
Why having too many ideas isn’t the real problem
There’s a reason for this. Our brains have a built-in novelty bias. That spark we feel when a new idea lands is real (thank you dopamine hit!), but it’s not a reliable signal of what deserves our sustained effort.
Here’s what I’ve learned about myself and ideas—I have more of them than I can ever execute. Some stick with me and percolate, waiting for the right time. Others quietly fade. For a time, I felt guilty for not progressing these ideas forward. I felt delinquent around my ambitions.
For many of us, having so many ideas, in and of itself, isn’t the true problem. The challenge is to cultivate the awareness of which to prioritize at this time and to have the courage to let the others go—for now or forever. And in doing so, not make ourselves feel unproductive for not doing more or faulty in our judgment if some never come to pass.
What I’ve come to believe is that for those of us who are generative, who have a lot of ideas and like to do a lot, we need to allow ourselves both the space and time to see what is meant to capture our energy and the compassion to believe we don’t need to pursue it all.
Below I share five practices I’m using to honor what lights me up, while keeping the pursuit manageable.
With these practices, I’m not feeling the need to progress all my ideas and activities at once. I’m learning to pause before immediately acting and discern what I need and want to put my attention to now. I’m more easily able to progress what’s in the foreground, while letting the ones further out get clearer in space and time.
I’ll admit that I still feel tension as I work with the new mindsets and behaviors I share below. But as I have more repeated experiences of their wisdom, I’m feeling the stress release and the peace seep in.
5 Ways to Honor Our Ideas Without Being Overwhelmed by Them
If you have too many ideas and don’t know how to choose, you’re not disorganized, you’re generative. The challenge isn’t having fewer ideas; it’s knowing which ones deserve your energy right now.
Here are five practices to play with:
Keep a running list (your “spark file”). Track your ideas in whatever tool works for you—Notes app, Google doc, Notion. I’ll admit that in the past I’ve been less systematic about this than I’d like, but this year Steven Johnson wrote in his newsletter about building a creative system, and it’s inspired me to be more diligent.
He talks about creating a “spark file” to capture your “slow hunches,” because true innovation arrives as seedlings that need to germinate over time.
Give ideas space before you commit. Don’t feel like you have to make decisions on ideas right away. I took a creativity class with the poet David Whyte recently, and something he said has stayed with me: “Move toward something, but don’t name it too early.” The point is that giving ideas sufficient time to evolve allows space for their full possibility to develop. Along these lines, Whyte also reframed procrastination. We can tend to see such behavior as negative (get going already!), yet he said, “Underneath every procrastination is a treasure.” Sometimes slowing down or holding off has a purpose.
I’ve learned this the hard way. Sometimes I’ve committed to ideas or activities too quickly in the name of action, productivity, and progress—signing up for a class, putting it as a must-do on my list. And then I end up disappointed with myself, because I don’t get to it and I feel either like I wasted money or dropped the ball. The reality—it wasn’t the right time after all. That fellowship idea I was hot on? It fell to the background for many months. Fresh ideas took its place. I’m embracing the fact that every spark I have doesn’t deserve immediate action. I’m practicing giving them space and time to see if the idea has staying power. This echoes Johnson’s point about slow hunches, that some ideas need time to fully form.
Pay attention to your energy. I’m a big believer in following our energy, as it’s a signal of our motivation. To identify where you might want to focus, look at your list of ideas and ask yourself: “Which one do I have the most motivation and energy for right now?” Also consider your capacity—do you have the time and energy to put in the required and desired effort now?
You may consider, too, that even hesitating to ask if a project is the right one to pursue at this time is a signal that perhaps it is not. The energy and conviction may not be there. Follow what pulls you. For me, this shows up as instinctive action. I feel the energy that says, “Yes, I want this now.” I’m learning to regard my hesitation as information. Here, too, David Whyte offered wisdom saying to trust that reluctance is “accurate in its assessment.”
Make a good-enough choice (the satisficing approach). It’s helpful to remember that we don’t have to make the perfect choice. I was recently reminded of the decision-making strategy satisficing, from the Nobel-prize winning economist Herbert Simon. The idea: choose the option that meets your criteria well enough, rather than agonizing over the perfect one.
Try this: Get clear on what you want from the idea you pursue right now. What criteria must it meet? Consider your options. Pick the one that meets the bar and gives you the most energy, then enjoy the process without second-guessing. The goal isn’t the perfect decision, but rather a decision you can move forward with in peace.
Think in portfolios, not to-do lists. I’ve done innovation work throughout my career, and a common way to manage new ideas is to think of them as a portfolio—some are close-in and building on what you’ve already created, some are extensions into new territory, and some are longer-horizon experiments. I’m finding it helpful to think about my ambitions this way right now. I’m continuing to build on Sustainable Ambition while extending the method into new areas and planting seeds for what might come further down the road.
The trick is being thoughtful about resource allocation. Not everything gets equal time and energy across those horizons. Some ideas are active projects. Others are seeds that get nurtured periodically. And that’s okay—it’s part of the design, not failure.
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Sustainable Ambition offers a strategic approach for pursuing our professional and personal goals in a way that is motivating, meaningful, and manageable from stage to stage, rather than be all consuming in a way that compromises other important aspects of our lives or sacrifices our well-being.