Have you ever come up with an idea for something and then found someone else has taken that idea and run with it? Frustrating… Sometimes the opportunity has passed and you have to move on. Sometimes you can take that thought, maybe tweak it, and still pursue it.

I had an idea about a year ago rattling round in my brain to write a book on organization based on the concepts in the kitchen. Now, I’m certainly no chef but I’m smart enough to realize that of all the rooms in my house, the kitchen is the most intelligently organized. For the most part, everything has a place and, when I need it, I know just where to look. …just don’t look in that junk drawer… Why isn’t my office organized that well? That was my idea… then I heard a podcast on the book Work Clean by Dan Charmas. He takes the whole mise en place focus to a place I wasn’t even aware existed. I’m reading it now. It has some very good information and I am finding many parts of it useful. It is already helping me in my non-kitcheny office. An opportunity passed? Perhaps, there are still thoughts to be thunk…

How do you take that already-chomped on thought and improve it? Can you make it better? What action can you take? How do you move? Thinking about it is important, but unless you take action, you’ll be stuck on a balcony watching the world pass you and your ideas by again and again…

Photo Credit: Rainy Tokyo street view from a balcony… Jeff Carroll, 2012