"You won’t see how to do it until you see yourself doing it…  Many of us hold ourselves back from imagining a desired outcome unless someone can show us how to get there.  Unfortunately, that’s backward in terms of how our minds work to generate and recognize solutions and methods."

–David Allen in Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, chapter three, which cites some decades-old research on how our brains work.

In a business context, the above quote recognizes the importance of having both a Vision and a Business Plan.  We ADDexecs — with our natural ability to visualize many wonderful scenarios — have no shortage of Visions to dream about.  However, we can quickly run into two new challenges: (1) choosing which Vision we’re willing to focus on and work toward and (2) hobbling ourselves by saying, "oh, it’s just another dream, just like all the other dreams I’ve had but never succeeded at." 

Left unmanaged, these two attention deficit disorder hindrances can keep us from moving forward.  Thus the importance of business analysis and a business plan.  Analysis doesn’t answer all questions, but it does give us a chance to see which Visions are more important to us, and which Visions appear most viable.  A business plan forces us to examine our commitment to a single Vision and lets us find out how we can make it real. 

And if we commit, we have an answer to our ADDexec selves when our impulses tempt us elsewhere.  "Sorry, impulse," we can say, "I’ve got a plan and I’m committed."

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