Write a One-Page Business Plan and Carry It Everywhere
When you write a plan for your business, start with a one-page plan. Keep that page in your pocket or have a softcopy on your mobile phone, because it needs to be with you everywhere. Anytime a new idea occurs to you, you can add it to the plan.
Someone who takes himself or herself seriously and respects his or her own written plan can claim to be acting smartly. In this case, the likelihood of failure decreases.
In the first step, prepare a one-page text about the general titles of your business plan. This single page is, in fact, your preparedness for entering the stage of writing a business plan in full. It is the starting point, not the finished product, so treat it as a draft.
Here is how to write it:
Write down whatever comes to your mind for crafting your business plan, without organizing anything. Do not stop to sort or polish. The purpose is to capture everything before it is forgotten.
Just write down the titles, without bringing up the details of what you want to do. The details come later, when you research each topic and write the full plan.
This page is your draft and can be written on paper or in various applications. What matters is not the tool but that the page exists and that you can reach it the moment a thought arrives.
The reason this works is simple. Business ideas do not arrive at a desk at a convenient time. They arrive on the road, in a conversation, or in the middle of the night. If you have nowhere to put them, they disappear. A page that is always with you becomes the collection point for every thought about your future business.
Later, when you move on to the executive summary, the market analysis, the marketing plan and the rest, you will already have a list of titles waiting for you. You will not be facing a blank page. You will be filling in a structure you have been building from the first day.
Before you do anything else on your business plan, write that single page. Then carry it with you and keep adding to it.