Last month we talked about gathering up as many ideas as we could with relentless capture. This month, the focus swings to discarding things that aren’t working by creating a special place to save the pieces you trim away.

What a Waste

“Don’t throw that food away. What about the starving kids in China?” Maybe you’re not old enough to have heard this while you were growing up. Even so, to most people, “wastefulness” is a dirty word.

Few of us are eager to engage in activities that are a waste of time. Think about the legend of Sisyphus. He tried to cheat death, although it finally caught up with him. Once in the afterlife, he was given a punishment of rolling a stone up a hill, only to have it roll back down before it reached the top, leaving him to start all over again. In this scenario, wasted effort isn’t just daunting; it’s hell!

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