From the time you get a whiff of business cases and scenarios in college up to when your mid-life crisis starts and beyond, chances are you either dreamed of starting a new business (yours or someone else’s), attempted to put it on complex financial projections but failed, or have done so a few times yet it never sprung to life. Don’t be misled by my statement because I’ve done all three many times in my 25 years of working. Only one succeeded ’til today.

Back in the days of my computer programming career, I was dependent on a pen and paper to get things done for the day. I coded using paper, wrote office correspondence first on paper, planned my days, weeks and months on paper and accumulated expert opinions and documents, all on paper, along the way. By the time I got married, I’ve created a bundle of browning loose sheets of paper, three-ring binders, planners and a host of other media to organize paper. Later, I had to throw away a huge portion that I deemed irrelevant in my maturing years.

Many of you start your correspondences and blogs straight on the computer. I also do that today but only because I’ve had some 15-something years of experience organizing my thoughts on paper. I remember the movie “Finding Forrester” starring Sean Connery and Jamal Walace. This is a story about an African-American teenager who finds Sean, playing a Pulitzer-prize winning author, as his mentor in writing. I always remember what Sean told Jamal about writing (and they were both using a typewriter) — the best way to write is to write without thinking. Just keep writing or typing what comes out of your head. If you’re a touch-typist, keep typing while looking around or closing your eyes. Keep typing and typing until your hands tire. Do not attempt to organize your thoughts or you will fail to express what you want to write about. When you’re finished, what you’ve created is called a “draft.” Then, you edit.

Precisely my point — create a business “first” on paper — literally, and create it in a way you temporarily shutdown your filtering system. I’ve always advised this to many friends who seem bewildered about their lives or are in agony over some personal problem: at night, when everyone is asleep, grab your Manila paper (which you bought a few hours ago), draw a circle in middle with the statement of your problem or your intent, and start creating more circles with statements linked to your middle circle regardless if they be issues, possible solutions, givens, names of people and places and the like. Our minds are the most disorganized of things about us and around us. To force ourselves to think in an organized and sequential manner and write down a business plan in one pass is downright impossible.

This doodling activity of circles is actually termed as “mind mapping” and my previous mentor in Avon, John Novosad, taught that to me; thus, it became my new starting point for creating or troubleshooting things around me. There are many other methods you can use; however, if you find one, you must be comfortable in using it all the time. When it comes to creating a business, I earnestly suggest you start it off on paper before going straight to your computer spreadsheet programs.

By the way, the bigger the paper, the more things you can draw on it rather than several pieces of paper. That’s why using a Manila paper is more productive than tens of pieces of typewriting paper (does anyone still use a typewriter?) And one more thing, I seriously suggest doing it at night when everyone in your household is asleep. Do it at your dining table, probably the biggest table in your home. You need the peace to think clearly, with no internal or external noise (unless you live by South Beach where the music never stops) and an ample amount of desk space to scatter your papers and references. And please — switch off the TV or even the radio.

While you’re doodling, do not filter ideas that you may wonder if it fits into your mind map. Just keep inserting your thoughts into the mind map. Using a pencil rather than an ink-based pen allows you some means of erasing. For me, the only time I need to erase is to change my links or “lines” that connect one circle to another – never, ever erase your circles. Those are your ideas or thoughts and must be written on paper regardless if you think it opposes one or many of your other ideas. Just like the first rule on “brainstorming,” no filtering of ideas – there are no right or wrong ideas.

It takes a few more nights to see clearly through the large web of ideas you’ve created the first night. I know that it’s exhilarating not to stop during the first night but please remember you have work or personal responsibilities during the day (except for those working at call centers or the like). So, plan for a few nights like three or five. Keep the same routine of a nigh time mind mapping activity. Do not attempt to start transferring your doodles to your computer — there will be ample time to do that later. The more important thing is to refine the links and lines so that the correct ideas link to each other.

Now comes the cerebral activity where your knowledge, things you learned in school and at work, personal experiences and the intuition you developed plays a vital role — deciding which circles (or ideas) to keep and the ones to discard. Let’s face it — not all your ideas relate to your central theme or topic (the middle circle). My method is getting a thick, red pen and putting a star symbol on the circles I think are related to my topic. Use a thick, blue pen to act as your “delete” button if you think you made a mistake putting a star on a circle. No one is more knowledgeable to decide which circle belongs to your central topic than yourself. You can refer to business books and people of professional or academic stature but the result of your mind mapping activity rests on your laurels.

Now, ask yourself these questions — are you the outline kind of person, someone who feels comfortable with sentences and paragraphs, or one who executes strategies and plans straight into a spreadsheet file? Whatever your comfort levels and proficiencies are, your final mind mapped Manila paper becomes your basis for creating the correct flow to which an action plan evolves, a draft of your financial projection is formed, or even an essay or article is composed in a more structured manner.

Creating your business on paper is one of the best things you could so that correct variables are immediately nestled inside the resulting plan. Before SAPADAPPA and the Ishikawa Diagram, start with a “Mind Map” or the like. And start it out on paper — literally! It pays to doodle first before you write!