Project Bananas: The Beginning

I'm pretty sure we've all been there. You read something, sawsomething, or heard something that got your imagination going and suddenly hatched a crazy plan in your mind. Maybe it was to quit your job and travel the world, write a bestselling novel, or get a body like a supermodel. But it doesn't take long before reality sets in and holes start poking their way into your plan. Your career and finances can't really take the hit of a long trip, you can't find the time to park yourself in front of your laptop, and the muscleheads at the gym scared you out of the weight room. So you abandon the project, convince yourself it was a crazy idea, feel guilty about it, and then forgot about the whole incident.

But here's the thing. Maybe it wasn't such a crazy idea after all? Or maybe the idea was a little bit crazy, but at heart of it was actually something totally reasonable. Maybe you just needed to start on a little smaller of a scale.

I'm the queen of insane projects. Some of them I tell people about and some of them only exist in my mind (mostly because I'm too embarassed to tell people about them). I've started and failed more projects than many people have ever even thought of in their entire lives. That's what comes from having an overactive imagination but being a classic underachiever. Besides, if you never actually finish something, does it really count as a failure? In my mind, the possibilities are truly endless because none of my projects ever come to fruition.

I think I've been working up to the idea for a while, but it finally came to me today. It's a very long story involving the 'Thursday Next' series by Jasper Fforde, used bookstores, and a walk home in the cold and pouring rain. But on the walk home the plan solidified in my mind. What if every time you came up with a wild and crazy idea you dialed it back to something achievable in the short term? Then, when and if (but totally when, right?) you achieve your short term goal you can either work up to a more involved version of Original Crazy Plan or perhaps even Original Crazy Plan itself.

And thus, Project Bananas (ie. totally crazy) was born. Every week, I'm going to tame one of my crazy ideas and trim it down into something I can achieve in 7 days. Hopefully I'll succeed and hopefully you'll want to read about it (or at least my mother will...).