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After working recently with Jetpack Dance-Off to launch a word game Phrays, I better understand that we (even as independents) can do the impossible through the simple act of sharing.

Everyone has ideas to offer, but few execute because taking the first step often feels like climbing a mountain. But one person’s mountain is another’s pebble in the path. In this way a complementary team lifts one another to places not reachable individually. So with the right people, you can walk anywhere. That’s collaborative thinking and freelancers need to do more of it.

Tips for effective collaboration

Be ready: write down every idea. Right now, open a document or take out a piece of paper and list every idea. Title each entry and summarize them with only one sentence. If the idea can’t be described easily with one sentence, then consider simplifying the concept.

Make creative but supportive friends. Seek out kindred creative minds in person or online. Be mad scientists together. Sit down (or type) over coffee or tea, wildly speculate about how horse auctions will be conducted fifty years from now. Discuss great ideas and terrible ideas with equal enthusiasm. Have humor and don’t force anything. Only pursue the ideas that really intrigue all collaborating parties.

Have a collaboration-friendly life. Make time to collaborate. If you work fifty hours a week and have three children, then collaboration will be really challenging (but still very doable). Be honest with yourself and your collaborators regarding your availability.

Carefully choose collaborative opportunities. All participants in the project should be necessary i.e. offer something that the collaboration really needs. Similarly, all collaborators should have a stake in the end product. A person that wants you to do all of the work without offering anything valuable (and not just a whip-cracker) isn’t a collaborator, he or she is a parasite.

Just do it already. This is most important. Plan generously but when the time is ripe get started and keep momentum strong on collaborative projects. Know that momentum exists only when visible progress is being made every week.

But careful

Not every idea calls for collaboration. Sometimes you can do something yourself. Sometimes an idea that sounds so awesome isn’t smelling as fresh a few weeks later. But if your idea is strong yet circumstances aren’t ripe for working together, consider outsourcing or pulling the concept off solo. What is important ultimately is that one acts on their ideas and keeps writing new ones down.