How to Capture All Those Fleeting Ideas

Ideas are pretty finicky. They come quickly and half the time they go just as fast. Just the other night I had an idea and it was gone as soon as it came. You won’t be able to catch every idea but, you will catch most of them this way. And here’s how:

It’s actu­ally very sim­ple. Keep a note­book handy. Yup that’s it. Even it’s not a note­book, keep some­thing handy to write ideas down on at all times. It’s pretty ele­men­tary and it’s been said many times before but it seems that peo­ple still don’t do it.

It doesn’t mat­ter where I’m at or what I’m doing, I always have, at the very least, a pen in my pocket. I usu­ally have a small note­book on hand as well (but not always). The point of hav­ing this on me is this: Ideas come at seem­ingly ran­dom times. Our brain processes things while we are doing other stuff. Espe­cially while we are relax­ing. It’s not unusual to lay down for the night or on the couch to relax and have some ideas pop in your head.

Always have some­thing to write on nearby. For one, the rea­son above, and two, ideas come and go very quickly. It’s not unusual to have some­thing slip away by the time you get to writ­ing it down.

Writ­ing things down solid­i­fies the idea in your brain. And it also saves the idea for another time if need be. Then when you have time to look into your idea a lit­tle bit more and maybe flesh it out, it’s there wait­ing for you. Not lost.

It doesn’t have to be hard either. Here’s what I do. As I said, I always will have a pen in my pocket. Comes from a very long time habit. And I keep a small 3x5 notepad handy. All I use that for is ideas that pop in my head. It doesn’t mat­ter what kind of idea it is. Or if I even use it or not. I write it down anyways.

So an idea for my next blog pops in my head, I write it down. An idea for an arti­cle, I write down. An idea of some­thing to change on my blog, I write down. Even if I remem­ber some­thing I need to do, yup, you got it. I write it down.

At the end of the day I go through these ideas and copy them into some­thing a lit­tle more per­ma­nent. Or make a note if it’s some­thing I’ll use sooner. So now I have a col­lec­tion of ideas I can use for blogs posts and arti­cles. Or a nice lit­tle change I can do to my blog design. Or even some­thing to imple­ment in my business.

I think you get the point. Write it down. Whether you plan on using your idea right away or later, write it down. Just a sim­ple scrib­ble will help immensely. And besides who couldn’t use a col­lec­tion of ideas on hand.

~Chris

What do you do that helps you remem­ber your ideas?

Sim­i­lar Posts:

• A New (And Help­ful) To Do List
• Dis­trac­tions — 9 Prac­ti­cal Ways to Deal With Them
• 4 Ways to Re-Evaluate Your Busi­ness (part 2)

I’m glad to see you back at The OMV. I hope your enjoy­ing your time. Feel free to con­tact me for any­thing and if you haven’t already, don’t for­get to sub­scribe to The OMV Newslet­ter. Leave a com­ment too! I’d love to hear from you.