How do I build the habit of writing down a fleeting thought that seems interesting? Way too often I notice that I just wanted to do something or write something down. Or should I just accept the thought as gone?
I carry at all times a tiny notebook (smaller than my hand) and a pen so small I can barely use it comfortably. That’s low tech and not very efficient (because I’ll need to type it up later), but very quick, easily survives the sometimes inhospitable pocket environment, doesn’t need electricity and works for non-textual thoughts.
Do you have a smartphone? Just hit the voice command button and say “Make a note: [whatever you need to make a note of]”
Alternatively, I find it’s easier to do things when you’ve already started. Maybe make a note on your phone and add a couple ideas. Then, the next time you have an idea, you already have a dedicated place to put it, so you just put it there instead of wondering what to do with it and ending up doing nothing because you can’t get past the inertia of starting. Then award yourself a mental point as a reward to train your mind to keep coming up with ideas and writing them down.
And if you do forget something, don’t worry about it too much. The whole “I just had a reallygood idea but now I forgot, ohno!” pattern is really common. Much more common than the “I just had a great idea and I wrote it down and I still think it’s great” pattern. I’ve always taken this as evidence that the idea you forgot wasn’t actually that great and it only feels that way because you forgot about it and you’re suffering from a kind of forbidden-fruit/grass-is-greener bias. People tend to remember really good ideas because they’re contextual or actionable.
I always carry an LTE-connected smartphone capable of gesture typing, so I’m able to quickly write down anything whenever and wherever it occurs to me, be it in a park, in a forest, at work, on a toilet etc. (My personal preference is a high-end big-screen phone with a stock Android (currently Nexus 5), but as of September 17 2014, you can use iOS 8 with a custom keyboard).
I use several mobile apps intended for capturing different kinds of thoughts: Wunderlist, Trello, Google Docs. I prefer these apps because they all sync to the cloud, which means that 1) I can access the content on any platform, and 2) that the phone is essentially disposable and I won’t lose my notes when it gets lost or stolen.
Here’s how I capture thoughts:
If the thought is actionable, it goes to Wunderlist (a classic todo list app which I hate but alas, I can’t seem to find a better alternative).
If the thought is related to an ongoing project, it goes into an appropriate Google Doc or the Trello board of that project. If the thought is large enough, it may warrant the creation of its own Google Doc.
If the thought is related to self-improvement / self-discovery, it goes to a Trello board dedicated specifically to that.
I usually ask these as questions on Quora. Quora is incredibly tolerant of even inane questions, and has the benefit of allowing others to provide feedback (in the form of answers and comments to the question). If a question has already been asked, then you will also be able to read what others have written in response and/or follow that question for future answers. Quora also has the option of anonymizing questions. I’ve found that always converting my thoughts into questions has made me very conscious of what sort of questions are interesting to ask (not that there’s anything right with that).
Another idea is to practice this with writing down dreams. After waking up, I often think “It’s not really worth writing that dream down anyway”, whereas in reality I would find it quite interesting if I came back to it later. Forcing oneself to write thoughts down even when one is not inclined to may lead to more sedulous record-keeping. (But this is just speculation.)
How do I build the habit of writing down a fleeting thought that seems interesting? Way too often I notice that I just wanted to do something or write something down. Or should I just accept the thought as gone?
I carry at all times a tiny notebook (smaller than my hand) and a pen so small I can barely use it comfortably. That’s low tech and not very efficient (because I’ll need to type it up later), but very quick, easily survives the sometimes inhospitable pocket environment, doesn’t need electricity and works for non-textual thoughts.
I do this too, and it holds my former wallet contents in a pocket, so not even an extra thing to track.
Do you have a smartphone? Just hit the voice command button and say “Make a note: [whatever you need to make a note of]”
Alternatively, I find it’s easier to do things when you’ve already started. Maybe make a note on your phone and add a couple ideas. Then, the next time you have an idea, you already have a dedicated place to put it, so you just put it there instead of wondering what to do with it and ending up doing nothing because you can’t get past the inertia of starting. Then award yourself a mental point as a reward to train your mind to keep coming up with ideas and writing them down.
And if you do forget something, don’t worry about it too much. The whole “I just had a really good idea but now I forgot, oh no!” pattern is really common. Much more common than the “I just had a great idea and I wrote it down and I still think it’s great” pattern. I’ve always taken this as evidence that the idea you forgot wasn’t actually that great and it only feels that way because you forgot about it and you’re suffering from a kind of forbidden-fruit/grass-is-greener bias. People tend to remember really good ideas because they’re contextual or actionable.
Here’s my system for that:
I always carry an LTE-connected smartphone capable of gesture typing, so I’m able to quickly write down anything whenever and wherever it occurs to me, be it in a park, in a forest, at work, on a toilet etc. (My personal preference is a high-end big-screen phone with a stock Android (currently Nexus 5), but as of September 17 2014, you can use iOS 8 with a custom keyboard).
I use several mobile apps intended for capturing different kinds of thoughts: Wunderlist, Trello, Google Docs. I prefer these apps because they all sync to the cloud, which means that 1) I can access the content on any platform, and 2) that the phone is essentially disposable and I won’t lose my notes when it gets lost or stolen.
Here’s how I capture thoughts:
If the thought is actionable, it goes to Wunderlist (a classic todo list app which I hate but alas, I can’t seem to find a better alternative).
If the thought is related to an ongoing project, it goes into an appropriate Google Doc or the Trello board of that project. If the thought is large enough, it may warrant the creation of its own Google Doc.
If the thought is related to self-improvement / self-discovery, it goes to a Trello board dedicated specifically to that.
I usually ask these as questions on Quora. Quora is incredibly tolerant of even inane questions, and has the benefit of allowing others to provide feedback (in the form of answers and comments to the question). If a question has already been asked, then you will also be able to read what others have written in response and/or follow that question for future answers. Quora also has the option of anonymizing questions. I’ve found that always converting my thoughts into questions has made me very conscious of what sort of questions are interesting to ask (not that there’s anything right with that).
Another idea is to practice this with writing down dreams. After waking up, I often think “It’s not really worth writing that dream down anyway”, whereas in reality I would find it quite interesting if I came back to it later. Forcing oneself to write thoughts down even when one is not inclined to may lead to more sedulous record-keeping. (But this is just speculation.)
I have Simplenote installed on my phone, and I pull things out and note them there very frequently.
(Later, they become blog posts/to-dos/etc)
get a twitter