How To Never Forget Your Ideas Again
Read THIS if you’re tired of forgetting your life-changing shower thoughts👇🏼
As a writer, our brilliant ideas are our lifeblood.
We rely on them to make us useful, unique, and irreplaceable in our respective tasks.
But they’re such a pain to keep track of.
Tell me if you’ve been this:
You’re on some random walk (you already know where I’m going with this).
You’re all relaxed, enjoying the fresh air, thinking about nothing in particular — then suddenly: boom. A brilliant idea that makes you stop everything you’re doing and go “holy #%*?, I should write about that.”
But man, you’re on a walk. The air is nice. You’re not in work mode. Plus, the idea is so good, you’re 100% sure you’ll remember it later.
And then you don’t.
Completely oblivious, you go about the rest of your day. Hours pass. Maybe days. And then, suddenly, maybe when you’re staring at a blank screen, you think “Wait, didn’t I have that really cool idea on my walk? What was that again?”
And now the only thing left is a sense of loss and utter frustration. This must be what amnesia feels like.
But … it doesn’t have to be. There’s a dead simple solution to this particular problem, and it’s:
Write it out
I know. Shocker, right? Of course I’m going to tell you about the most obvious solution.
Well, duh.
What did you think I was going to write about, a Jedi mind trick?
But no, really. David Allen, the brain behind the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, famously said:
“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.”
The average human brain’s short-term memory holds information for about 15–30 seconds. Yes, seconds. After that, either it fades into nothing forever or it’s strong enough to be filed for later.
How do things get saved in our mental sorting facilities? A ton of factors — I’m not even going to pretend to know them. If our missing ideas are any indication, it isn’t easy.
(Unless it’s that one thing you did in high school… but we’re not here for that)
But there’s a way we can circumvent all that
One of the best ways is to write your ideas as they come to you. When you write things down, at that instant, you leave a permanent record that you can look at later. It’s just there.
It’s so efficient, so effective, that people have been doing it for ages. Leonardo Da Vinci wrote things down. Einstein wrote things down.
Heck, your grandma wrote things down. Your parents too, probably, and that millionaire influencer you follow definitely.
It’s so easy too. Bring a pocket notebook, bring a pen. And then bam— idea-capturing machine.
But, you might say, notebooks and pens are such a pain.
And yes, you’re quite right. But there’s an even better way.
Digital idea capturing system: the improvement you didn’t know you needed
Physically writing things down is a great way to remember your ideas as you have them — but in today’s day and age, it’s not the most efficient. Instead, you can use apps like Notion.
Notion, for those who don’t know, is a highly customizable productivity software. There’s a free version. It’s great — I’ve been using it every day for years.
But why, you might wonder, do you have to go so far? Don’t most smartphones have a note-taking app?
Yes, they do, but there are three key characteristics that put project management apps like Notion a step further.
Organizability
The thing with native note apps is that it’s very difficult to store and organize them. You can access notes relatively instantly, but you can’t tag ideas, group them at will, date them, and separate them.
On the other hand, Notion (being the one I use) lets you categorize all your ideas with precision.
This makes it far easier to group your ideas, notice patterns, and manufacture creative connections.
Searchability
Native note apps are only great up to a point — someday, you’re going to have a mountain of notes on your phone. That’s bad news if it’s say, 2050, and you want to look at an idea you had today, at 2023.
Apps like Notion have several functionalities that completely eliminate this problem.
It has a filter that lets you look through tags or dates.
And a search function that lets you search for specific things.
This makes accessing previous notes a breeze and completely eliminates the frantic scrolling in search of that elusive note.
Customizability
If you want an idea-capturing system that will stick, then you need to be able to design it for your specific purpose.
Customizability lets you create your own frictionless system that adapts to your needs.
Plus, the more time you spend designing and altering your system, the more value you tend to place on it. This is called the sunk cost fallacy, and yes — that’s often a bad thing, but this time it works for us.
Your creativity is unique, and your note-taking system should reflect that
Never Forget Your Ideas Again
The secret to keeping your brilliance is simple: either write it down or design your own creative idea-capturing system.
Whatever method you’re using, take note that it has to follow what I call the 2IO Rule.
- Intentional. You need to consciously decide on a system to keep your ideas — it won’t just happen out of the blue.
- Immediate. Saving your thoughts must happen within 15 to 30 seconds, otherwise, you will very likely forget about it. Your system should reflect that.
- Organizable. Your system must have the capability to be organized.
Your brain was not designed to hold on to your brilliant thoughts. But with a simple, implementable solution, all those brilliant sparks of inspiration will never be wasted again.
