For the past two years, I have started off the year taking a week to travel with my wife to a conference where she is speaking. It certainly doesn’t hurt that this conference is conveniently hosted in a Walt Disney World Resort. But instead of going to the theme parks all day every day to play…I take some time and gather ideas and write for a couple of those days (I mean, I do the writing at a resort or theme park so it isn’t that bad!).

Why Editorials?

Part of my job as Simple Talk Editor entails writing about 40 editorials a year. Less if I can find other people to write some, but either way, quite a few. Having ideas ready to go makes life easier when I have another one to write and I can’t come up with a new idea.

So I just sit in my hotel, at a resort, or at a theme park at a table and brainstorm ideas. Not sitting at my home desk gives me all sorts of ideas, from people I see, situations I am in, basically anything I observe. You might think “this is just stuff that happens at a theme park,” but so much of the realities of what goes on in normal life shows up in very obvious ways in smaller societies. For example, people navigating the realities of a theme park, or creating software.

Now while the focus of this article is seemingly just ideas for editorial blogs, you can expand this to all ideas you have. I used to do the same things when I was a data architect. I have the same problems with my photography, I have an idea to capture a cool shot, then I only remember when I get back home, 500 miles and six months away from my next opportunity to take that shot.

Two Great Ideas, Only One Blog

Today I want to talk about two of those ideas, with one of them being the core of this blog.

The first is, well, I don’t actually remember. I remember having this epiphany moment in the morning of the day I started the first draft of this article. I said, “This is going to be a good idea. This is going to blow their socks off.” Now I don’t really have anything against people wearing socks, but it certainly was an idea I knew I would be proud of. Sadly, the only thing left of this idea is this article on capturing your ideas. I remember I was walking around, and those last few moments of any forgotten idea when I said, “That is so good, I will write it down here in a minute.”

And then went on with the task I happened to be doing at that moment. Probably getting food, or some banal activity that is part of any regular day. That idea was lost.

The reality of it all is that the idea could actually be total garbage, often the ideas that I think are going to be great turn out to be the ideas that stay on my list for years. Some ideas seem like a great idea, but just don’t work as an article. In this case at the very least, it hatched this blog topic.

Don’t let any unique idea you have get away and have this belief floating in your head that you had some great and wondrous idea that you can’t remember.

Capture that Idea

So for the remaining words of this article, let me give you a bunch of ways to capture your ideas that you almost always can have with you.

Smartphone note-taking tools – I did capture this idea in the iOS reminders app. I am writing the first draft in their notes app. OneNote, EverNotes, GoodNote, or whatever note taking app you can use. Make sure your tool autosaves to the cloud so you never lose a character you type.

Pencil and paper – Yeah, probably a stretch for some of you, but some people still carry around the things. Using a small pad that you always have with you (even by the bed), is a plus.

Smart assistant – I use Siri all the time to capture ideas that pop into my head. “Hey Siri, remind me to write an article about how I forgot to write an article.”. 

I frequently do this when driving from CarPlay, and I have an Apple Watch for any time when I am phone-less. Siri does not judge, at least out loud (I mean, it has been listening all the time anyhow).

Be sure to verify it was captured correctly, because smart assistants sometimes mishear you and don’t question that garble bit of text it thinks you said. Frankly, forgetting to write something at all is better than seeing something like “Right a snarkled blaster about chicken fiefdom” in your list!

Text or email yourself – even if you don’t have a formal notetaking device (like you are one of those super privacy-oriented types who only carry a flip phone), you probably still can use text, right? You can text the number you are calling from as a simple note taking advice.

Capture the audio – If you can’t be bothered with all this newfangled text capturing stuff, and a pencil and paper seems too dangerous, just use the audio app on your phone or get a tape recorder and record yourself. The problem with audio is that you need to transcribe it pretty quickly, because once it starts to pile up, it easily gets overwhelming in a way that text doesn’t.

Waterproof Notetaking Gear – This item was suggested by a commenter, and it is a good idea if you do a lot of thinking in the shower. Search on your favorite retailer for “waterproof shower notes” and you will find waterproof notepads, whiteboards, etc. if you can’t get Siri, Gemini, or Alexa to respond to your commands. Probably don’t do this at the gym though!

Limit including others

One way I am going to tell you to be wary of is involving others. When you feel like you don’t have time to capture an idea yourself, who hasn’t looked over to the person they are with and said: “Don’t let me forget that I had this great idea.” And this commonly does is increase the number of people who have forgotten the idea. It does give you a scapegoat and something to argue about, but that isn’t valuable as a great remembering device.

Finally, if you have ignored all my previous advice, don’t have any electronics or even analog recording devices with you, not even a rock to scratch the idea on the pavement and need to keep an idea active in your mind…use repetition. Keep that idea active in your mind with repetition. In your Mind. With… you know. But seriously, you have to keep it active in a way that is almost annoying if you are even slightly forgetful.

Make up a poem or song and sing it. Use an earworm song, like maybe “It’s a Small World.” Like, say your idea is about backups:


Don’t let failures lose your data, dear
If you do, your boss will kick you out of here
It’s a backup after all <repeat over and over and over>

When successfully done, you not only won’t forget that idea, you won’t be able to get the song out of your mind for well after you have written it down. (Sorry, Disney World fans, you will hopefully get it out of your head in a few hours)… which should remind you in the future to carry some form of note-taking device with you whereever you are, especially now that phones are typically water resistant.

Conclusion

Don’t let good or bad ideas fly away and fill you with regret. Lost good ideas are pretty obvious, but that lost bad idea will haunt you even more because bad ideas always seem so much better than they are. You want to save your regret for other stuff than thinking all your lost ideas are great.

Written down, you can rest easily with the knowledge that all your best ideas are written down. And so are your worst.