subject: Capturing Ideas - Before They Slip Away For Good [print this page] Capturing Ideas - Before They Slip Away For Good
Wouldn't it be great if your best ideas came to you when you're sat down with your laptop switched on and you're ready to take action?
The truth is I can't remember the last time this happened to me. Many of my best ideas have revealed themselves when I'm out walking, golfing or in the gym.
The best ideas always seem to come to us when we're least able to do anything about them. By the time you arrive home and open the laptop you've usually forgotten some or all of your ideas and you might never think of them again. The opportunity has been missed and you'll never get the chance to take action and implement them.
So what's the solution? The solution is to record your ideas as they occur, whenever this is, wherever you are. Simple, but not enough of us do it and too many of our best ideas are forgotten about.
How you record these ideas depends on what suits you best but here's a few ideas:
Simple little notebook and pen. Richard Branson has used this method for most of his life.
Voice recorder or online service like Jott.com, which takes your voice message and converts it to text before emailing or texting it to you
Electronic mobile device that you always carry, like a mobile phone or iPod
Using whichever methods suit you best you can now record ideas as they occur an then carry on what you were doing. Next time you sit down to work you can gather your ideas together and organise them in a more logical way. Note: mindmaps are a popular method for organising ideas and we'll talk about these soon in another post.
Now your ideas are organised you can prepare to take action safe in the knowledge that all of your best ideas have been captured and none have escaped you because you weren't prepared for their arrival.
I hope you found this information useful. Some of my best ideas have occurred when I was swimming or in the steam room. For such situations I haven't yet found a solution for capturing ideas. I'd be interested to hear if you've found one which you'd like to share with me.
