Adhoc and Random Thoughts and inspiration

[Jimhardie74]

Hey Guys,

Up until now, I carried a notepad around with me and captured pretty much anything that was remotely meaningful. I also took notes at seminars I went to or during meetings etc.

I would then take all these notes and type them into relevant evernote in a notebooks called 'Real Estate Brainstorm notes' or 'Health brainstorm' etc. Unfortunatley I am now just left with a big list in each folder which is a total mess.

I'm looking for a more elegant strategy and would love to know what all of you guys do with adhoc thoughts that arent immediatley needed, but you might want to refer to later. Like David says, 'there is no reason to ever lose a thought about a project'

Thanks for reading!

 

[Oogiem]

I do something similar to what you do although my storage tool of choice is DEVONThink. I create a folder for notes on various topics as if it was a regular file cabinet and all the random thoughts are separate notes within that folder. I also review at all the notes at least yearly and consolidate or delete or even re-write as appropriate. I was trying to do all of that work during my year end special review but it got to be too much so now I spread it out over the 4 quarterly in-depth reviews I do at the solstices and the equinoxes.

I'd only really worry about it if the mess is bothering you or you can't find something when you remember saving it or if you find yourself duplicating items a lot.

 

[TesTeq]

My problem with hoarding was: FOMO. I was afraid that by not capturing every information and not buying every book with a nice title I would miss something. But I've discovered that having an information captured and having a book on my shelf does not solve the problem of knowing.

 

[Oogiem]

My problem with hoarding was: FOMO.

What is FOMO?

I don't think that saving thoughts you have is hoarding at all. It's being kind to your future self. I've had random thoughts that I have saved for the past 50+ years. Some of them keep getting added to over time and sit there comfortably in my filing system. On occasion I refer to the information as reference, much of it is not available on the web or in a library. Occasionally I convert the random thoughts over a few decades into a project that gets completed. I have found that thoughts I had 20 or 30 years ago about how to approach something are valuable when I finally decide to make the project active. The only issue is how to store them and how to search and find them again. Electronic systems excel at that task and the space is somewhat irrelevant as well.

 

[Jodie E. Francis]

I use your method, Jim, and it works for me. Evernote has excellent full text search capabilities, or I can browse notes that I've grouped into notebooks. In future when I want to find something I start with Evernote, then move to the web for updated/expanded info.

 

[Gardener]

I've switched to physical, paper, bound lab notebooks (the kind designed for you to NOT ever tear a page out) for this sort of thing, because notes that I took in any software always got lost. I'm figuring that I'll just line the notebooks up on a shelf. So far, I like it, but I'd have to wait a while, to the point where I'm searching for things I've forgotten, to be sure. It doesn't offer any facility for reorganizing, but that doesn't bother me; if I'm actively working on something I'm probably rewriting it anyway, and if I'm not it's probably not worth the reorganizing time.

My first lab notebook was full letter size; when it was almost full I ordered more, and accidentally ordered smaller ones, roughly the size of, come to think of it, the paperbound edition of the GTD books. These are easier to stuff into various bags, and the page is still big enough; I'm glad for the mistake.

I devoted one of the small lab notebooks to this year's vegetable garden, when I realized that it had a page for every garden bed (120 of them) plus just a few more. It works better than any garden notekeeping system I've ever used before. The primary risk is, of course, losing it. And if I get serious about plant breeding, one page per bed may not be nearly enough.

But meanwhile, it works so well that I may start keeping a general notebook plus one for each major hobby.