Secrets to Organizing Thoughts and Ideas (So You’ll
Never Lose Ideas!)
Have you ever become aware of your thoughts? I mean truly aware.
If so, you’ll probably have noticed that they’re disordered, disorganized and
racing rapidly around your mind. Imagine if you could harness this and control
it for your benefit!
This article aims to give you advice on organizing thoughts and
ideas, providing you seven tools to help you decrease the chances of losing
your ideas and make the most of them.
It’s helpful to think of each point as successive steps along
the way. Here’re 7 simple steps you should start trying on how to organize your
thoughts:
1. Keep a notebook
in your car
Ideas seem to be able to come at any time. You need to be ready
for this. As such it can be a great idea to keep notebooks in places where
inspiration may appear.
It’s as the film maker Noah Baumbach once said
“I find a lot of writing happens when you’re not actually at the
computer. So I carry a notebook”
Your car is a prime location to keep one.
Suddenly grabbing a notebook when driving can be extremely
dangerous however. So if you have a method to record your voice while driving
this is a great and safe substitute.
Alternatively, just keep driving until you find a safe place to
pull over and write your idea down.
2. Keep a pen and
paper on your bedside table
You probably know that your dreams aren’t just randomly
occurring, each dream we have can tell us something about our subconsciousness,
the meanings behind our thoughts and feelings.
Therefore it can be a good idea to be aware of your dreams, and
with it, write down anything significant about them that springs to mind.
Our dreams are easily forgot, therefore keeping a notebook can
be a great way to harness your mind when it’s at this extremely creative
period.
Even when you’re not dreaming, lying down trying to sleep can
often let your mind wander freely bringing your ideas to focus.[1] This
can be quite annoying if you’re actually trying to sleep.
Keeping a notebook beside your bed can both help you note down
your ideas ensuring you won’t forget them. As you’ve written you idea down, you
don’t need to waste your energy trying to ensure you remember them. This might
help you get to sleep faster.
3. Don’t organize
the ideas as you jot them down at first
When you’re writing down your ideas, it can be tempting to
ensure they’re written in an organized, ordered fashion. Fight this urge.
When you’re noting your ideas, you might find more and more
ideas come at you. Taking time to ensure they’re immediately well organized can
slow you down.
I’m not saying that they should always be disorganized. You
might find this will be unhelpful in the long run.
By all means, come back to your notes and organize them. But
this shouldn’t be your priority at first.
4. Compile your
ideas in one place (e.g. use apps like Evernote)
All of the points above are about the vital moments to catch and
keep an idea before it goes. However, that isn’t enough. Your ideas need to be easily
accessible.
As such, it is a great idea to keep your notes and ideas in a
single place.
It’s great having all of your ideas down. But having them
written in different places or formats can become a hindrance.
Copy your notes and have them in a single location. This can be
a separate notebook but there are a number of great Apps which allow you to
keep and store your notes right on your computer or smartphone. I
recommend Evernote.
You might find ideas written in one place relate to another one
written. Plus revisiting your notes can be a great way to bring them back to
your mind, perhaps inspiring more and better ideas.
5. Organize your
ideas
Now that your ideas are compiled, it’s time to organize them in
a way that is helpful and easy to understand.
One quick and easy way to organize your ideas is to categorize
them.
You might have noticed some of your ideas are linked or related
thematically. Consider what links them them note them under this idea. If you
have many ideas, you could even make subcategories.
For example, if you’re a fiction writer, you could group some of
your ideas under “Stories” and the form you think the story should be told: a
drama script, a novel, or short story etc. Then with separate subgroups for
genre such as historical fiction or sci-fi.
With this, you can develop on ideas in a way that is quick and
efficient.
6. Kill your
darlings
Once you’ve got all your ideas written down and organized. It’s
time for the real work to begin — to figure out what ideas to keep and what
ideas to get rid of.
“Kill your darlings” is an important advice for writers. It
means that you have to get rid of your most “precious” ideas and words.
Not all ideas are equal. In your notes, there could be a truly
brilliant original idea but the chances of them all being like this are
unfortunately slim. There is no point wasting your time on an idea that will
never work.
Sometimes, it can be difficult to tell which of your ideas are
great and which are not. Trusting your gut can be a good way, talking to people
about your ideas and seeing how they react can also be a good idea.
If you aren’t sure how to decide if an idea is good enough, take
a look at this guide:
Remember to get rid of your emotions surrounding your ideas and
approach them in an honest and objective way.
Once you’ve trimmed your ideas down to the very best, you can
work on making them a reality.
7. Make your ideas
actionable
You could have an amazing idea for something but if you don’t
work on your ideas, nothing happens.
You need to start making your ideas a reality. Make them
actionable.
A great way to do this is to approach each idea in turn and ask
yourself the following questions:
- How
can I make this relevant to my everyday life?
- Which
ideas would be most beneficial to act on today and why?
- Is
there a common theme emerging here? If so, how could I combine these ideas
together to make them more powerful?
These questions enable you to work out which idea is most
actionable and what idea you should first start working on.
With the above seven steps in mind, you’ll be able to master
your ideas making potential.
With them, your thoughts and feelings can be utilized to boost
your productivity.
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/10-ways-organize-your-thoughts-and-never-lose-ideas-again.html
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