Take Permission

#6 Stop Losing Your Great Ideas: How To Keep Track Of Everything You Want To Remember

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You get ideas ALL THE TIME.

But there’s a problem. You either have them spread all over the place, or you don’t develop them because you lose faith that it’s actually a good idea, so you just drop it.

I live in the world of “thought leaders” so guess what a key to victory is? Capturing your thoughts!

I’m not a detail oriented person but I don’t lose digital data, ever. I don’t lose receipts, ideas, or reminders. If you stick around you’ll learn 10 different ways to never lose an important idea again.

You can keep wandering, being frustrated at losing your great ideas, or you can start capturing everything. Here we go…

  1. Keep your idea capturing tool with you at all times
    2. Notebook, program. It has to be accessible at all times. Can be difficult so the right system has to be able to bridge a napkin or a post-it or an article you read, an email yo received or an audio recording.
  2. Keep your process simple but always write down more than the idea
    3. Label all of your ideas, blogpost, or marriage, or whatever
  3. Accept your ideas as they come to you
    4. Edit later. Capture now.
  4. Don’t write down one word
    5. Scrape everything out of your idea in the beginning. Use bullet points, not sentences.
  5. Capture it while it’s fresh
    6. Don’t say “I’ll write it down later”, especially at night.
  6. Take notes everywhere
    7. During conversations with friends. Tell people you’re writing down what they said if they prompted the idea. Be ready for ideas no matter where you are.
  7. Have a system for getting ideas from difficult places
    8. Books and podcasts you listen to. PocketCasts – Allows you to send a specific moment from a podcast. https://play.pocketcasts.com/
  8. Have boundaries
    9. Church, spending time with your kids, as you fall asleep. Don’t let digital get in the way. I use a small Evernote Notebook from Moleskine when I’m with my kids so I stay off my phone. It’s lighter than my phone, and I can’t break it. I made a video on how buying those notebooks allows me to get Evernote at 84% off the regular price.
  9. Use something that handles all types of files
    10. If you want to speak your ideas, take pictures, capture articles, scribble notes, then enter them by taking a picture.
  10. Use Evernote to do all of these things
    11. I’ve created a simple five video series for you to learn the basics of Evernote. 
    1. How to create notes
    2. How to create shortcuts
    3. How to keep track of all of your notes
    4. How to create reminders in Evernote
    5. How to search any kind of text inside images, including your own handwriting

      6. ...more
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      Take PermissionBy Andy Traub