A couple of nights ago I noticed a tweet by Manuel, a Frenchman living in Montreal.
“Note to self: when I have a good idea, I have to write it down and not assume I will remember it after a nap.”
This reminded me of what I originally thought to be a quote, but it now turns out (after an intense Google search) that I may have made it up myself (the first half of the quote, pre-comma, is a quote or mis-quote—depending who you ask—by Charlies H. Duell). Happily, it still fits…
“Everything has already been invented, we’ve just forgotten most of it.”
I wrote in last weeks post how, when coming up with an amazing idea, I have to get it down on paper as soon as I possibly can for fear of forgetting it.
This act of note taking has become more and more commonplace during my daily life. It’s incredibly exciting to get home after a long day at work, pull out your pockets, and see idea after idea fall out onto the bed, just waiting to be discovered again.
Looking through your forgotten ideas fills your with the motivation and confidence you need to go out and implement them.
Of course, the depressing element to all of this is every time you read a note you’ve previously written to yourself and think “I’d forgotten all about that”, that is an idea that would have been lost forever had you not written it down.
You may have had hundreds, if not thousands of ideas up until this point in your life that you have simply forgotten. Man could be living on Mars today if it wasn’t for that absent pen on a NASA engineers bedside table twenty years previous.
“I’m sure I’ll remember it in the morning”, he would have said to himself, seconds before falling back to sleep and destroying my childhood dreams for another half century (I’m forever an optimist).
Last night I woke in the half-awake half-sleep dream phase we all know and love. Unfortunately, I woke with an idea. Despite knowing I was going to be writing this exact post on note taking the next morning, I tried to figure a way out of it. I was so comfortable. I knew no pen and paper were In reach. I only had one option.
I rolled over, grabbed my phone, and tried my best to enter the passcode while facing the devil bright screen in the opposite direction to me. “Brightness down, brightness down!” I screamed internally, as I officially woke myself from any form of sleep I’d been harbouring to write a typo-rich (and hilariously autocorrected) note to self.
Sure enough, six hours later as I woke to write this post I checked my phone and saw my note as if it were brand new once more. “What a bloody good idea”, I thought. “Good job I wrote that down”.
Carry a notebook or a simple scrap of paper around with you for just one week. Jot down every single idea that comes to mind about anything at all.
You’ll be amazed by how clever you are.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
A Moleskine and a Fisher Space Pen. Always.
My problem tends to be that I scribble things down and never go back and look at them. = )
Going back is key ;)
Delightful. I just wrote on the same topic (just cut out the “good ideas”). Sadly, most of my midnight-revelations are things like ‘universes begin on Thursdays.” I’m no Steve Jobs.
We’ll: the stream of ideas–that moment when the preconscious touches the collective–that’s beautiful. And the hand to pen to ink to paper can be magical, if only just for our own narrative.
Cheers, Benjamin.
M
Mark, thank you for handing me my favourite comment of the week. If all comments stared with such a compliment I’d hesitate to say the world would be a better place. Fuck it, I hesitate to say nothing—the world WOULD be a better place.
I’ve started writing so much more down of late, compared to my previous method of opening up the pale yellow ‘notes’ app on my phone. Putting pen to paper and outlining what I have to do next for my business website is the only way anything ever gets done.
Cheers for your insight Mark. I’ve been reading though Joshua’s short story collection today, I’m looking forward to getting to your contribution!
Oh, now I realize I should have just read this post, instead of commenting on the other one. My bad =P
I’m honoured you read both!
Haha. Don’t be, you’re a brilliant writer. And hyperlink hooks work like candy =)