Nathan Hangen

Why Your Ideas Are Never Where You Need Them

I’m the type of guy that has trouble sticking with a single activity for a long period of time. I like to multitask and start a bunch of projects at once until I find one that sticks with me. Sure, you could argue that it’s a character flaw, but at this point I’ve learned to just deal…as such, I’ve learned a thing or two about how to stay on track even when I’m working on more than one thing at once.

In the past, when I’d start a new project, I’d spend very little time organizing my thoughts and as a result, I’d wind up losing momentum trying to recapture the essence of my idea. When I lost that focus, the project would either live forever as an incomplete task, which would weigh on my mind, or it would be completed as an inferior quality product. The thing is, multitasking is possible when you learn how to organize and store your ideas, but until you do you’ll likely struggle to maintain consistency and efficiency.

Create an Idea Bank

To fix my problem, I started creating an idea bank to store the notes, images, and URL’s that helped spark the idea for my projects. For instance, right now I’m working on a new product design and I needed to provide my designer with a list of products that I liked. Thanks to my idea bank, I’ve got that covered. I sent a list of a dozen different PDF’s and images that inspired me.

Another project, Twitter Rockstar 2.0, requires me to have a large amount of information on hand so that I can reference it when need be. Thanks to my idea bank, I can quickly scroll through my Twitter Rockstar folder and grab what I need on the fly. As a final example, I’m working on a book called Beyond Blogging, which profiles quite a few A-list bloggers, including their bio’s, past projects, and current products. I use my idea bank to store every piece of information I find so that I never lose time trying to remember an important piece of information.

As a blogger, an idea bank is crucial for keeping post ideas, inspirational stories and quotes, and great designs in one place for when the writing mood strikes. Having one has saved me countless hours of wasted productivity, and more importantly, keeps me from feeling burned out.

Evernote is My Hero

In the past, I used a combination of StumbleUpon, Google Notebook, Evernote, and Del.icio.us to store links, pictures, and web content. In fact, in the early days of this blog I provided an in depth comparison of Google Notebook vs. Evernote. Although it took me a while to find a true winner in the deal, necessity forced me to move to the most efficient system I could find.

Bookmarks were difficult to maintain and I lost the ability to tag properly with StumbleUpon…at least in a manner that allowed me to find my idea quickly. Google Notebook was no longer being developed, and so I started testing Evernote as a system of its own. It didn’t take long before I realized that not only could Evernote become my single idea bank, but it could also be the most important tool on my desktop.

How to Set Up Your Idea Bank

To get started, grab the Evernote desktop app, which allows you to note things on the fly with Evernote’s web clipper. In the past, I would copy URL’s and text to Google Notebook, but the problem was that my text didn’t capture the essence of the idea. In otherwords, when I would go back through my notes, I couldn’t figure out why I had noted that particular piece of text.

Rather than copy and past text or URL’s, I use Evernote’s web clipper to take full screen shots of the page I am on. Evernote automatically labels the note with the URL, but more importantly, the image of the page will provide the context you need to understand your notes.

I set up folders in Evernote for:

• Inspiration and Ideas – Websites that motivate me, quotes, cool designs, cool products, etc
• Designers – I use this to keep a file of all the web designers I find as I’m browsing the interwebs. I got sick of not being able to remember names when I needed them most. Now, I have a list of hundreds of great designs, and dozens of great designers, including ecover artists, iPhone app programmers, and web designers.
• Product Files – I use Evernote to keep a product file for every project that I’m working on or will be working on in the future. Rather than search based on need, I keep a file handy to snag ideas on the fly.
• Communication – Important chat logs and SMS/MMS texting records.
• Clients – I keep a file for each consulting client and for any customer that I communicate with often.

This is just a sample of what you can do with your idea bank, but as you can probably see, having all of these notes on hand, in image format where possible, allows me to have my own wiki file. The best part is, you don’t have to be online to use the Evernote desktop app…you can synchronize when your internet connection is re-established. You can also use the iPhone app to grab notes while you are traveling. Thanks to mobile capabilities, there is no limit to what you can log in your idea bank.

Notebooks be Damned

I used to carry a bunch of notebooks around to store ideas, I don’t have to do that anymore. Sure, I keep a notepad handy in the event that I can’t pull out my iPhone, but most of the time I’ll log something with Evernote or Posterous rather than write it down on paper. However, if you are the type of person that prefers to write things down, use your phone or scanner to move your notes into Evernote so you will have a backup available online. There’s nothing worse than forgetting your notebook when you need to reference your ideas!

Once you try out this system and implement it in a way that works for you, I think you’ll be happy with the way your efficiency and energy improves. As a Zen blogging lifestyle designer, I think it is important to find the most effective way to stay inspired and find the balance between work and play. Spending less time looking for your files and more time working means that you can get done faster and have more fun.

Recommended Posts

• Protect Your Ideas or Launch Them?
• Recycling Sucks
• Why I Love Blogging – The Velocity of Ideas
• It is up to You to Save the World
• Google Notebook vs Evernote

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