Where do you put your ideas?
post by CstineSublime · 2024-12-17T07:26:06.685Z · LW · GW · 9 commentsContents
9 comments
I am currently looking for a system which will help me execute some of my massive backlog of ideas. By “ideas” I include my hundreds and hundreds of story outlines for films with a handful of finished screenplays, but also things like: alternative income streams, or day jobs, or skills or abilities I’d like to learn/get (coding, traditional animation, dance the Tango, conversational Italian), as well as a host of other projects.
Before I get to the determining how to better pick which ideas I should pursue (Update: see my investigation of my idea choosing decision making model here [LW · GW]), I was wondering if there was any more I could do to optimize my current idea recording method. Some of this overlaps with the GTD concept of the "Someday" bucket. But what I don't like about that is that I'd very much like to ensure I review and act upon some of these ideas.
So how do most of you record your ideas? Where do you put them? Where do you keep them, not so in the dark as to never seen sunlight again?
I'm from a film background, so my knowledge of idea-capture is influenced by anecdotes of everyone from Vladimir Nabokov's index cards which in the early gestational stage he describes as "...including the accumulation of seemingly haphazard notes, the secret arrowheads of research", Joan Rivers or Bob Hope's archives of decade's of accumulated jokes organized by subject, or the unfiltered and uncensored NO-NO sessions of Robert Clampett at the birth of a cartoon. To Jerry Lewis typing out between shows the screenplay the Bell-Boy, which to be fair is more of a anthology of isolated jokes than a continuous narrative?
But what about when you have an idea for an app? For research? For an algorithm? Or yes, career moves and similar choices? Where do you put that idea? How do you ensure you don't lose it so that you can maximize the chances of doing something with it?
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comment by exmateriae (Sefirosu) · 2024-12-17T09:09:30.054Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I use Obsidian. It's a note taking/note making software using almost only Markdown syntax. It is very malleable to your use but mostly relies on a linking system that kinda makes it a wiki for your knowledge.
Replies from: Seth Herd, CstineSublime↑ comment by Seth Herd · 2024-12-17T19:19:49.284Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I second Obsidian. It's free, lightning fast, local (you own you data so can't be held hostage to a subscription fee) and the Markdown format is simple and common enough that there will always be some way to use the system you've set up.
There are more in depth theories about how to actually organize your notes, but obsidian can do it in a variety of ways, almost however you want.
Replies from: CstineSublime↑ comment by CstineSublime · 2024-12-18T00:20:32.238Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
There are more in depth theories about how to actually organize your notes,
Which theories have you found suite you best and why? How do you organize your notes?
And having captured your ideas in Obsidian, how do you go about revisiting them and ensuring that they don't remain captured but forgotten?
↑ comment by CstineSublime · 2024-12-18T00:18:57.571Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I'm not familiar with that app, but could you go into more detail about how you use it with regards to storing and capturing ideas?
Like do you instantly, say when on the bus, or at the dinner table note down an idea? How much detail do you put in?
How does it integrate with your to-do list or calendar or whatever productivity system, formal or informal you have? An idea may not necessarily represent a commitment just yet, so how do you use this app to revisit ideas? How often do you revisit them?
Do you organize or store your "ideas" notes differently to other notes?
↑ comment by exmateriae (Sefirosu) · 2024-12-18T08:37:27.030Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I am far from being a model user as I am not a very organized person but having everything in the same place has allowed me to actually find things much more easily because the search is quite good. Not perfect but much better than what Google offers in Docs or Keep for instance. The app itself is very versatile but there are many plugins that will allow you to tailor your experience in the exact way you need it.
I try to update or create a new note as soon as possible because I forget pretty fast. I have a few notes made exactly for the purpose of storing temporary ideas that will need to be more developped or moved somewhere else later.
There are several tools to revisit notes. The link is powerful because on every note you can see all links from but also to this note and the local graph shows you everything that is a close link (1, 2, 3 or more links away).
I know tags are used by many people for this but I have never really been able to use them much. Then there is the random note and the general graph that shows you all the notes. On it you can show notes with a color depending on some condition which helps with subjects but it also helps to find "lost" notes with no links that may have been forgotten.
The best introduction I have found is from Nick Milo, very simple but it gives right away an idea of the potential of the app: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3NaIVgSlAVLHty1-NuvPa9V0b0UwbzBd
The important ones are 1, 2, 3, 4 is really optional, 5 and 6 are useful and short. So you only really need 30 minutes at 1x speed.
Replies from: CstineSublime↑ comment by CstineSublime · 2024-12-18T09:01:27.845Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Thank you for the detailed response, to be honest hearing the experience of a disorganized non-model user seems much more valuable than someone who uses it perfectly, like how you don't find yourself using tags.
comment by Ustice · 2024-12-17T13:20:44.572Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I’m use Notability, but mostly because I prefer to use hand-written notes. What I like is that I can hand write my notes, and then be able to do a text search on them later.
It started with me taking notes while playing RPGs, but turned into a daily journal.
If you don’t care about handwriting, my only real suggestion is go with something that saves files in Markdown format. If the company goes poof some years down the road you want to be able to still access your notes.
Replies from: CstineSublime↑ comment by CstineSublime · 2024-12-18T00:22:26.010Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
It started with me taking notes while playing RPGs, but turned into a daily journal.
Interesting! Is that because you find that your most creative while playing RPGs? How much detail are in those notes? How often do you find you pause the game to write one (reminds me of the Mitch Hedberg joke about thinking of a joke at night, he either needs to get up, or convince himself that the joke isn't that funny).
How often do you text search for ideas? What seems to trigger revisiting an idea?