Capture your ideas as soon as they happen

I had this bright idea

Have you ever been some place, and didn’t have a pencil and paper to write your thoughts down? If you didn’t write it down, that great idea you just had might vanish. You might have seen some product, book or website that was a solution to a question you’ve had or a problem you’ve been trying to solve. Have you ever considered that the solution to your note problem is sitting inside your pocket or purse? Most Cell phones these days have a notepad app built-in. Until recently I wasn’t utilizing this technology to its full potential.

Notepad on speed-dial

Most cell phones will allow you to associate a favorite application with a soft button. One of those buttons that allows you to quickly navigate through the phones menu system to get where you want to be. I have added a shortcut to notepad as my application of choice.

Every time a have a great idea or inspiration, I take the time to create a note related to my thoughts.  This includes any ideas that might pop-up in the middle of my slumber.  I just take a second hit the notepad button, and start typing away. 

When I type the note in, I use the following format: {category}:title{notes}

Typical notes I might record:

  • blog: write about notepad on your phone – talk about shortcut to capture my thoughts
  • tivo: add NUMB3RS season pass
  • books: First Things First – Covery, Merrill, Merrill
  • list: hardware – hardware list
  • list: groceries – grocery list

Addressing my ideas:

  • watching TiVo – review Tivo items
  • Grocery store – review grocery list
  • hardware store – review hardware needs
  • on my computer – review blog notes and start Posts related to those thoughts

This has been very freeing for me, I can clear my head of current ideas and not be worried about losing my thoughts.

Till next time, try it for awhile & see if it works for you.  Please add your comments to this blog.

About Wes Johnson

Wes Johnson is a software engineer with extensive experience developing desktop applications. He has also developed firmware for consumer electronics and OEM boards. His experties is C and C++ programming.
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