Organizing Ideas for the Creative Person

Are you a creative person? Do you have more ideas than you can handle? What do you do with them all?

I was watching Donny Deutsch’s “The Big Idea” this evening. LOVE that show! He had a really interesting panel tonight on creativity. There was a link to a Creativity Inventory to determine how creative you are.  I took the inventory, and scored an 89 out of 100.

I’m the type of person that has a zillion ideas running around in my head.  So many, that it’s a challenge to keep up and make sure I capture the good ones in some way.  So, I’ve worked out ways to keep track of ideas and inspiration as they come along:

• Capture them at bedtime.  I’m a night person, and if I don’t get horizontal before a certain time at night, but brain turns on.  Sleep then evades me for quite a while.  So, I keep a small notebook at my bedside to write down the good stuff, and other random thoughts that pop up in my brain.  This calms my fears that I won’t remember stuff in the morning.
• “Morning pages”.  I use a large journal and write three pages first thing in the morning.  I keep it at my bedside so I can roll over and grab it.  It’s a great way to clear out my head in a stream of consciousness kind of way.  I’ve discovered and processed some really interesting stuff this way!
• Travelling journal.  I have a small notebook I keep with me at all times.  It has a specific section in it for “Ideas”.  Whenever something strikes me, I write it down (of course, if I’m driving I pull over to do this).  I also use this same notebook for meeting notes (with people, organizations, lectures, whatever).  Sometimes I get a brilliant idea in the middle of something, so I write it down!
• Record it.  I have a small recorder on my smartphone so I can capture ideas if I somehow don’t have paper and pen.
• Put them on the calendar!  Ideas are great, but if they are just captured and never implemented, they don’t do much good.  So, I take the ones I feel strongly about and put them on a long or short term Project or Task list.  Dates will get the stuff in motion.  (One of the ideas I captured a year ago became my new talk show, The O-Myth!)

That’s how I capture my ideas and inspiration.  How about you?

If you’d like to take the Creativity Inventory, here’s the link:

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