Transcription
Because ideas are cheap and abundant, it is important to recognize the ideas that have real value. There is no point in wasting time on junk. This video has the working title 'Fireworks Brain'. It comes from a comment someone left on one of my videos. This person said: “Thoughts come faster than my hand can write them. If I use pen and paper, I forget many of my thoughts before I get a chance to write them down. So I speak my thoughts into the Notes app and my iPad converts my voice to text. This way, I remove the bottleneck that exists between forming the thoughts and documenting them on paper." She also says: "I do this writing process on a 12.9-inch iPad because it's the same device I use when I'm handwriting, so I'm not using pen and paper anymore." Now, that's an interesting comment and it certainly resonates with me. The first hour of every day, my thoughts are like a fireworks show. Especially right after I wake up. Ideas and connections come fast and thick. There is often music, usually a song I've heard recently. You know how sometimes a song gets stuck in your head and won't stop playing? Apparently, they're called 'earworms'. Even a song you love can drive you mad if it becomes an earworm. While the music is playing, ideas come. These can be things at work or personal projects, often both. Things I'm worried about will be there too. Life is complicated, isn't it? And all these things are banging around. It can be overwhelming. And when you wake up in the morning, your mind has had time to process all of it overnight. When we're awake, we can, to some extent, control what we're thinking about. But when we're sleeping? No. We're at the mercy of our subconscious. So it's all there, an orchestra of thoughts at full tilt. Only there's no conductor, all the sections are playing different arrangements, the strings are out of tune, and the brass section has been hitting the tequila. It's a right racket. Frankly, a bit like the orchestra I was in at school. Now, all these things are happening in your head. My mind is like... [explosion] But part of it, you want to preserve. Because amidst all that noise are thoughts and ideas that are important or potentially useful. Coming thick and fast. Fleeting glimpses. There and gone. So if there's so much going on in our heads, what do we do? How do we capture the good stuff and calm the noise? Capturing is important. All those ideas and thoughts and possibilities. I use a variety of tools. A mix of analog and digital. Some work better than others and it often depends on the circumstances. Sometimes I write on scraps of paper. Scrawled notes. But a few words. Because I know that if I write it down physically or by hand, I don't need to look at it anymore. Somehow, handwriting burns it into the brain. Or I could, like the person who left the comment, use the Notes app on my phone. This is especially useful when I'm out and about with Dirk. I can just grab my phone, say, "Hey, Siri..." and dictate a note. Apple Notes is really great for that. It's one of my favorite apps. Now, many people swear by a physical notebook and a pen. And while I'm a big proponent of analog tools, they're just not convenient sometimes. I once tried to write a note on a bus. It was the bus to Worcester. It was a nice idea, but the text was so jerky that I couldn't read it later. Perhaps there are smoother roads where you are. I could also email something to myself. That's something I do particularly for my work, because my work and personal stuff are on different machines and different accounts. So I quickly type or dictate an email to my work email address so that I can deal with it later. There is one big advantage that analog tools have over digital. It's very important and that's why I use pencil and paper so often. Lack of distraction. Have you ever picked up your phone to do something, gotten sidetracked by a notification or a message and dealt with that and then forgotten why you picked up the phone in the first place? Me too. One way to get around that, and this is something I do to avoid being distracted by all the phone fiddling first thing in the morning, is that when I go to bed, I put the phone in airplane mode. Then you can use it without the interruptions. It also means that upon waking, you're not polluted by outside influences. Especially important, I think, if you're going to do your morning pages. If you've captured some thoughts or done something very useful with your phone, you can then switch off airplane mode and let the distractions begin. There's one other thing in this person's comment that strikes me. It seems like they want to capture everything. For a long time, I was the same. I felt that if I didn't capture everything, something very valuable might be lost. A nugget might slip through. Maybe I'll miss the acorn that could grow into a mighty oak! But there are a couple of things to consider. First, it's impossible to capture everything. If you have to go to work or get the kids ready for school or whatever, it's not practical or even possible to spend time taking notes, however valuable they are or however important to you. But the real fact is that not everything is worth capturing. Ideas are cheap. We can all have lots of ideas. But what I've found is that many of these great ideas are also great ideas for a while. Give them time and their shortcomings often become apparent. So my view now is that if an idea has real value and is really worth developing, it will come back to me at some point, regardless of whether it was captured during that initial fireworks show. That's why I use a combination. Very often I'll quickly capture something into a device and then maybe revisit that note later and distill it into a notebook. And that distillation process is very important. Because ideas are cheap and abundant, it is important to recognize the ideas that have real value. The ones that are worth developing further. There is no point in wasting time on junk. And that's where handwriting, slower, whether that's on paper or on something like an iPad, like the person who left the comment, can be a valuable filter. Because you'll know. You'll know. Because if you're not motivated to write it down, then it's probably not worth it. This really comes back to what, frankly, I feel more than anything else. Do what's good for you. There are many ways to capture, so do what works for you. You might have to experiment to find out what that is. But that's part of the fun.