What if the method you document ideas with, is not be the best way for you.

Just because you learned in school and throughout your life how to take good notes does not mean that notetaking is the best option for you.

How do you know if you haven’t tried any other option?

Maybe transcribing our thoughts in “words” limits us rather than helps us explore.

Maybe sketching a concept is a better way of capturing the essence of the idea. We blame not knowing how to sketch but that’s just an excuse we come up with. Sometimes ideas come in the shape of a found object (an anchor), a handmade object (of clay), a unique smell, a colorful diagram, or maybe a metaphor that finds its way in a poem or even a haiku.

Our minds don’t work linear like many of our words do. They are multi-faceted and very sensory driven.

Experiment the many available formats, then find your way of capturing that magic your mind is presenting you every day.

Out of nowhere, we’re hit by the best solution for a problem we’ve been wondering about for so long.

We get super excited and promise ourselves to write it down as soon as we get home,

or as soon as we finish lunch,

or as soon as we wash our faces.

Next thing you know, the idea evaporated.

We cannot recall even the slightest connection to it. There’s nothing left to remember. We just know that it solved our problem and it was perfect.

The timing is never right.

They say ideas come in the 3Bs: Bus, Bed, and Bath.

Those are the places where best ideas hit.

The bus because you’re in a diffused state of mind, the bed because dreams are powerfully wise, and the bath, well, because that’s where singing is interrupted by great ideas.

Keep a pen and pencil near you at all times. Or have your record button ready on the first page of your mobile phone.

Whatever you do, find a way to document those unexpected ideas.

They will not be accessible anytime later.

The muse doesn’t usually come on command.