manage my ideas

Okay so you’ve got a notebook and dozens of 3×5 cards full of ideas. How do you organize these ideas so that you can review them and develop them? Technology has helped a lot in this area. You can now take your hand written notes and file them electronically. I asked several people how they organize their thoughts and ideas. Here are a few of their responses:

Ideas kept on hundreds of note cards and slips of paper become useless clutter. Years ago I started copying my ideas into a Microsoft Word document. Entries are organized by date, like a diary. This way I can search for an idea. I read through my notes looking for patterns of thought and lost gems. -Isabel

This may be time intensive on the front end, but I would suggest inputting them into your pc however you can and then using google desktop search when you need to locate a specific one. -Jennifer

The internet gives us the option to record our ideas on-line. Most of my ideas are things that I may never share with other people either out of fear of embarrassment or fear that they will steal my idea. This is why the ManageMyIdeas framework establishes all new ideas as private ideas. They can only be seen by the author. However, you might want to share certain ideas with other people or even share a few ideas publicly (for everyone to see and comment).

Take your ideas from your notebooks, 3×5 cards, napkins, word processor documents, emails, and compile them on ManageMyIdeas. It is easy to enter new ideas at any time. In addition you can share ideas with anyone, anywhere in the world (all you need is their email address). If you ever decide that you would like to do something else with the ideas you have stored on ManageMyIdeas, you can download your ideas (in XML format) to your computer.

Now that you have your ideas stored on ManageMyIdeas, you can assign “tags” or keywords to each idea to make it easy to find later. Just click on a tag and every idea with that tag will come up. Ever wonder where you put that napkin with that million dollar idea you had last year? Yeah, I use to lose my ideas too…that’s why ManageMyIdeas is a handy tool.

Get your ideas organized! Use ManageMyIdeas! It’s free!

Ideas come to us in different situations and at different times. The purpose of this entry is to give a few examples of ways to capture ideas before they are forgotten. Forget ideas? Yes, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had great ideas come to me in the shower that I’ve forgotten by the time I dry off. The following is a short list of ways to capture ideas:

Write ideas down

Keep a notepad by your bed, so that when you wake up in the morning you can write about your dreams. You may have dreamed about something that is impacting your daily life. By writing down your dreams, you are able to analyze trends that may help you find a solution to your problems. I like to carry 3×5 cards! I learned from this from the President of an organization I worked with. They are small enough that you can keep one in a pocket or purse to write down ideas at any time. Keep a journal. You can record the thoughts and ideas that you have had during the day. Many times the act of writing down your ideas spurs more ideas. This is the great benefit of writing down ideas.

Record yourself talking

While more expensive than a notepad, a small tape or digital recorder is a nice thing to have handy to capture ideas that may be flowing through your head. I’ve spoken with a few people who keep a recorder in their car, so that you can capture your thoughts while stuck in traffic.

Get creative

While I’m not much of an artist, I find that painting, drawing, song writing, and story writing can be great ways to capture ideas. Some things are more easily expressed through the arts. Many times our true feelings are able to come out through the arts.

Find an “idea friend”

You may think that you have a good idea, but your close friend/spouse is going to inform you that your idea has a few problems. Since this is not terribly good for the creative process, I recommend finding an “idea friend” - someone who can see the potential of your ideas and help you to brainstorm. What starts out as an okay idea can quickly become a great idea with an “idea friend.”

Draw a flowchart

I am a visual learner. I need to see what my idea looks like in the grand scheme of things, so I will typically create a flowchart. Now, I know that professional flow-charting has defined symbols and rules, but I’m talking about just throwing down some circles and lines. Another option would be to create a time line to visualize the timing of your idea.

With this list I’ve tried to throw out a couple of ways to capture your ideas more effectively. I would love to see your comments on this subject and learn some new ways to capture my ideas.

Ideas come to us at different times and in different situations. We created the Managemyideas toolbar is to assist you in capturing your ideas. Once you’ve downloaded the toolbar, it will appear in your web browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox) just under your address bar at the top. Just click on “Idea Tools” and you can link back to enter an idea in Managemyideas at any time. Click on the “Task List” and you can keep a to-do list of your daily tasks.

You can setup your taskbar to notify you when you receive a new email from your email provider. You can also, use the task bar to bookmark webpages to your favorite social bookmarking sites (del.icio.us, digg, Furl, Ma.gnolia, Newvine, Spurl, Reddit, Simpy, Stumbleupon, and Yahoo MyWeb).

To download the toolbar, just click here: Managemyideas Toolbar.