How I Capture Ideas and Why You Need to Start

It’s been a lot of years now since I realized I had an ‘idea capture’ problem. It wasn’t always idea—sometimes just bits of information I thought I might want to use some time.

If you preach, teach, or write regularly, you need efficient ways to capture and retrieve the tidbits that cross your mind and experience.

My favorites…

• Voice recorder (a dedicated handheld for a long time, then eventually a phone app). Great for all the stuff that hits me while driving or walking, or even showering. (The majority of my ideas hit me when I’m not in a good place to write anything down.)
• Note-taking apps like OneNote, Keep, and others.
• Good ol’ paper and ink.

I don’t use the latter much anymore, but for a long time I had a paper and ink habit for capturing ideas and info at church, then I’d later summarize at a keyboard into OneNote or similar.

Now I do all the church note-taking in Samsung Notes on a tablet, with a stylus. I convert almost none of that to text, but instead use the tap keyboard to add keywords, so I can look up my handwritten notes later.

Paper and ink is still my main way of keeping track of ideas. I often take notes about ideas for articles that I write or poems I want to develop. I also take notes for concepts I want to research later. Often, I eventually throw the notes away because I do not have time to pursue it all, but by then I have other notes to work off of. Sometimes just writing it down helps me to remember to think on it later.

I have a few email addresses that I use for this.
I send myself an email the subject usually has a Q by itself to indicate a quote I want to come back to.

I have a few email addresses that I use for this.
I send myself an email the subject usually has a Q by itself to indicate a quote I want to come back to.

That is a great idea. That is almost like a free way to store it in the cloud. My wife often sends me text messages just so she has a record for herself of something she does not want to forget.

I have a few email addresses that I use for this.
I send myself an email the subject usually has a Q by itself to indicate a quote I want to come back to.

I do the same thing by sending emails to myself with quotes, links to articles that I want to be able to access again later, or ideas for articles that I am considering writing for my blog.

There are still a few situations I use paper for—post it notes in particular, or a small pad.

It’s particularly handy when working out chord progressions at the piano. But even in that situation I’ve lately found that voice recording is better. It’s easier to make sense of it later, or share the recording to my task manager to remind me later to follow up.