In the previous blog post "Using AI as a thought-catcher" we were talking about the importance of capturing ideas periodically.
In this post, we explore different ways of doing this!
One of the ways to capture your ideas is to have a quick system to drop-in ideas.
What if there was a smart system that could self-categorize, reference, and relate the right ideas at the right time (like the example of the philosophical concept of status to product design from our last blog post).
How do most people go about capturing their thoughts and ideas?
Many people use their favorite notes app to do this, they jot down things, release them, and get things out of their head.
When it gets to organization, many people find it way too exhausting, they get demotivated and give up.
It’s great for dropping in ideas but when it piles up people get exhausted by just looking at it. Then questions start coming in like
“Why do I do this?”
“What is the point?”
“I can not realistically sit down and read through, let alone analyze all this text.”
It’s fair to look at it objectively and conclude that it’s not useful. What’s the long term pay off of this activity investment? Why do it?
Eventually this might lead to giving up on writing things down all together.
Outside of the analytical benefits, there’s an emotional aspect of writing things down, many people on Reddit say it’s a great release mechanism. The aspect of getting it out of your head is very appealing even if you never plan to go back and look at it.
It would be nice to be able to release your thoughts while considering “this could be something important later.” I don’t just want a thought catcher, I want something that remembers it later and at the relevant moments bring it up and help me connect the ideas.
One minute you are talking about “How great swords of Japan are forged, using a special material, with men who dedicate years to mastery and focus on the extra microscopic details of perfection.” Later on, when I’m thinking about “ How do I design products for my business,” I want to recall, reflect and maybe ponder on how the Japanese make swords.
The answers are not easy, neither easily found, nor blatantly obvious. But the answers are within.
