

Ask HN: How do you manage/store your ideas? (I'm building a tool) - withoutfriction

Interested to see how you manage ideas.<p>I have almost finished building a website to track ideas, I know I will be using it myself.<p>The key feature of my site is that you enter in ratings of the ideas, and your user settings for priorities in different categories, and then all ideas you enter received a weighted total score and can be sorted by #points.<p>The url: ideatool.herokuapp.com<p>Questions:<p>How would you improve it?<p>Suggestions on a name/url?<p>Would you use it?<p>Are there any premium features you could think of that would be worth paying for?
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TobbenTM
_How I store my ideas now:_ item in tasklist with project name, and a folder
for it in my Dropbox with all related ideas, thoughts and material for the
project.

As to your webapp, _How would you improve it?_ Better landing page with some
info and/or pictures of what it actually does. When you create a new idea I
think the private checkbox should be checked default (personal preference
perhaps). Would be nice to be able to create a bullet list in the 'Notes'
section. Also, when viewing an idea, the notes section strip away line breaks.
This, and bullet list, would make it easier to get an overview over thoughts.

edit: also, when you have created a new idea, I would like a button at the
bottom that takes me back to my ideas.

edit2: don't know if it's a bug, but it's nagging me to confirm my email
adress, when I have not received an email. Maybe add a way to resend
confirmation?

 _Suggestions on a name/url?_ Nope, sorry.

 _Would you use it?_ Seems kinda useful, I'll try it for a while to see if
it's easy enough to keep updated.

 _Are there any premium features you could think of that would be worth paying
for?_ I would pay for a mobile app (Android)

Hope this helps.

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matkiros
How I store my ideas now: Evernote, 'nuff said. However notes are organized in
Evernote seems to be the perfect way for me to organize my ideas. I can just
create a separate note or notebook to collect all the related ideas in one
place, and I can write down my ideas in the most organic form possible.

Also, some critiques on the app's features based on what's written above:

1\. People probably don't want to use an app for organizing ideas that
actually SHARES those ideas with other people.

2\. When I have an idea that's still a little abstract, I think the idea
pointing system is kind of useless because obviously I'll have to spend more
time thinking about it, but I still have to write it down. I'm just saying, it
doesn't always have to be put out in the open for feedback right away.

3\. Idea validation is, from my experience, better off done via conversation
with the people you trust the most. So either I'm saying that automating that
process is less useful, OR you can make the app a bit more social by allowing
only a user's most trusted friends to evaluate the idea. That way you don't
scare away people from your app because of number 1.

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jbui
I used your app and it seems like a nice idea. After accumulating a lot of
ideas myself, I often have to go through all of them after while to reevaluate
why I chose not to pursue them at that time.

For me a 1-10 scale is not how I like to answer the questions in your app. I
prefer a simple passionate/not-passionate & expensive/inexpensive type answer
instead.

Also a way to tag an idea would be helpful for sorting later.

I use wunderkit/wunderlist to track my ideas because it has a native desktop
and mobile application. I'm not sure if I would be willing to use a web
application to track my ideas.

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jurre
It would be great if I didn't have to sign up first before trying the app out.
Like being able to add ideas (perhaps you could use localstorage) but only
having to log in to actually save it. Also I'm curious as to what your
association with the amazon affiliate program has to do with this?

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redspark
I was curious about the amazon affiliate thing as well. Once I read that, I
left the site, assuming it was just some sort of scam to funnel people to an
amazon affiliate page.

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anusinha
I use a private wiki that I use for storing lots of my personal information. I
make a new page per idea and link to it from a bigger page. a good friend of
mine keeps a giant google document of ideas and uses text to tag ideas.

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wicknicks
I use Google Documents (Presentation) or SlideRocket. SR is very nice for
sketching block diagrams. I tend to think more in terms of pictures than
words.

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sixQuarks
I just started using Trello for this purpose, I love it:
<http://www.trello.com>

