

Ask HN: How do you keep track of your ideas? - grep

Sometimes I have a bunch of ideas that I often forget. How do you keep track of all your ideas? I was thinking that I may be able to use the GTD system for ideas, any suggestion?
======
cpr
I have a 20-year-old, 37K-line todo.txt file (edited in Emacs) of all ideas
I've ever had over those two decades, plus notes & some contact info. (And
most of the actual to-do items are deleted when I finish them, so it's
actually contained a lot more info over the that time.)

I've tried a lot of other schemes, but this still seems like the best method
for collecting and organizing my thoughts.

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run4yourlives
I don't, and neither should you. :-)

If an idea is worth pursuing, it reoccurs in several ways. For instance, with
my current project I can have a casual conversation with someone around a pain
point and instantly see how my idea could help.

Many of my ideas seem brilliant when I first have them, but then fizzle the
more I think about them. Even if they are wonderful and viable, your
motivation to build them out is also a factor.

~~~
kaens
I agree that many ideas seem silly after they've sat for a bit, but I disagree
that you shouldn't keep track of your ideas.

I get a lot of ideas. I keep track of them. If they fizzle, I remove them from
the list.

I simply don't always have the time to jump on implementation of the ones I
consider "good" when I have the idea. Also, keeping track of them means that
I'll basically never have a point where I'm going "hmmm nothing to do, wish I
had an idea!"

~~~
run4yourlives
_I simply don't always have the time to jump on implementation of the ones I
consider "good" when I have the idea._

An idea you can't execute is worth about as much to you as no idea at all. The
concept of an idea being so timeless that it will be both relevant and somehow
forgotten in the future if not recorded is not one I accept.

Either your idea is so great that you'll a)make time for it or b) remember it
in the future, or it probably isn't as wonderful as you initially thought
after all.

 _hmmm nothing to do, wish I had an idea!_

A person who generates so many ideas that he's considering recording them
won't find themselves in this position: You'll always have more ideas than
time to implement them, so don't sweat it.

Not recording ideas is both a way of validating them and focusing your mind on
implementation. "Idea people" like us can easily lose ourselves in the mental
masturbation that is the generation of "ideas". The last thing we should be
doing is encouraging staying in that stage longer than we have to.

~~~
kaens
If that works for you, great.

For me, I jot down ideas, keep them in a file, and then implement the ones I
want to when I have time to do so.

I forget shit all the time, and really -- I don't want to hear any
philosophical fluff about how that must mean that the idea just wasn't all
that good. It's an attribute of my memory, not the idea.

I'm not an "idea person". I'm a "getting shit done" person, who happens to
have quite a few ideas, and who also happens to work full time and attend 12
credit hours a semester. I'd rather make a note of them, review them in my
free time, and implement when I feel like I can, or when I choose to than rely
on keeping some spark of inspiration kindled for an indefinite period of time.

 _Not recording ideas is both a way of validating them and focusing your mind
on implementation. "Idea people" like us can easily lose ourselves in the
mental masturbation that is the generation of "ideas". The last thing we
should be doing is encouraging staying in that stage longer than we have to._

Yeah, luckily I'm not talking about just sitting around thinking of ideas and
not implementing them. I _never_ sit around _trying_ to come up with an idea,
and I get no satisfaction from just having an idea, which cuts out the
masturbation.

I'll agree that we shouldn't encourage people to sit around thinking of hare-
brained schemes, but please don't assume that everyones lifestyle and mind are
structured the way yours is.

There's no universal truth to be had about tracking ideas or todo items --
it's too subjective of a territory -- and when you talk as if there is, it
makes you sound like a jackass.

If _you_ never find yourself in the position of wanting to jot down ideas
because you "remember the good ones", wonderful. Don't tell me that it's not a
useful thing for me to do, because seriously -- if I _don't_ do things like
that, I _do not_ remember them. I don't remember what's in my ideas file right
now, but I guarantee you that some of those ideas I will start implementing
later.

Yeah, I'll always have more ideas than time. That's fine. I'll also know that
the ideas I've saved but haven't had the chance to work on are ones that I'm
actually interested in -- and I'll know that I didn't just forget some bright
idea that I've had.

~~~
run4yourlives
I think you're taking way too much personal offence in my comment where none
was intended. If you have a solution that you enjoy, then obviously you don't
need the advice in my comment. The OP however is asking for a solution and I
am assuming that he/she is open to options.

Look at the number of comments in this thread suggesting a personal favorite
technique. My comment introduces the option of looking at the problem in a new
way; one that removes the issue at its source.

I'm not assuming everyone has my lifestyle, certainly. However one thing I
have learned in my 35 plus years is that most people overvalue their own
ideas, and the concept of an "idea" in general and undervalue the execution.
Not recording ideas promotes the things you do execute on over the actual
ideas.

That doesn't mean you don't act on any idea, never write anything down or
extend this basic model to ridiculous degrees.

The animosity towards this approach in your comment is curious.

~~~
kaens
I must have misread you, I'm sorry. I got the impression that you were trying
to state that the way you think about ideas, and idea-tracking (or the lack
thereof) was somehow "correct" in some more objective sense.

I got the impression that you felt that if someone had to write down an idea
to remember it, or if someone wasn't immediately capable of implementing an
idea, that the idea itself must not be worth saving or implementing. I didn't
get the impression that you were saying "this works for me, this might work
for you" -- rather, I heard (or saw) "the problem you're addressing is a non-
problem. tracking ideas is a wasted effort. period.". If that's not what you
meant to imply, apologies.

I don't think that your solution removes the issue at its source if the issue
is remembering ideas that you want to examine or implement in the future,
either. If the issue is only having those ideas on hand that you felt were
good enough that you remember them no matter what, then your solution works
fine. If that's not the issue, then your solution only works in the sense of
repainting the issue as a non-issue, unless I'm missing something fundamental
about what we've been talking about.

I don't disagree that most people overvalue their own ideas, that's pretty
inarguable.

I probably overreacted a bit -- as an explanation, this is a bit of a personal
topic for me. I struggle quite a bit with remembering to do things, or
remembering things I want to do -- and I also don't have very much time to
devote to pursuing what I think are good ideas.

Without a means for me to jot down stuff for me to think about or work on in
the future, I wouldn't ever come back to scratch any of the things that were
making me itch in the past -- and scratching those itches tends to be better
for more than just me.

This is probably partially because I, like a lot of "hacker types" am ADD. I
don't mention that as a crutch or anything, but it is something that went
undiagnosed in myself for a long time, and that definitely contributes to the
"problem". I can _not_ rely on my memory alone.

I can't really express the difference in how I'm able to "be productive" when
I'm medicated and have a system for idea tracking versus whenever either of
those are not present. It's a big, tangible difference, and this is the case
for a lot of developers I know even when you take medication and ADD out of
the picture.

Perhaps another semantic thing that should be mentioned is that the _vast_
majority of my ideas are "change functionality of library X to include Y",
"write script to do Z", "little app that does this", "configure app FOO to
work with input BAR". I'm not necessarily talking about larger ideas.

Anyhow, I hope that clears some stuff up.

------
Random_Person
I keep a smallish (3x5"?) leather-bound mead journal (the ones with graph
paper) in my cargo pants and a Pilot G-2 gel pencil in my left pocket.
Everything goes in said journal. Ideas, information, sketches, IP information
of the schools I work in...

It's batteries never run down.

It's memory never becomes corrupt.

I don't have to transfer the information when I perform a system upgrade.

I have access to it while in remote locations (hunting/fishing/hiking-- I have
a lot of ideas in the middle of nowhere.)

It has a .5 second boot time and auto-loads notepad.

I'm very rarely without my cargo pants/shorts.

------
phpnode
I have a really long list of business ideas in a .txt file 99.9% of which I'll
never get round to implementing. An idea worth doing will stick in your head
and eat away at you til you've accomplished it, a poor idea, not so much.

~~~
uptown
I do the exact same thing.

For ideas that reach the "tinker" stage, I create a folder into which I have
"designs", "html", and "notes" subfolders.

------
samdk
I use Gmail. I have an email thread going (sent to myself) that's I reply to
every time I have a project idea. It's pretty rare that I'm thinking about
project ideas and also not anywhere near a computer. And if I'm not, I just
remember it for a few hours until I am or write it down on a sticky note in my
wallet.

I should note that I very rarely actually go back and implement these ideas--I
just used to have a thing where I'd want to do something and I'd have no idea
what to do. I've become a lot better at generating ideas and so it's no longer
really an issue, but I still like keeping them around. It's fun to see startup
ideas I've thought about appear here on HN in the form of companies and
realize I'd had the same idea a while ago.

~~~
tansey
I do the same thing, but with one caveat. I have a subject prefix for
different categories of ideas. Every idea email thread starts with "X idea:",
where X is "Site", "Research", etc.

------
klous
Google Docs spreadsheet, with the following column headers:

Idea/Elevator Pitch, Value Proposition, Target Market, Unique Selling
Proposition, Revenue Model, Exit Strategy, Barriers To Entry, Competitors,
Startup Costs

~~~
byoung2
You're not afraid that Google will steal your ideas? ;-)

~~~
klous
alternate: Dropbox stored spreadsheet with a strong password protected file.
:-)

------
AmberShah
I use the built-in notes feature on my iPhone. Before that it was a notepad
text file on my desktop. The only reason the iPhone wins now just because I
have it with me at all times.

Usually the act of typing it in is enough to get it embedded in my mind.
Occasionally I go back through and read them and delete out the ones I don't
care about anymore.

If I lost the whole thing, it wouldn't be a huge loss to me. I already know
what's important and when you're mind is in the creative mode, inspiration is
always striking. I would find a more "structured" approach to be limiting.

------
watmough
For something new, I create a project in Omnifocus on my iPhone, then describe
it.

For an existing idea, new items get added as tasks on the project.

I bought Omnifocus right when the app store opened, along with Super Monkey
Ball etc., but whilst all those other programs fell by the wayside, Omnifocus
recently migrated to the 'shelf' and has stayed there.

If you own a Mac, you can share sync between iPhones, iPad by simply pointing
Omnifocus at a webdav folder on the Mac (easy to create by using the built-in
Apache 2.0)

------
kmort
Each idea is noted, some evolve into a long text file. The ones I really start
to flesh-out get their own folder, and their multiple text files get C-tagged
together with my own Vim format and tag system.

But I do want much more. Some of these notes become to-do items, reference
items, fantasy user doc or rantings to myself. As they grow, they become
different things.

I would love an "actionable" tag system. That is, an editor (web/wiki-based, I
don't mind) that for each article I can drop certain smart tags onto. Drop a
labelled Milestone tag on it and it becomes a to-do item. Drop a Due Date onto
it as well, or perhaps a Dependency tag linked to another article and there's
a mini-project manager.

If I don't feel as "projecty" right now with this set of notes I might just
drop some regular tags on it. "OpenGL" or "Django" and now I'm collating notes
across projects. A Parent/Child tag, just to give some articles some
structure, if I want.

I've tried a lot of to-do apps and note-taking apps, but none of them quite
seem to match how my brain just loves to note stuff down, but only organise
how and when I want to. I've got a reasonably refined list of about a dozen
such smart tags that I think would suit me well. _sigh_ Just got to find some
time...

------
amohr
I use notecards - I keep a stack of blanks in my bag. If they're not
particularly actionable, they go up on my blog for such
things(<http://mohrslaws.com/Lifein3x5>), otherwise, they go in the to-do
pocket. If they don't fit in either, I fold them into an origami frog, draw a
funny face on it and leave it by the wayside.
(<http://tweetphoto.com/12387364>) - This is also the format I use for my
business cards.

If I ever find myself wanting for something to do or ponder, I just go to the
to-do pile and browse.

I like the physical aspect of this system. To me, the important thing here is
getting the ideas the hell out of my head - it gets kinda crazy in there, it's
no place for a delicate thing like an idea. Plus having a big, unsorted stack
makes them more interesting to browse.

------
Lewisham
I'm surprised no-one put a shout out for Remember The Milk. It's not perfect,
but once you go through the GTD in RTM tutorial at
[http://blog.rememberthemilk.com/2008/05/guest-post-
advanced-...](http://blog.rememberthemilk.com/2008/05/guest-post-advanced-gtd-
with-remember-the-milk/) , you can get something that works pretty awesomely.

I tend to write down ideas in the "someday" list, or in the project list if
it's a project. It just won't get a due date, nor tagged with "next". Every
week I try to go through the list, and remove ideas that I don't think are
worth following up.

I also keep a research wiki where I dump links and ideas, but I haven't gone
back there for a while. I think it's largely something useful to track back
the genesis of an idea, and remember why you thought of it in the first place.
I often remember the solutions to problems I have forgot!

------
mkuhn
I love GTD for all thing I need to get done but ideas IMHO don't really fit
that "mantra".

I keep track of my ideas in a Moleskine Notebook. They are available in many
formats and are able to whitstand almost anything. What I love about having a
small "book" of ideas is that I can take them anywhere, scrible and brainstorm
around my ideas etc. All this is possible without being restricted by a given
format. Its also very easy to browse through ideas if you store them this way
and I found it very easy to find ideas again once you remember you had some
solution or approach to something.

If I by chance don't have my Moleskine with me I email myself the idea and as
soon as I get home or start emptying my mailbox the idea gets transfered into
the notebook.

------
terryjsmith
Shameless plug: <http://scribld.in/>

I have this problem as well, and built the site for my personal use then added
a few features to open it up to others. Hope you find it useful! E-mail in
profile if you have any feedback.

~~~
aspiringsensei
I would use the heck out of your site if I could text ideas into it somehow
(via twitter?).

Also if it recorded metadata about my location, that'd be pretty neat. (how
many seconds/word I was writing, what the weather was like, astrological
stuff, etc.)

The only ways I can think of making my journal.txt file better are text
integration and useless metadata...because I really do want to know if I write
more while Aquarius is prominent.

------
sendos
I have an Excel spreadsheet with various columns: rank, title, description,
has-been-done, scope, etc

The rank is a number that I enter manually based on my estimate of how good
the idea is. When I change that value for a given idea, the spreadsheet is set
up to auto-sort the ideas.

For example: an idea may have been ranked 4th, but I find out some info that
makes me think the idea is not worth pursuing that much, so I change the rank
value and the spreadsheet immediately puts it in its right place (e.g. 35th).

The benefit is that ideas still stick around, but the ones that I find the
most likely to succeed/worth pursuing are always listed at the top for me to
see.

------
HeyLaughingBoy
I don't bother. They're like buses: if I miss one, another will be along in a
few minutes.

------
bpourriahi
Ideas soak in your mind when written down. You will be proud as hell looking
back at the ideas you have. They reflect your highest level of thought from
your current mentality, and are great indicators of your growth.

Without writing them down, you give them little power to thrive and iterate.
Think about how great businesses are made, or how code is made.. It's all
iterative.

Write down every idea... Just try it for a few weeks and see where it goes.
Like I said before, I use ActionOutline, which is a terrific program for
managing all of the 'words' in your life that isn't in code.

------
GBKS
Any text editor will do, main thing is that it's super quick to write things
down. GTD-stuff is overkill for me.

I found that keeping a list of ideas will clear my head to be open for new
ideas. Otherwise my brain will use a lot of memory/CPU to keep the old ideas
around.

Second thing I found useful is to expand on ideas when I have some time. I
simply take one and write a whole document on it, detailing design, features,
purpose, value, target market etc - anything I can think of. I keep revising
those randomly. The good ideas stick and turn into documented project plans
over time.

------
zachwaugh
I keep everything in Notational Velocity stored in plain text files, which I
keep in sync between multiple computers with Dropbox. It also syncs with
SimpleNote so I can view/update it from my iPhone or iPad or from the web.
Simple, and I can access it from anywhere.

Within the text file, I usually group ideas by type and mark it with a '*' if
I implement it, and a 'X' if I decide it's not a good idea/it's already been
done/I've lost interest in it. Has worked well for me.

~~~
scrod
People who want to try this should see the FAQ about problems using note-level
syncing with file-level syncing:

<http://wiki.github.com/scrod/nv/faq-synchronization>

------
dooshydoo
I don't believe any idea is wholly worthless. Great ideas are on time, good
ideas only feel late, and bad ideas are simply too early. For years I've kept
two folders.

One I fill with concepts (if they can be called that) I plan to test, and the
other is for those I think are too early. The good ideas have kept me afloat;
the bad ideas however, have led to great things.

Always write it down. Circling ideas are an omen you're mastering the science
but not the art.

------
kaens
I use an emacs org-mode file that is in my github repo of configuration files
and other things that go on all the machines I use. Org mode has a bit of a
learning curve, but it's powerful and flexible. That's another way of saying
it's a mature emacs library ;)

<http://members.optusnet.com.au/~charles57/GTD/orgmode.html> <\-- article on
using org-mode for GTD.

------
nudge
Text file. Write it down and move onto something useful. Don't waste time
trying to find a better way to do this. GTD, in particular, is way too much
for just this.

------
hachiya
A hierarchical notes manager is great for this. My favorite is Zim Wiki.

Zim Wiki - <http://zim-wiki.org>

------
JeremyHerrman
I'm one of the few active users of Google Wave. I'm all about the tracking of
history so I can see how an idea evolved. I used to use local text files, but
I didn't like that they weren't available on the web and could easily be
buried on my desktop/documents folder. Wave also has rich formatting and
supports inline attachments. One caveat - you can't really export out of wave
easily.

------
chaosprophet
I have a bound notebook, which I call my ideas book. Whenever I get an idea, I
write it on the notebook, one idea per page. The rest of the page goes for
details like features, implementation ideas etc.

Whenever I have some time to hack away on personal projects, I just flip
through the notebook, choose an idea and go with it.

~~~
krisneuharth
This has worked out well for me as well but mine has grid ruled pages for
sketching out UI ideas and diagrams.

------
lkozma
Scattered all over the place... scraps of papers, text files, archived emails,
notebooks, margins of books... Sometimes I try to go through them and pick
something to work on, a few ideas which I don't want to pursue but don't see
the obvious problem with them, I post at lkozma.net/ideas .

------
spython
Notational Velocity - <http://notational.net>, mainly because it's very easy
to add a note in a few seconds using only the keyboard. I've tried a lot of
note taking software, and this just stays out of your way. Also, it's open
source.

------
rudenoise
I've liked the idea of a delicious style app for plain text notes, I'm working
on an open source HTML5 app that stores tagged notes as JSON and can be saved
in local storage which can be upload to a couchDB instance. I'll upload to
gitHub if anyone is interested?

------
samratjp
Freemind (<http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page>) is
awesome. It helps me see patterns and sometimes combine ideas # 132 + 245
together.

------
carbocation
Google docs. I keep a list of one-line ideas in a document. When those ideas
grow, they get their own document.

I appreciate Google docs because it's easy to share my ideas with my
collaborators by dropping docs into shared folders.

------
atlei
Shameless plug: <http://www.ppcsoft.com/iknow.asp>

Before this I used plain text files as many others.

------
brm
Email threads. Start an email with the subject heading of the idea. Add
replies as it evolves. Use a gmail label to track them so they don't fill up
your inbox

~~~
mikecarlucci
That's actually a pretty good idea. Chronological and everything. I may steal
it :)

------
atomical
Most of the general ideas I will forget, but I take the ideas I am really
interested in and store them in google docs in a bullet list.

------
grep
Sometimes I find myself thinking about the same idea I had in the past because
I don't remember why it was a "bad" idea.

------
trustfundbaby
Evernote. In a bulleted list, with sub bullets if necessary or as inspiration
comes so I can fill out the idea.

------
jscore
Evernote as well.

I have a notebook about possible projects. There, every page gets its own
ideas.

------
drKarl
I use my mobile, EverNote, GMail, whatever I have available to capture the
idea.

------
damoncali
I don't. Anything good will stick around all by itself.

------
dthakur
OneNote + DropBox.

~~~
Setsuna
For the minimalists out there:

text files + dropbox

------
kgosser
Evernote.

~~~
simonsez
I'm curious how you use Evernote to keep it effective. I use Evernote as well
to keep track of ideas, but I find as I start to fill out the ideas with
research and notes the "parent" section - the list of ideas - becomes
overwhelmed.

I ended up moving to a Google Apps Spreadsheet for a list of ideas, and then
fill out info on each idea in Evernote, but would love to hear about better
methods...

~~~
trustfundbaby
I use a bulleted list first, add sub bullets as ideas come, and when I'm ready
to work on it, I make it into a full blown note with all my details in it.

------
bpourriahi
ActionOutline

