
Ask HN: How do you keep track of your creative thoughts? - jianzong
Hi Hackernews, I am a developer with lots of random creative thoughts, especially when I am in shower or after a few shots of caffeine. I have yet to find a perfect solution to keep track of my random thoughts. 
Here are a few things that I&#x27;ve tried at least for a few months:<p>1. Physical notebook: still using, but some times my notebook is in my backpack&#x2F;left at home&#x2F;in office
2. Evernote alike: never works for me. I hate the constant changing features&#x2F;UI and the overhead of simply opening it 
3. (My pick) use instant IM to send messages to myself: the IM tool really doesn&#x27;t matter. It could be mail app, facebook messenger, slack. Laptop and phone syncing is free and always reliable.<p>I know these are my throw away thoughts. I am wondering whether there are some amazingly good solutions that I didn&#x27;t know of. Otherwise I am planning to create one for myself.<p>Thanks!
======
srikz
I (and am sure many here) have been in the same situation. I have tried
physical books (which I'm still biased towards), OneNote (my next favourite,
especially on tablets with stylus), txt files, wiki etc.

Ultimately what I realised is that it is all useless if I don't have a
periodic review session for these ideas.

So, what I am doing these days (not with much success due to lack of
discipline) is to have 2 or 3 different sources for such ideas - notebook,
onenote, email, bookmarks, Google Keep etc. But spend sometime during the
weekend to organise these week's ideas into the correct container. In my case
the 'source of truth' is OneNote, so I have several notebooks and sections
within each notebook and I file things there.

Even though this is tedious and repetitive I find it to be absolutely
necessary if anything good has to come out of those ideas. It also gives me a
chance to revisit old ideas and file my new half-baked ideas into a section
where it fits in with some other idea.

The other important task is that I need to plan some small action items with
these ideas or else it will just accumulate there and cause lot of stress
eventually.

P.S. It will be great to hear your thoughts on the tool you plan to create.
Like what features you find missing and how you plan to accommodate the user's
laziness in your UX

~~~
interlocutor
The problem with OneNote is that its file format is proprietary (though
documented). I have random notes that are 20 years old. Notes I take today
need to be readable 20 years from now. Will OneNote be around 20 years from
now? I prefer to store my notes in plain text because it is guaranteed to be
readable decades from now.

~~~
theshrike79
Do you intend to restore today's backup of your OneNote files with a copy of
OneNote 2039? It might work or might not.

But if you keep using OneNote for the next 20 years, I can guarantee that it
won't suddenly implode and suddently make all your notes unreadable by
anything else.

Also the format is open and documented:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_OneNote#File_format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_OneNote#File_format)

------
kristiandupont
Physical notebooks started working for me when I started using them for daily
planning, which I did by buying a silly $5 stamp of off AliExpress:
[https://medium.com/@kristiandupont/high-resolution-
planning-...](https://medium.com/@kristiandupont/high-resolution-
planning-a76175574e7f)

On NYE I went through my books of 2018 and it was a great experience -- both
reiterating all the things I've actually accomplished and refreshing various
thoughts and ideas that I had stored and sort of let go.
[https://www.instagram.com/p/BsDWesbnkDI/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BsDWesbnkDI/)

~~~
jason_slack
+1 for physical notebooks. I still do this. I still make notes on my laptop
but most everything is still on paper!

It gives me something to show my kids someday.

~~~
scoggs
I'm sure this won't be the case for everyone but something about being on the
computer all the time, using it for official work tasks and so many personal
mundane tasks seems to take away from my seriousness and memory retention when
I'm trying to do creative organization outside of work time (since work stuff
is by nature more structured and stratified into departments and projects it
sorta helps to organize itself before I have to really put thought into it).

That's where I find using a physical notebook better.

Sometime I do is write everything out in pencil first and then I make sure to
re-read it. That gives me a chance to make quick changes / fixes and then more
importantly it allows me to go back with a pen when I'm done to write over /
highlight headings, keywords, key snippets, and key bullet points while also
being able to add things like stars next to important items, arrows to
connected items, and other things that I possibly forgot to jot down or
couldn't finish once I have the clarity of the entire ordeal's organization
jotted down in one place.

This helps me commit things to memory much better and something about having a
hand written hard copy feels like I actually did some "official work" on a
side project / personal organization / preparation project.

------
ajflores1604
Switching to Notion from Evernote has pretty much changed my life. I tried
mind maps before but the scattered nature of how I dump ideas I think requires
a little more of a structured framework for me to play in. With notion the key
features that really help me is having nested pages, and being able to group
select things and drag them into a nested page. From there I can keep nesting
if I want. The general ease of being able to organize and group things, and
also create overview pages that link to several other deep dive pages, allows
me to move further with ideas than I ever did with evernote. With evernote, it
felt more like a scattered dump, even if I grouped things into notebooks.
There was no spacial distinction or grouping of concepts, just a bunch of
small random thoughts thrown together in a loosely defined notebook. And once
things got out of hand it felt pretty much impossible to wrangle it back
together. Evernote for me was great if I knew there was a specific piece of
information I had saved, that I needed to look up through search. But it never
felt like I could map out and grow and abstract idea as I slowly created it
overtime. It's hard to really explain over text the workflows I can create
with notion to organize my thoughts, I'd definitely recommend watching youtube
videos of different workspace layouts ppl have come up with like this one
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_mh91IRLL8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_mh91IRLL8)

The general point being that this tool has helped me in my goal of shifting
from simply aggregating lots of thoughts and ideas, towards having the
structure to make that next step and actually do something with them.

~~~
KlaymenDK
Man, it's annoying when things are named with such common words.

Here is (I think) their web site:
[https://www.notion.so/mobile](https://www.notion.so/mobile)

It doesn't seem to have a web or Linux desktop app, though.

------
vfinn
I have simply a folder that contains 10+ text files, mostly containing
numbered lists: 01_calendar; 02_TODO (just a stack of things I want to do);
03_questions (e.g.: "What substances emit sound when heated?"); 04_ideas
(entrepreneurship, organization -- this is helpful because for one thing you
start to see the pattern in your ideas -- what you value etc.);
05_opinions&thoughts; 06_self&improvement (my habits are like this and that, I
could improve them like this); 07_read&watch&experience (list of interesting
people, movies etc.); 08_my_history (contains critical events that have
happened to me, it's really useful to see them all at once for self-
reflection); 09_principles_I_follow; 10_humor (humorous ideas that I collect
in order to create a stand-up routine someday)

~~~
catacombs
You should consider Org Mode.

~~~
vfinn
Yes, perhaps. I'd think moving my stuff to Git/Github would also be
beneficial, but there hasn't been a real need yet.

------
donatzsky
I use Trello.

I have a board called Ideas for collecting. Usually I just put the thought in
the card title.

From there more details can be added in the description, and eventually the
card can be moved into its own list or board for further expansion.

Since I'm on Android, I have the Add Card shortcut on my home screen, which
means there's very little friction to adding new ideas.

~~~
wtmt
For those on iOS with a device that supports 3DTouch, there’s an option to add
a new card in the menu that pops up from the Trello app icon on the home
screen. Granted that 3DTouch features are not easy to discover though.

------
Vekz
I email myself and capture in emacs org-mode.

I have an email address that is bound to AWS SES. SES listens for incoming
emails and writes them to an S3 bucket. I then have a lambda hook which
listens for writes to this bucket and processes the email content. This
usually means writing an emacs org-mode record on dropbox. Which is then added
to my emacs agenda.

~~~
beatgammit
That sounds really complicated. Wouldn't you just use something like Syncthing
to synchronize your org mode files across devices? I use Orgzly and Syncthing
in my phone and it's good enough.

If you use it for general email stuff, just have a Cron job pulling your email
down and append new stuff to a file that gets synchronized.

I don't really get why AWS, S3, or lambda are involved, unless you just wanted
to see if you could do it.

~~~
Vekz
I definitely used it as an exercise to learn lambda. I don't have an android
phone for orgzly and at the time of creation, there weren't any solid iPhone
org-mode apps.

I use org-brain on the backend and the lambda function does some processing to
automatically categorize and such.

------
lazyjones
Over the past 25-odd years I've used text files, Moleskine notebooks I carried
with me everywhere and lately just iCloud notes. My main problems turned out
to be not the preservation of such ideas, but not actually bothering to write
them down often and lack of discipline at revisiting them later. Judging from
past "successes", getting to work on good ideas immediately has worked best
for me.

~~~
nixpulvis
Basically the same as me, though I love spending time going back a rereading
all my notes. Sometimes I'm really tempted to delete one, as it's stupid, but
I resist the urge.

------
polote
I use Zim wiki: [http://zim-wiki.org/](http://zim-wiki.org/)

I organize everything in it, and I have also a daily journal in zim, it is
synchronized with syncthing [https://syncthing.net/](https://syncthing.net/)
on all my computers and my phone.

When I have something quick to add and don't have access to my computer, I
send to myself a message and slack, or on whatsapp and I add it later to my
notes

~~~
hstream
I host my own DokuWiki on DigitalOcean, keep everything there under Certbot
SSL and Google Authenticator 2FA login. DokuWiki also works great on mobile.
Also have paper/analog notebooks with me at all times.

------
yardshop
I use a physical notepad, OneNote, and Quire.

The notepad is a shirt pocket sized 3"x4" piece of cedar shingle with a
standard size (letter or A4 about) piece of paper folded 3 times to make 8
sub-pages per side, held on with a mini binder clip. This is mostly for
shopping lists, but also for ideas I want to capture right away. When one sub-
page fills up, I refold the sheet to get another blank page. I also put sticky
notes on it.

I use OneNote synced on my phone, home, and work PCs to capture longer format
notes, brain-dumps, links to web sites, images, etc.

Quire is a really nice hierarchical todo list that I use to break ideas down
into steps and keep track of progress on projects. It also syncs between my
devices. [https://quire.io](https://quire.io) ,
[https://quire.io/tutorial](https://quire.io/tutorial)

------
zwischenzug
I have a git repo. I wrote about this and other related time management things
here:

[https://zwischenzugs.com/2017/12/03/how-i-manage-my-
time/](https://zwischenzugs.com/2017/12/03/how-i-manage-my-time/)

~~~
BilalBudhani
> I was disorganised until my 30s.

I'm in my late 20s and I face a constant struggle in organising myself. Your
blog post seems to be a nice window in how I should approach this issue.
Thanks!

~~~
zwischenzug
Great! Feel free to message me if you want guidance.

------
alkonaut
I know this isn’t the topic but just for anyone else reading and gets the
impression that they aren’t normal:

My answer is - I don’t. I’m reasonably creative and also get ideas in
inconvenient situations. But I try to remember and it actually works. Since
it’s an “idea” it’s usually such a small piece of information that is key
anyway “if I process everything backwards I can do it in constant time” or
whatever. Obviously if your creativity is grapical you need to draw, if it’s
musical you might need to record. But for problems I’m stuck on, it’s usually
a tiny thought that unlocks the whole thing I’m stuck on.

------
tapanjk
I keep track of creative thoughts in a journal
[[http://jrnl.sh](http://jrnl.sh)]

I keep track of tasks with taskwarrier
[[https://taskwarrior.org/](https://taskwarrior.org/)]

For both of the above, I use Dropbox to share data on multiple devices. The
only downside with the above can be the lack of mobile app support.
(Personally, I do not miss this)

Edit: My daily journal is on paper, which I write at the end of the day. The
jrnl command line app above is to record any notes through the day (work or
home) when I am using a computer.

~~~
imhoguy
Thanks for suggesting jrnl. If you are on Android then Termux and Hacker's
Keyboard should solve your issue
[https://github.com/maebert/jrnl/issues/329#issuecomment-3484...](https://github.com/maebert/jrnl/issues/329#issuecomment-348468929)

------
Benjamin_Dobell
My Google Keep is filled with all sorts of unusual ramblings.

Nothing particularly special about Keep itself, but I find having a mobile app
handy as I get to sleep easier if I simply grab my phone off the beside table
and jot down notes. Otherwise I lay awake worrying I'll forget in the morning.

------
Confiks
I use 2Do with a keyboard shortcut for a new task set to Ctrl+Alt+Cmd+T, so I
can instantly note anything down and forget about it. That lands into an inbox
I can process later.

If it's an actionable thing I then categorize and schedule it, but I also have
a large 'Maybe' list for unwieldy project ideas (52 items and counting).

For random daily or project notes I use a small shell script (and Dock
application, via Automator) that creates a daily file and opens the containing
folder in an editor:

    
    
        touch "~/notes/$(date +%Y%m%d).txt"
        $EDITOR ~/notes 1>&2 2>/dev/null &
    

On my phone I use a very simple but therefore fast and effective open source
notes application:
[https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/diary.git](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/diary.git).
I never write much there, so I just sometimes manually copy it to my other
notes.

~~~
boulos
I do something like your touch incantation, but as a bash function (mknote)
that takes an argument for a basic "name".

So whenever I make a note, it goes to ~/notes/$date-$1.txt which I then come
back to later either manually or with "enote" (which opens emacs for the
latest note matching $1 via ls -t). Having the name _really_ helps me see
visually what I'm looking for, roughly remember (like any title) what
important enough things happened in the last while, and so on.

As for daily notes/TODO, I've long given up on a single TODO.txt, but do have
several years of weekly status entries in the "Google snippets" form of "this
week, next week". For 2018, I finally gave in and switched to Markdown rather
than my own sort of format ("dash means done as planned, X means didn't do it,
+ means something unplanned happened").

Edit: phone typos.

------
chubot
A personal wiki that I wrote in 2004 (my first web app ever).

It's one step above text files, and purposely no more than that. Hyperlinking
and availability on different devices is important to me.

It started as something like this (which amazingly is still online)
[http://infomesh.net/pwyky/](http://infomesh.net/pwyky/)

After 14 years, I have 3017 wiki pages of notes, and still use it every day!

~~~
exodust
This is a good strategy. To write your own thing, and not rely on Google and
others, who insist that you log in and remain online just to write a simple
note.

~~~
chubot
Yes, I often think of how many note taking and bookmarking services have come
and gone in the last 14 years :)

By sticking to a simple wiki that uses plain text, HTML, and HTTP, you avoid a
lot of churn, and can concentrate on the real goal, which is organizing and
retaining knowledge.

It started as a CGI script, migrated to a server I can no longer recall, then
to my own web server (an experiment), and is now a WSGI app in Python running
on gunicorn, behind Nginx.

It also started using flat files like pwyky, but now it uses sqlite.

All the data was undisturbed throughout those technology changes, which is the
important part.

------
Martindm
Nobody else mentioned it which really surprises me but I use Google Keep.

Allows you to organise cards, colour code then, pin them and share them across
devices.

Anyone else use this? I find it's simple and restricted UI reduces
distraction; just you and the idea.

Also good for check lists, links and reminders.

~~~
chb
Google has a history of abandoning its projects
([https://gcemetery.co/](https://gcemetery.co/)). What formats does Keep
export to?

~~~
exodust
Very true. The way they abandoned Picasa desktop was rotten. A family relative
of mine, not tech savvy, loved Picasa. When Google killed it, and tried to
replace it with "Google Photos" where everything must be put online, this was
confirmation that Google wasn't fit for the task of offering dependable
reliable software.

------
kennu
Since I use Things for todo management anyway, I tend to write down creative
thoughts there as task items under a "miscellaneous" project. Bigger ideas
sometimes get promoted into their own projects with several tasks.

Things synchronizes between iPhone and macOS so it's pretty convenient for
short textual notes. More complicated drawings and plans I put in Google G
Suite.

~~~
wtroughton
I also use Things and Quiver (note taking) for 2 weeks now and it has grown on
me.

I use to write creative thoughts in a text document or Notes on iOS. I never
revisited these notes. The most important thing is having a dedicated system
that you revisit daily to revise and refine the ideas / tasks.

That meant that the system I used needed to meet these criteria:

1\. Accessability: I do my planning throughout the day, in bed, on the train,
at work, etc. A physical notebook doesn’t work for me because there was too
much friction in getting a notebook and pen out while in bed or on the subway.

2\. Synchronization: Working on Mac / iOS. Thorough notes are taken on a
laptop while on-the-go notes are needed for quick scribbles.

3\. Indexing: Having a proper file system to organize and categorize thoughts.
I’ve found that Things works good enough for 90% of notes. For other uses, I
supplement it with Quiver for code related notes or food recipes.

4\. Thoroughness: Having ability to write quick one-line notes or in-depth
notes that sufficiently captures my thought is important.

------
prasanthmj
I have dokuwiki installed on my macbook pro. Having a quick reference
conveniently on local laptop is important for me because I should be able to
access it even when offline. Having access to the wiki from different devices
is not that important. Hence no cloud-based solution. The local wiki is added
to the 'hosts' file. so [http://mywiki](http://mywiki) in browser brings up
the wiki quickly. Installing dokuwiki on mac is quite easy by the way. The
sidebar of the wiki has items like: ideas, tomorrow, to-read, references, and
items for each of the project I work on. When an idea strikes, I add an entry
in the ideas folder . This helps because I know that it is 'filed' for later
reference and as it is out of head, I can continue working on whatever I was
working on. One advantage of the wiki over things like paper notebook is that
it is quite searchable. For example, once I stumbled upon one video about a
'water from air' project (making water available in remote deserts by
extracting water vapour from air). I filed it in a sub-page under "ideas "
along with links that I could find. Then moved on. Didn't come back to it for
quite some time. Then one day in some other discussion, the topic came up. It
was quite easy to get back the links and references from the local wiki. The
wiki pages are plain text files that I add to backup scripts (local and
cloud). So it survived system failures in the past.

------
tenkabuto
I've been recording them via my Android phone in the Orgzly app (org-mode
mobile), which works very well for ideas and TODOs. I sync the files over to
my desktop, where I edit them with a text editor and refactor them into my
TiddlyWiki (personal wiki). It's been a game changing combination for me.

I'm hoping to make a GUI editor for working with the org-mode files produced
by Orgzly, as Orgzly is wonderful and learning Emacs is pain.

~~~
kreetx
Haha -- are you saying creating a GUI editor is easier than learning emacs? :p

------
stared
In my case I use a combination of the following:

\- a physical notebook (I always carry it)

\- nth-priority-ideas.md file (I write down ideas)

\- I have an on-and-off relationship with Evernote (as it is easier to sync it
with phone and other stuff; though, cannot draw as easily as in my notebook,
and not as distraction-free as a single Markdown list)

Most importantly, if I have no time for an idea (the best ideas stuck me when
I am busy) I write it down and forget.

------
vinayms
This might be against the grain here but I prefer simply to practice
remembering things well, like humans did before writing was invented. Its hard
but worth attempting. I usually engage in the thought for a while, thoroughly
milk it by letting the mind wander wherever it pleases, and it typically stays
etched. This has worked for a long time now.

I am someone who despises the modern human reliance on technology for just
about everything, which IMO is weakening our abilities, be it innate or
cultured, and I have been on an extended detox. Given that writing is one of
the most pervasive technology ever invented, I am shunning it as well as much
as possible. Now, in modern society, writing as a means of knowledge transfer,
and thus reading, is inevitable, but it need not consume us and make us its
slave is what I am saying. For instance, I do all the private software
architecture design in my head and rarely use the large whiteboard on my home
study wall. But that technology is so ingrained that I, like most people,
involuntarily visualize written things even when just using my mind to engage
in ideas. I just can't imagine how it would have been had humans never
invented writing. I mean not just related to tech, which probably wouldn't
have existed as we know it, but in general.

All that said, the only problem for me is wrt music. Quite frequently I
generate beautiful melodies in my mind that I engage by humming, but quite
often I lose them after half an hour of other activity. So I preemptively use
my cell phone to record the melodies to work on them later. I kid you not,
when I browse the list occasionally, there are many in my list from years ago
that I don't at all remember had occurred to me. And even after listening
multiple times, apart form a few melodies, I forget most of what I hear. It
has baffled me no end. I will crack this case one of these days.

~~~
madrasman
Totally agree - constantly trying to jot down thoughts as they occur is both
distracting and can get overwhelming to revisit.

I was taught this technique that helped me strengthen my memory. In the
afternoon and before going to bed, take 10 mins to mentally recall (and maybe
write down) the day's events and thoughts.

Another helpful technique is to consolidate your thoughts on a topic by
writing it out (or with a blog post). Turns out that there are only a handful
of topics we think and learn about - so this simple solution works.

~~~
aaachilless
Doing this really drove home how neurotic and generally distracted I had
become. I'd do some reading at lunchtime and by bedtime couldn't recall much
of it at all. I don't know for sure, but it really felt like my memory was
being thrashed by the music, websites, podcast, etc that came between lunch
and bedtime.

------
hadsed
There are two things to do here.

First, address the qualities of the top of your ideas funnel. Needs to be
quick, always available. Organization doesn't matter much here because ideally
you'll be reviewing this with enough frequency that a giant list of random
things isn't overwhelming. Whatever works for you, IM sounds like a fine idea.
Sometimes i use Siri reminders because voice interface.

Second is organizing. The basis way to represent ideas and info is relational,
and generally a hierarchy is necessary for compressing into bigger digestible
thoughts. So something that can help you model in that way and do it easily. I
use Notion because it is naturally hierarchical with it's pages embedded in
other pages and the ability to dump in any kind of content. When the page gets
too much content and it gets hard to organize I break it into subpages.

Occasionally I'll want to reorganize things and that's straightforward too.
For me these tools work really well but like many people are saying it's
important to recognize a good process too.

------
d0mine
MobileOrg for capturing notes on a phone. Syncing via Dropbox with Org mode
files on other devices [https://orgmode.org/](https://orgmode.org/)

~~~
sparkie
I've not tried MobileOrg yet, but will give it a try. I currently use Orgzly,
which is available through F-droid. It works quite well and has some intuitive
swipe gestures for navigation and creating outlines, given limited keyboard
functionality on mobile devices.

------
hoodwink
Constantly experimenting with different systems, both analog and digital, but
never found one that clicked.

Evernote was good, but I felt like my notes went in and died. A graveyard of
creative thoughts.

Lately, I’ve been spending more time trying to figure out how to revisit and
make use of my creative thoughts captured in note form.

~~~
vincvinc
> I felt like my notes went in and died. A graveyard of creative thoughts.

I use trello for that reason, with different boards for different categories
of ideas (fiction, startup/project ideas, gaming, etc)

Trello’s UI always feels very inviting to look back and restructure,
reconsider etc.

Instead of feeling like you are just amassing a pile of trash, it feels like
slowly building up and structuring my own personal encyclopedia of ideas and
thoughts. A bit closer to the analog feeling of a scrap book.

------
ai_ia
I have three capture baskets. 1\. On Computer: Org Mode. 2\. On Mobile: Google
Keep. 3\. When Bullet Journal is around, that.

I do organizing once a week to organize it at one place.

------
nexuist
I wrote a Bash command:

Scripts andi$ cat idea.sh #!/bin/sh

IDEAS_PATH='/Users/andi/Google Drive/ideas'

ARGS=$@ FILENAME="${IDEAS_PATH}/${ARGS// /-}.md" echo "\--- date: $(date
+"%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M")

type: FILL THIS IN

\---

A great new idea." >> "$FILENAME" macdown "$FILENAME"

Usage (aliased): Scripts andi$ idea my great new idea

Results: A markdown file in my ideas folder titled my-great-new-idea.md with
automatically generated front matter (date/type). If I wanted to keep track of
more things (like the weather or something) I can just script its addition
into front matter and then query by type through grep or something similar.
Also, the file automatically opens in Macdown
([https://macdown.uranusjr.com/](https://macdown.uranusjr.com/)).

------
padthai
For me writing is too slow. I carry a tape recorder and every couple of months
I transcribe the ideas that I consider worth my time.

Lots of things sound stupid in retrospect.

------
esullivan
I use WorkFlowy and absolutely love it. Its essentially a bare bones version
of Evernote and proud ...

~~~
thex10
Seconding this. Just beware you can't paste images/video/anything other than
text and links to it. But if you can record your creative thoughts with that
limitation I highly recommend it!

------
anthonygore
There are two important aspects here: getting ideas recorded, and organising
them.

Note pads and text files are great for getting ideas down, but bad for
organising them

If you can’t organise the ideas later, the whole system breaks down and you
stop using it

I looked into different SaaS apps etc but they all had some features I didn’t
like or were extraneous for me.

I realized the only way to do this was to create my own note taking app with a
UI that was optimised for my way of doing things and would contain as few
bottlenecks as possible for recording and organising

The result is an app where I can type something out in markdown format, apply
tags, and then filter all my notes by tags

I uses local storage because I hate the idea of a login getting in the way of
recording the idea

------
gdubs
I always keep a stack of index cards with me, bound with a large clip. Every
idea gets a blank card, and I don’t feel bad ripping them up. I store them in
a box I made, and they’re easy to flip through and sort.

I also have a nice notebook with dotted grid paper that I use when I’m feeling
more precise with my thoughts and want to capture them more permanently, or
just more elegantly.

Other than that I’ll use TextEdit or Notes.app on the iPhone, but often will
transcribe that stuff to a card so I have everything together. Some stuff I’ll
leave digital if I know I’ll need to keyword search for it later. But,
generally, physical cards are pretty easy for remembering where things are.

~~~
MarsAscendant
> I always keep a stack of index cards with me, bound with a large clip.

Sounds like the Zettelkasten system.

I'd like to try it. It sounds like a system you don't back out of, a system
for life. How was your experience with it? Any caveats you'd discovered along
the way?

~~~
gdubs
I bought some heavy weight, dotted grid cards and they’re really beautiful.
But be careful - you don’t want to get precious about them. Part of the appeal
is tearing them up when they’re no longer needed, and using as many as it
takes to capture an idea.

~~~
MarsAscendant
Ah, so it _is_ different.

The Zettelkasten system seeks to _save_ all of the cards and link to each
other through a simple, but sometimes convoluted code of links. Its goal is to
make all the notes into parts of a large catalogue.

Yours is more like what I'm already doing. I have a stack of wide yellow
sticky papers on my desk, where I spend most of my work time. If I have an
idea, I write it down on a sticky, stick it to the top-side edge of the table,
and forget about it until the time of review. Once I'd transferred the notes
to a more permanent storage – a to-do list or the outliner – I fold it and
throw it away. (There's something more appealing to me about folding, as
opposed to destroying the note.)

Using index cards might work out better for me, 'cause I'd be able to store
them in a stack, rather than spread over the edge of the table. Worth looking
into. Cheers!

------
cogs
I see no one has mentioned Scrivener.

I love it because it allows ideas to grow organically from a single sentence
to a whole book; or a single idea into a project spec and plan.

I use it to manage all my personal projects. They usually start off as an
entry in my Scrivener based journal, and get a Scrivener document of their own
when they start to fly.

The reason it's so good, is that the UI supports shuffling all the bits and
pieces to structure and restructure the project as it evolves; and it equally
well supports long form writing, capturing idea snippets, screen shots and
webpage clippings.

Tools like Evernote are good for capturing, but rubbish for turning the bits
and pieces into a single project.

------
temporallobe
As a hobbyist musican, I use voice memos on iOS. Once I have an idea I’ve
developed on whatever guitar I happen to be playing, I can just whip it out
and record a new memo. I also use it for recording story ideas, practice
speeches, etc. Since it’s shared accross devices, I can review my ideas later
on my macbook and even import them to GarageBand or Logic. The iOS notes app
is also very good because it’s shared across devices in the same way. I an
also an app developer and often have creative ideas, in which case the notes
app is a perfect solution. If you don’t have Apple devices, I am sure you can
use similar Android apps.

------
circlesguy
I used to use Yahoo Notes for this. When they shut it down I created my own
web app for this, and now it is available to anyone:
[https://circles.app](https://circles.app)

Features: Notes can be accessed from any web browser. Web site is mobile
friendly. You can share notes with others. You can encrypt notes. And the most
important feature: You can download all your notes by clicking "Download all"
and you get a .zip file with plain text files (with line breaks compatible
with your OS).

Other features: You can save links to random websites, you can create lists,
store some files and so on.

------
c3534l
I make lists and jot notes in Zim. Additionally, if I need to actually
organize my thoughts I use a freemium mind-mapping software on my phone called
Simple Mind.

When I went to school for art (until I switched), I learnd that artists and
writers have long used physical notebooks, but that you can't just use them as
a convenience: you have to actually put effort into ensuring you put something
in it each day whether you're feeling creative or not. And you have to go back
and read it to critically evaluate what you're doing. It has to be a process,
not just a reminder.

------
data_required
Use a spaced memory repetition app, like Anki
[https://apps.ankiweb.net/](https://apps.ankiweb.net/) or SuperMemo. (I am
most familiar with Anki, which is free and easily syncs across phone and PC
and web).

You can easily take notes and then there's a built in reminder system which is
most efficient for keeping things in your brain's long-term memory.

I notice the reminder system also ends up making me much more creative, since
I can more easily combine things together to make new ideas. That is a huge
bonus.

~~~
_xgw
Do you have some examples of how you store these creative ideas in Anki? I
have used Anki in the past for memorizing things but not as a note taking
memorization system.

~~~
data_required
Part of the value is just to be reminded of ideas I've had. But Anki can be
used to support creativity in other ways as well:

\- "Card browser" lets you view the cards in various sorting orders.
Alphabetical, time of creation, last reviewed, next reviewed, etc. This is
already better for going through cards than the Memo app on my phone.

\- You can tag cards and sort by tags. (I think doing this also creates a
memorization deck for each tag, too. I just don't use this feature...)

\- I like to put "elements" into Anki which I think could potentially become a
part of a creative idea. Being reminded of those things makes it easier to
think up new ways to combine things, different ways to do things, etc.

\- Like Michael Nielsen (who works for Y Combinator), I believe in putting
everything into just a single deck. So I see a lot of random seemingly
unrelated cards one after the other. I feel like this helps my brain to make
unusual connections and relationships. (Nielsen's writings about Anki and
spaced memory repetition-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/8xi9r4/augmenting_lon...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/8xi9r4/augmenting_longterm_memory_michael_nielsen/)
[https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/95776322945477427...](https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/957763229454774272?lang=en)
)

\- Cards can be starred or suspended.

\- Visually, the design and flow of the Anki app is fantastic, in my opinion.
I genuinely enjoy using it. Tons of user controlled settings, and nice Anki
forums.

\- Use of shared decks can be fun (publicly available decks).

Really though, the most important thing is getting the reminders, and having
control over when I see Anki cards next. By keeping everything "alive" and
stronger in my brain, it just makes it easier to remember things, think of
things, see different possibilities, etc.

And you can put literally anything in there. I put in literally everything I
think is worth reminding myself about. Attitudes, knowledge, quotes, tasks,
task elements, ideas, notes about the people in my life, things that are fun,
memories from my life, exercise ideas, foods, supplements, etc. etc.etc.

------
southerndrift
How about using plain files?

With files, you have the entire operating system at your disposal to manage
them.

You can organize them however you see fit with folders. If you are using
links, you can also create additional hierarchies.

If you are looking for old ideas, you can use grep or ag (silversurfer) to
look for keywords.

The operating system keeps track of access times so you can restrict your
search to a time frame.

If you use git, you have a full history of your versions.

With some discipline, e.g. you can use the first paragraph for a summary, you
can easily extract content for meta documents like todo or priority lists.

------
alan_n
For just jotting down ideas, a notebook, or I try to at least have a scrap
piece of paper on me. I also ALWAYS have a pen on me. If I have no paper I
will write on my forearm. You don't need to write the whole idea usually
(unless you're half-asleep, or in the shower, voice memos are better in those
cases), you can usually just jot down two words to remind you later.

I also use my phone, but typically for longer notes since it's a slow phone
and takes forever to open the notes app.

When I have access to the notebook, I'll write down my ideas properly the
moment I can.

If the ideas aren't important, I let the little pieces of paper accumulate
until ~once a month, along with the notebook and the notes on my phone, I
clean them and sort them into my computer. If you don't do this though, it
becomes a pain, because it's often hard to decipher what the hell you meant by
a note weeks later. Doing this also helps you form more connections/ideas from
what you review usually. When I do this I also make sure to mark the idea as
transferred since sometimes I might keep the papers or only transfer half
(just the text when there's a drawing).

As to where I put them, I used to use Evernote to manage everything but it
wasn't working for me so I switched to Scrivener. Until now it's not working
for me either (too many notes), and I haven't found anything that works so now
I'm working on my own solution.

------
onetom
What's your goal by writing these ideas down? How do you plan to process them
later?

Evernote has a global shortcut to active: Cmd-Ctrl-E (like Evernote), which
will bring the Evernote app into the foreground and positions you into the
search field.

Then you can either create a new note with Cmd-N (like New), or you can start
typing the words you a re looking for.

Are you sure something like that doesn't work for you?

Disclaimer: I don't use Evernote for note taking but for capturing what I read
on the web and taking photos of documents and receipts. It's supposed to be
like an external brain to me.

I also share this "capture log" publicly, so I can search it without a login
from anywhere:
[https://www.evernote.com/pub/onetom/links](https://www.evernote.com/pub/onetom/links)

Search sucks in it though; often I end up just googling instead at the end.

I would also rather use something [https://typora.io/](https://typora.io/) or
[https://caret.io/](https://caret.io/) for actual note authoring...

And I also agree that Evernote is a bit of a bloatware, but it's good enough,
so I even pay for it yearly, since it can OCR the receipts I scan (and it also
supposed to work offline too, though I haven't figured out how)

------
jungler
I've been iterating from using Gdocs towards simple dated text files. Last
year it was by quarter, this year it's by month. I did have trouble with
maintaining sync but finally bit the bullet this year and created a
DigitalOcean instance dedicated to SyncThing hosting. SyncThing was working
great previously just across phone and two local computers, but I had to
remember to keep the _remote_ machines active to have everything sync. So
having one that I don't physically control is actually helpful.

The most important thing for me is to put dates, and sometimes times, on
things. The second most important thing is, when I have a brainstorm, filter
it into a coherent[0] set of ideas right then and there. My previous "idea
generation" strategy held on too long to ideas that don't cohere. As a result
I had many ideas that didn't go anywhere and weren't memorable. Making a
coherence is much more powerful, since it creates a web of ideas that catch
other ideas. My "hit rate" has improved a ton since I changed strategy.

[0] [http://ludamix.com/dive/coherency/](http://ludamix.com/dive/coherency/)

~~~
SamPatt
I second the approach of using text files and syncthing.

Using a markdown editor on my phone and computers means I've always got access
to view, edit and create new ones, even offline, that all sync up when I'm
back online.

It works great and I'm not giving my data to anyone else.

------
mrjazz
Mindmap works great for me especially for creative process. My personal choice
is Freemind. It's easy to automate anything with freemind files because it's
simple XML. I have a few scripts that allow me extract necessary information
from big mindmaps: [https://github.com/mrjazz/freemind-tools-
python](https://github.com/mrjazz/freemind-tools-python)

~~~
sparkie
I would also highly recommend Freemind, and in particular, learning to use
keyboard shortcuts for creating new siblings, parents, navigating and deleting
etc. You should not need to use your mouse for anything.

------
vmarsy
> Evernote alike: never works for me. I hate the constant changing features/UI
> and the overhead of simply opening it

> (My pick) use instant IM to send messages to myself: the IM tool really
> doesn't matter. It could be mail app,

Agreed with this, I actually do both. I use OneNote, but I don't want to waste
time opening the app. So I simply open my google inbox app, and send an email
to "me@onenote.com". It creates a note with the subject of the email being the
note title, and the content of the email is the note content. [1] I've
commented in the past about that feature, I think they should advertise it
more.

(One extra feature I enjoy with this is if sending URLs it also creates a
snapshot of the webpage in the note , which can be pretty handy, especially
since images are text-searchable.)

Another thing I'd do is save the thought as a Inbox reminder, but I switched
to me@onenote.com, since it saves it both in my OneNote notebook, and in my
"Sent" folder in my gmail account, the redundancy can be useful.

[1]
[https://www.onenote.com/EmailToOneNote](https://www.onenote.com/EmailToOneNote)

------
spookyuser
I have been unhappily using evernote. It's not terrible but there's small
things that add friction to notes that I just want to get out of my head. I
used to have a quick launch shortcut on my phone that opens a new note but it
took longer than I would like to load and requires more input than I think is
necessary. You have to enter a title, description then hit save. What I would
really like is something like a todist interface to evernote where you can do
something like: _" This is a creative idea #ideas" <enter>_ and then it would
tag the note and send it to evernote with hopefully very little lag. Or even
better: "Note title" <enter> "Description #tags" <enter> And it automatically
saves.

What I have started using which is better than the default evernote quick note
interface is the IFTTT note to evernote shortcut. Its way faster than evernote
but it doesn't support tagging so if it could do that it would be pretty much
perfect for me, I think.

------
danyork
I use three tools:

1) Things app on my iPhone/iPad/Mac (
[https://culturedcode.com/things/](https://culturedcode.com/things/) ) - it's
a quick place to jot down quick thoughts or notes when I'm in the middle of
doing other things. (I use it for my "to-do" lists - and it syncs beautifully
across my other Apple devices.)

2) MindNode ( [https://mindnode.com/](https://mindnode.com/) ) - if I have a
group of thoughts, or if I have a few minutes, I'll often create a quick mind
map with MindNode and collect my thoughts there. (It also syncs beautifully
across all Apple devices.) I also have a couple of specific mind maps for
tracking projects or article ideas, etc. So if my creative thought falls into
one of those, I'll open up the mind map and add it there.

3) Evernote - For longer lists or ideas, I'll typically create a note inside
of Evernote. I've been using it for years... although with many of the UI
changes and general uncertainty about the company's future direction, I'm
considering migrating my collection of notes/notebooks to something else (so
I've been reading this HN discussion).

I'll note that I'll use these three tools together. Often I'll jot a note into
Things... and then later expand upon that into a MindNode mind map or an
Evernote entry. So one is more "short term" capture of thoughts, while the
other two are for longer term - and longer form - capture.

The challenge of using 3 tools is, of course, that there's no easy way to
search across all of them.

P.S. And many times when I'm going to events, speeches, conferences, etc.,
I'll bring a pen and a notebook as that can be the fastest way to capture
ideas.

------
lordgrenville
I'll put in a plug for my stack: SimpleNote (plain-text, unencrypted synced
notes), with the app Notational Velocity
([http://notational.net/](http://notational.net/)) on my work computer (OS X),
Notation ([https://www.blogsdna.com/26052/notation-a-simple-and-
efficie...](https://www.blogsdna.com/26052/notation-a-simple-and-efficient-
notes-application-for-windows.htm)) the Windows clone for home, and Notational
Acceleration
([https://apkpure.com/notationalacceleration/com.kludgenics.an...](https://apkpure.com/notationalacceleration/com.kludgenics.android.notes))
on my phone. None of these are official or maintained, so I will probably have
to give up on them at some point. SimpleNote's official client is...fine, but
the instant-search-edit UX of NV is unbeatable imo.

------
nikivi
I put all my bigger ideas in public on Trello with hopes that someone finds
the board and makes any of the ideas for me so I don’t have to.

[https://trello.com/b/alB1ryRP](https://trello.com/b/alB1ryRP)

All other smaller thoughts and ideas usually get written into atelegram’s
saved messages and then get processed on mac later.

------
drbojingle
I've heard the Leonardo Divinci would use sheets of blank paper so that he
could later re-arrange concepts easily and draw.

I know you'll also need habits to make it work, otherwise, you'll write, and
never review. I'm having this trouble myself. I use vim wiki to organize but I
never do come back to much of it.

Anyways I think the answer is, in the abstract, more of a process than a tool.
Something that you can easily form a habit with and something that allows for
creative expression (like writing or drawing, or programming or linking). I'm
envisioning a digital book where the pages can be drawings or writing or
snippets of runnable code. Easy to rearrange, probably you want to track
historical changes, and make connections between things. I don't know of
anything that does all of that but I think you could get pretty far with a
reminder to review stuff and just sheets of paper.

------
timrichard
I was using Evernote heavily. Probably too heavily, as it’s frustratingly slow
now on my iPad and Mac. In the last six months I’ve switched to Trello. Great
to use it Kanban style, but it’s also a great pasteboard for image snippings
from the web onto your cards. The checklists and due dates within cards is
useful, but also dragging to reorder so you can rank things by importance.

For a working notebook when developing, I’ve switched to using Markdown inside
Atom with a number of plugins. I used to really like mindmaps, but I find that
nested bullet structures can do the same job but be captured much quicker. The
plugins do nice things like partial bullet tree collapsing, instant Markdown
previewing, and Vim keys which are great for me.

Might well move towards Notable backed by Google Drive, as mentioned on a
thread here a few months back. Also a utility to extract my Evernote data to
be included too.

------
mindcrime
I don't really have a cohesive overarching system, but I probably should.
Quite often, if I have a paper notebook nearby, I write ideas in one of those.
Unfortunately I have several such notebooks and stuff gets spread around, and
there's obviously no indexing / search capability except manually scanning
through all that stuff, which limits its utility for finding stuff later.
Truthfully, it's close to being "Write Only Memory" at this point.

If I'm not writing in a paper notebook, I often just email stuff to myself. In
theory I could put some kind of special tag or annotation in these emails and
then set up some kind of system to programmatically process them and build an
index or promote them to a wiki or something, but I have yet to get around to
doing that. I can at least search my email for messages from myself though,
and quickly find them.

------
plithner
Hi!

I used put all my ideas in a google doc, plain and simple. But then I started
realizing that all my "great" ideas just rotted away because I never had the
time or will to make anything of them.

So I started building a (very simple, and rather ugly) web page where I could
put my ideas, and have other people (family mostly...) look at them and make
comments etc.

To me it makes great sense to open source ideas, and let anyone comment and
contribute to them. This way they can grow into something much more
interesting.

If anyone is interested in having a look, feel free to do so at
[https://www.innoventory.com](https://www.innoventory.com) . Anyone can look
at the current list of ideas, but to post your own, you need to create an
account with an email address (btw, the "artwork" is not up to date with the
domain name, but you will get the _idea_ )

------
tathagatadg
I can completely relate to you and and I have ended up with step 3. I
initially started with a slack for myself - but the free version is very
limited for serious notetaking. After some research I settled with Zulip and
hosted it on digital ocean.

Slack's UI is probably better, but zulip's UI is nice too. It offers multiple
clients - web, ios, command line. I don't use the command line client as I
find myself using the web much more.

I keep a tab open and when I am not in front of the computer I use my phone.

Of course, you need to be connected all the time. I write down take a picture
and post it whenever I'm back online.

Search works right out of the box - though you wont get OCR for free like
OneNote/Evernote. Something that I am looking forward to is writing (i)bots to
automate some workflows (like ocr) (ii) integrate with other productivity tool
chain - todoist and trello.

P.S. Its written in Python!

------
trecorcorin
[https://ideatosafe.com/](https://ideatosafe.com/)

1\. mindmap that syncs all devices, type on your phone, see changes on TV
immediately

2\. super intuitive gamified keyboard shortcuts (no need for mouse); super
intuitive mobile gestures

3\. has node-level in-browser encryption via tweetnacl so if you provide a
crypt key, only you can see what you typed under a crypted node - crypted data
looks like gibberish in the db and there is NO way to recover it, except you
provide your crypt key. If you lose your key, you have lost the data under all
crypted nodes, forever

4\. copy/paste nodes to/from freeplane/freemind directly onto your map

5\. full disclosure - I am the developer and working on a second release,
sign-ups paused for now but I can open it up for signups if there is interest
in working on the beta - I use it to organize my entire life

~~~
yardshop
It sounds interesting, but that page is just a login and no info. Can you
provide a screenshot or something? I like the mind-map idea and want to see
how you are doing that.

~~~
trecorcorin
here you go [https://imgur.com/17XxTmX](https://imgur.com/17XxTmX)

all these are equivalents [CRYPT][SAFE][HIDE] etc

there are also other commands such as: [VISIT][PEEK] that allow you to
navigate and edit a different mindmap so that you don't have to leave the one
you are currently working on

eventually I want to be able to combine commands like so: [SAFE]send Cindy key
- [AT 2130] - [TEXT 7732049384] - the key Cindy is expecting

in the example above Cindy would receive a gibberish text message around
9:30pm, but you get the point

------
gpsx
I usually toss the ideas around in my head for a little while and then I will
write it up and keep it in Google Drive. It may be a page or a few pages, or a
half a page. I create a folder for the idea and then put the document inside
that. What I do not typically do is go over my old ideas, which might be a
good idea. But I think the act of writing the idea down goes a long way
towards crystallizing it in my memory, for is I ever want to revisit it. (Back
in college, I would take notes in class, but never review them.)

Most of the ideas get touched only the one time. Some I come back to and
expand on. And some actually become projects (which is what I call the root
folder where I keep all these, "projects").

If the idea does become a bigger project, I will often have many more ideas
and they will get written up in the same folder.

------
throw19287
Sounds to me you've got down the routine of capture. That's pretty awesome and
you're ahead of the curve.

What you haven't talked about is the routine of review. Sounds to me that's
really where you want to spend your efforts.

If capture is picking fruit, review is squeezing juice out of the fruit you
picked.

~~~
jianzong
Thanks for your advice! I agree with you that reviewing is important. I do
iterate over a few alternatives before I begin using a private Github repo to
organize my ideas that worth picking up. Github
wiki/issues/milestones/projects work amazingly good.

On the other hand, I am not very happy with my current random ideas picking
strategy. It is really nice to see there are many alternatives in this thread.

------
jwr
To quickly jot down a thought for later, I use 2Do (runs on all my devices).
That's as small an overhead as I can get in my digital world. Every once in a
while I review what landed in my inbox and move the ideas to a different list,
rewriting and expanding their descriptions.

To sketch things, I use the Concepts app on my iPad. Once you get used to the
convenience of drawing something, then circling it with your finger and moving
it to the side, it's difficult to go back to paper. Highly recommended. I do a
lot of drawing/sketching, it helps me think (even though I can't really draw,
my drawings are really just a bunch of text with arrows).

Then once a year or so I review all my oh-so-creative thoughts turned into
notes and I realize with sadness that I had no time to do anything about any
of them.

------
toomim
The best way to store your ideas is to memorize them. This is the ultimate
goal. If they are baked into your consciousness, they become an automatic part
of everything you do.

Humans have a long evolved history of memorization. Before we had writing, we
had to memorize the things that mattered. Don't forget that this practice is
baked into your genes.

To get there, it helps to write down your ideas, and to organize them
together, reflect on them, find patterns in them. But the actual medium
doesn't matter as much as the practice you follow. Remember that when you are
writing down your ideas, you aren't dumping them into an offline store -- you
are making them nice and pretty and well-organized for your brain to remember
them as you write them down. Write them down to fill in your brain; not to
offload.

~~~
dj-wonk
I appreciate some of what you say, but:

1\. I'm skeptical of a claim such as "But the actual medium doesn't matter as
much as the practice you follow". I recall hearing about studies that show
tactile experience (physical writing for example or being physically present
during a lecture) forms better memories, at least in many people.

2\. I strongly disagree that the best way to store your ideas is to memorize
them. First, memorization isn't feasible, information-wise. Second,
memorization is not most people's general goal. I would suggest a more general
goal is to recall the salient features of your ideas and connect them to your
task at hand. This suggests a mix of storage mechanisms: some memorization
(i.e. for indexing, summarization, and connecting) with other higher-
bandwidth, less-error-prone storages.

To prove my second point with a counterexample: I highly doubt that visual
artists can remember every brush stroke on their favorite canvases. It is more
important, arguably, that they organize their work in a way that they can
refer to it. And, for the purposes of creating future work, I doubt that
memorizing exact details of previous work is the most important. Remembering
the inspiration and the techniques is probably more important.

------
dredmorbius
Index cards.

POIC is a useful basic framework. Don't let it get in the way of what works
though.

[https://unclutterer.com/2014/06/17/the-pile-of-index-
cards-p...](https://unclutterer.com/2014/06/17/the-pile-of-index-cards-poic-
system/)

Bullet journal.

------
jcowdy
I use Trello and have a specific list for ideas. It works for me because
Trello is always “with me” as an app on my phone, on my desktop, or via a
browser. I tend to have creative thoughts while out running and use speech to
text to add a new card through the iPhone app without stopping.

~~~
amunategui
I use speech-to-text on my iPhone inside a gmail draft notes on the go as
well. I'll keep adding to the draft then email it to myself. I'll also use
VoiceRecorder app that can do speech-to-text after the fact.

------
navs
Email. I send emails to myself with a specific tag in the subject like "idea,
todo, read later, thought"

I've tried various todo/organisation apps and I just find email to be the
easiest for me. There's filters setup for each of those subject tags and I
sure have a lot of em.

------
H1Supreme
Since most of my ideas seem come out of thin air, I usually send an email to
myself with a rough idea. Then, I create a Google Docs "Word" file with
further details if the project develops further.

I tag the emails with "Project Ideas" in gmail, so I can sort them later to
review.

------
pixelmonkey
Directory full of Markdown files, synced across machines/devices via Dropbox.
On supported platforms (iOS/Android/OSX), I use iA Writer to edit them. On
Linux, I use vim/goyo and Typora.

I find that this is the most flexible and multi-device option, which then
makes it easy to copy-paste content into other tools and places (email,
GitHub, GDoc, whatever).

For very quick mobile notes, I also use Pushbullet to send myself a kind of
"reminder" to pick up a thought from my phone and continue the thought when I
get to my laptop/desktop.

I also have Simplenote installed everywhere (including simplenote.vim and
native apps across Android / iOS / OSX / Linux) which I tend to use to quickly
jot down notes during meetings, but for little else besides that.

------
catacombs
I organize everything in a series of org files -- books, music, work ideas,
movie list -- that live in one folder synced in Dropbox and can be accessed
through multiple machines, including my phone.

If I need to jot something quickly, I use my phone's note app or regular
pencil and paper.

------
firefoxd
Shower thoughts that may amount to something is first repeated out loud. Only
when i vocalize them they can stay in memory long enough to be recorded by any
means necessary.

I send myself emails, record audio, then in the end everything is converted to
.txt file on structured dropbox folders.

------
KlaymenDK
I'm probably too late to the game, but here goes anyway.

I feel that not enough people are mentioning outliners -- essentially lists
within lists within lists.

My favourite one is Workflowy, which exists as both a web app and a mobile
app. I have top-level nodes for the major areas of my life: personal,
relationship, work, house, hobbies, etc; each is then further broken down into
smaller topics until they end in actionable points. You can even share parts
of your outline with others (with read-only or edit access); for instance, my
kids's wish lists are shared publicly to avoid unwanted or redundant presents;
I have also shared nodes with my coworkers as a canvas for group
brainstorming.

Outlines also work well within a GTD (Getting Things Done) context.

------
whiddershins
As an Asana user, I email myself and cc Asana. That way I have an ongoing list
of Asana tasks that are my ideas.

Honestly, I rarely get to them though. Usually if an idea is stimulating it
keeps coming back over and over and it’s irrelevant whether I wrote it down.

~~~
halfastack
I love the idea of "Steve" or "Ariana" at Asana thinking "Oh, another email
from whiddershins, better write that down for him into his account. Good on
you, mr. whiddershins!":))

------
ves
I write them down.

Now for the bit nobody will care about:

If the thought’s really worth it, I will get up, find a notebook, and spend
quite a lot of time transcribing it. I’ve actually gotten pretty good at
writing blind because a particularly pernicious thought keeps sleep from me at
least once a month.

Every so often, I’ll read through my notebooks and try to synthesize these
notes into something better. Often, the really good nuggets are lodged so
deeply that I wind up remixing them durably within a few days anyway.

If I don’t record it, I’ll probably forget that I thought it soon enough, so I
can only ever feel a few days’ worth of regret at any one time. And there’s
still too much material to work on anyway.

~~~
MarsAscendant
> If the thought’s really worth it, I will get up, find a notebook, and spend
> quite a lot of time transcribing it.

I keep a notebook (or a substitute) by the bed, for the very same reason.
Writing most ideas down is worth it, in a sense of developing a habit to write
all of them down, regardless of how much they're worth at the time.

I'm writing this story, where chapters are broken down by the song the main
character listens to, which reflects his emotional state. I've had this great
song idea for a sudden shift in atmosphere when his abuse ex messages him out
of nowhere, after years apart. It's an emotional whiplash for the character.

I'm kicking myself for not writing the title down. All I remember now is that
it was _perfect_ for it.

~~~
ves
> All I remember now is that it was perfect for it.

Always hate it when that happens. The bad part isn’t forgetting — it’s
remembering that you’ve forgotten.

------
reves
Commonplace notebook in emacs, several moleskine notebooks and a digital voice
recorder.

~~~
drieddust
Which voice recorder do you use if you don't mind sharing?

------
bhargav
Perhaps this is not applicable to creative thoughts: I usually have "project
ideas" that come up randomly. I have recently decided to stop investing any
time on them. I simply observe the ideas and let them pass. What I notice is
that some of said ideas, keep popping up. I continue the observe and pass
process. Usually this process leads me to naturally filter ideas with the
little cycles I spend in making a note/observation and letting the idea pass.
I am trying to not actively invest too much time into ideas as I have a
observed a personal tendency to "make things fit" and introduce biases.

------
age_bronze
I'm not the documenting type at all, but I do have a habit I developed of
writing my current "state of mind" before the weekend, so that I'd remember
where I left off at the start of the week. I usually remember my ideas during
the day or so of thinking about them, it's usually during longer breaks that
you forget about stuff. You never just "forget" stuff, it just goes "cold" in
your memory and you're less likely to remember it when you need it. Find a way
to remind yourself of stuff when you need it - notes are useless if you forget
they exist.

------
beatgammit
I just use a crappy notebook app on my phone. I'll revisit it from time to
time, and if there's anything there that's actually useful, I'll make an
effort to move it somewhere more permanent. I find ideas have a short shelf
life, so I just want something simple.

I have Orgzly set up with Syncthing in my phone for things I actually care
about. I don't use emacs, but I like that I get notifications about things on
my phone for scheduled things and I have a backup on my computer if my phone
dies. I plan to learn emacs orgmode at some point, but I haven't gotten around
to it.

------
janci
I write it down on A4 paper, often with diagrams. When I have time to develop
the ideas, I make few skethches some of them to be thrown away.

I put them to a ring binder together with project notes, specs etc. Works well
with note block papers with holes or classic papers & hole puncher.
Ocassionaly I review the content of the ring binder, throw away outdated stuff
and make note of forgotten ideas worth developing more.

I like Feynman problem solving strategy: keep two or three problems in back of
your head and when you encounter interesting method, try applying it to the
problems you keep in your mind.

------
parfamz
OneNote, am I the only one?

~~~
FiReaNG3L
No, surprised not to see it higher on this list honestly!

------
bequiet
I don’t keep track of random ideas anymore. I trust fully that I won’t run out
of ideas. Writing down every idea you have is a symptom of anxiety in my book,
or to be more precise, a lack of trust in yourself.

I eliminate whatever is unnecessary to make progress with my work and keep
just one README.md on the progress I’m making. If an idea is critical to
whatever it is I happen to be working on I write it down on a piece of paper,
to be consumed quickly by the README.

It’s freeing and it’s made me considerably happier at work.

------
Kagerjay
I organize everything in chronological order generally one time, two times max

1\. on phone > color notes on android

2\. at home desk > a physical notebook, draw things on paper

3\. while typing > I have a chrome extension I click, type a few things, press
enter, gets sent to my notetaking app.

I check (2) once a week, (3) once a month. (1) is on a per need basis if I
remember an event and notes I took from it.

(1) is just random notes from conversations and events. If its important I'll
funnel it to either (2) or (3)

If its urgent and I can act on it right away, it goes into a stickynote

------
peteforde
I swear by Workflowy.

I am not an artist; if you need to be sketching things, you will have to keep
looking.

Workflowy is a near-perfect outliner aka list of lists that consciously avoids
adding features that aren't absolutely necessary. Complaints people have are
always things like "but I can't assign dates" or "but I can't assign a task to
someone on my team". The correct answer is, "exactly".

[https://workflowy.com](https://workflowy.com)

------
ljsocal
Notes app (native to iOS & OS X)

~~~
synthmeat
I went all in with Notes.app, sounded so appealing with much more potential
features unlocked on iPad Pro with a pen, as well as iCloud web accessibility.

Then it failed syncing.

Then I noticed search doesn't work over note titles.

Then it prevented me from having more than 100 attached links (yes, links, not
files) per note. Hard-coded.

Then it started crawling performance-wise. Slow startup, slow scroll.

Currently, I'm at file level when on desktop, and on paper when not. I'm not
particulary happy with this either, but at least I'm aware of limitations at
all times.

~~~
jianzong
Blame me on not being a good mac-tizen. But a few years ago one day Notes.app
somehow failed to sync and all my notes are gone. That day is the day I chose
not to believe anything that "just works".

(I didn't bother to figure out what goes wrong. These notes are throw aways
anyway)

------
redisman
I use a folder in Google docs and try to write about a one page pitch/core-
idea with a small box in the start that has the summary. Honestly my main
problem is I never have the time or will to act on any of the ideas from the
past 10 years.

I have ideas from games to T-shirts to apps to frameworks but working a SWE
job and your general age 30+ responsibilities it's hard to execute on any of
them.

For smaller ideas and week-month TODOs I just use a Sublime Text that's always
on.

------
el_cid
I used to have an emacs setup which I ditched because I was tinkering with it
too much. :)

I switched to Things 3 on Mac/iOS which I love.

Things 3 is both my GTD app of choice (it runs my life) and my inbox where I
catch everything. When I have a random thought/idea I just add a new to-do in
my Inbox. Then when I have the time, or at least once a week, I go through my
Inbox and add more detail to the task, and try to make it actionable or store
it for review at a later date.

------
ChuckMcM
I like the texting yourself thoughts ideas. I have been known to carry around
a pocket voice recorder so that I can whip it out and start talking about an
idea.

------
rolandas
For me, the combination of iA writer and iCloud works really well. Desktop or
mobile—both syncs without problems. If idea is compelling enough, I might
later write it down as a blog post and remove original writing from my
computer.

I also keep a notebook next to my bed, because for me sometimes good ideas
emerge when everything quiets down. I transfer any writings to a digital
format while I'm drinking coffee in the morning.

------
plithner
I made a web page for myself (and family/friends) where we "open source" our
ideas, and which allows users to "vote up" ideas and contribute to them etc.
Feel free to have a look at
[https://www.innoventory.com](https://www.innoventory.com) ! I mean, why not
share all the great ideas instead of burying them in some document somewhere
:-)

------
miguelrochefort
For the past 10 years, I've been emailing ideas to myself.

Recently, I started using Google Keep.

This year, I plan to build my own solution (unless someone convinces me
otherwise).

------
glup
I replaced an unknown number of physical notebooks with a iPad + an Apple
Pencil + Apple Notes app. It's definitely not quite pen and paper, but I can
refer to 1000's of pages in an object the size of moleskin-like journal. I
don't have email or messaging on the iPad — it's just for reading and writing.

If it's something that doesn't require a sketch, I just use a plaintext
document.

~~~
criddell
A new iPad Mini with Pencil support would be pretty compelling to me as a note
taking platform.

------
fuball63
I started using the "hipster pda" after reading about it on hn, I love it.
Goes wherever I go and I can reorganize pages easily. Unlike digital
notetaking you can also do doodles, flowcharts, and mockups. I have an index
card box to archive them.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster_PDA](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster_PDA)

------
ayoisaiah
I use Notion.so. I have a page where I put all my thoughts no matter what they
may be. Then I review it weekly to see what can be tackled next.

Unfortunately, Notion does not have a browser extension yet so you always have
to open the website or app to jot down something, but I hope this will come
soon.

If you want to add notes without opening an app, you can try Google Keep. It
has a Chrome extension that works really well.

------
oedmarap
I use Simplenote[0] for this since I always get random creative ideas and
thoughts throughout the day; SN being cross-platform allows me to jot them
down mostly on my phone and then reorganize/expand later on the desktop
client.

It's also open source, and from a company that won't go bankrupt anytime soon.

[0] [https://simplenote.com](https://simplenote.com)

------
ThomPete
I use an app I made called ghostnote which basically allow you add attach
notes in context of what you are doing currently working on. But I like your
idea of using messenger or something like that as a, even more, laissez-faire
approach

The whole point is to write the idea down, not so much remembering it (unless
you literally have the melody for a hit song or the algorithm for the cure for
cancer)

------
chrisMyzel
When I was using an iPhone & mac as my primary tools I had siri create
reminders "write a tool which does.." which were synced to caldav & regulary
auto-imported into my GTD inbox (omnifocus).

I really liked this solution since it was reliable. The synced entries were
deleted from my phone automatically so I did not have to worry about an
endless list of tasks on my phone.

~~~
jianzong
Using Siri is really neat, you don't even have to unlock your phone I assume.
:)

------
boo-ga-ga
For the same reason (complicated changing UI etc) do not use any special apps.
But the standard Notes app on Mac OS or iOS works just fine.

------
ri0ter
Hmm have you thought about Rocketbook? It seems something you might like. It
works like a physical notebook but then you can easily put your stuff to cloud
or some other storage. Haven't tried it though.

edit: To be more precise I thought about Rocketbook Everlast:
[https://youtu.be/FL2aOGwm3Ak](https://youtu.be/FL2aOGwm3Ak)

------
pengo
Simplenote. It would be nice if it allowed me to attach images or other files,
but it plays nicely with every device I have, and makes it easy to jot things
down.

The other tool I use is the Remember app on my phone, but only because it
allows indexable voice messages. Hit the button, say my piece, and it's there
for me later. A quick aide memoire when I'm on the go.

------
casper345
InkDrop [https://inkdrop.app/](https://inkdrop.app/)

Google Keep

Physical Moleskin Notebook 4inc x 2 inch in back pocket

.txt file where I write quick stuff in terminal

I do not have one source but a combination of mediums to jot down my thoughts.
I prefer that than having a centralized place because different thoughts and
ideas are better conveyed in different ways.

------
tonygrue
Wunderlist is where I landed 5 years ago after many failed alternatives. I
like that it’s primary interface is a simple entry box with an add button. I
can review my ideas periodically and add more detail. It’s very cross platform
and very simple; and in the years I’ve used it the app hasn’t experienced the
typical feature bloat.

~~~
ilamont
I also use Wunderlist, after trying many of the other tools described on this
page - text docs, paper notebooks, audio files, etc.

I think the cross-platform support is crucial, which is why I was dismayed to
learn that Microsoft acquired the parent company. I don't want to be tied into
a Microsoft account to use Wunderlist, or see second-rate versions of the tool
become the norm for the non-Windows platforms. Strangely, Wunderlist has not
been shut down nor have people been forced to migrate (yet) even though this
was announced a few years back.

I still use paper notebooks from time to time, especially when I am listening
to someone talking or I need to digram something out.

------
learnstats2
I write them. I carry around a good quality physical notebook and a couple of
pens that I particularly like, and make an effort to spend some time writing
every day so that it's a habit.

My notebook is A4 and sits alongside my laptop: if I have my laptop, I have my
notebook.

I find the act of physically writing things down is really important for my
process.

------
krisu
We've created a dedicated app for this purpose - to keep track of our ideas.
Maybe you'll find it helpful for you too :) You can check it at
[https://idee.mindhouse.io](https://idee.mindhouse.io)

It's basically a note app dedicated for ideas so you can get back to them in
the future.

------
frading
I've created [https://mediatag.io](https://mediatag.io) just for this goal. It
makes it easy to add a page, a note, an image. Just with a single click if
you're in a rush. Or if you have a tiny bit more time, you can add tags to
organise what you've just saved.

------
JofArnold
I have two Siri Shortcuts. One records audio which creates a ticket in the “To
be triaged” column of my Thoughts Trello board, and the other does the same
but transcribes.

For more technical stuff I use whatever is the nearest technology to the
source of the problem. Eg when doing web dev I use Chrome Snippets or
codesandbox or Slack.

------
lfowles
Unless the ideas are absolutely critical I mentally explore them and then let
them slide on out of my mind. Great ideas seem to strike more than once and I
am better prepared to act on an idea that has come up multiple times vs one
that I just came up with and feel certain is the greatest idea ever (for
now....).

------
demircancelebi
I am using a mix of Airtable, Notes app and Markdown files. I like organizing
my thoughts in a tabular fashion, and Airtable comes very handy, since I can
see different thoughts at once and compare them. If some thought needs a long
text to describe, these generally go to either Notes app or Markdown files.

------
shiv86
I have a locked twitter account for raw unfiltered idea. If you have an idea
or a thought tweet it to your self!

------
Brajeshwar
Pen/Paper as default. When on a computer, an outliner/mind-mapper. Of late,
getting back to Scapple[1]. You guys should try it.

1\.
[https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview](https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview)

------
danmaz74
I jot down very basic ideas on the most convenient medium I have at the time -
often, it's gmail on my phone (write to myself).

I later organise them using mural.co (originally it was called mural.ly) which
is a web whiteboard which I find very good for organising different kinds of
materials, links, etc.

------
zzo38computer
I generally write stuff in a book, especially when I am not on the computer.
When I am on the computer I will often use computer files (I don't use any
particular software other than a text editor), sometimes in addition to books.
Sometimes even IRC in order that I can get comments.

------
crucialfelix
Wallet sized index cards. I put thoughts and ideas. They can be sorted and
copied to elsewhere if it's something that gets implemented.

I also use Google keep for all product and Tech ideas. that's if it definitely
has an implementation or it's a task or thing to research.

Pocket moleskin for daily log.

------
rl3
A file called ideas.txt.

In retrospect I should have put it under version control; nearly a decade's
worth of ideas and no clue when most were thought up.

Ideas for my active project/startup are organized in a relatively more
disciplined fashion and consist of multiple text files under version control.

------
mbrumlow
Emacs org mode

~~~
fosco
Love org-mode once I finally had the courage to give it a look and a week
facetime/learning. my org-mode file has everything from general knowledge to
ideas to everything that can be written in text in between.

------
djmashko2
I write them down in Things and group them into projects, makes them easy to
search and organize!

------
mrankin
I use Apple Reminders for an ideas list. The cool thing about it is that you
can set a reminder for when you are in a particular place. That way, whenever
I get to my local cafe I get a little popup that reminds me to take a quick
look at my list.

------
momentmaker
I don't use this for keeping track of my creative thoughts but I use it for
journaling.

I use Rocketbook. It's a physical notebook but you can also scan it and
directly upload to your cloud storage of your choice.

It has 36-pages which you can erase with just a wet paper towel.

------
jepras
I have a notebook in Evernote to capture ideas. Whenever I submit them they
automatically get populated into a Google Sheet (using Zapier).

In that way, I can review them on a weekly basis and add more parameters such
as rating, difficulty, next steps, etc later on.

------
randomsearch
If this dispersed collection of ideas from so many minds ticking away over
time holds potential to improve the world, can we tap it?

Is there some way to make visible and actionable this potentially vast
resource?

An open source model for ideation?

A marketplace for ideas, insights, observations?

~~~
Jarwain
Honestly? It reminds me of Twitter, or what the platform enables. Like how the
OP just sends themselves messages, it's easy to open up Twitter and send out a
bite-sized idea to share across the world.

Mastodon could probably fill a similar niche

------
JohnStrangeII
Notebooks. Leuchtturm 1917 with enumerated pages and table of contents, more
specifically.

------
krsdcbl
I use a combination of a physical notebook for graphical stuff and elaborating
things, Google Keep for any kind of random thoughts and ideas, and actually
use the dm-yourself thing for collecting/bookmarking links I wanna revisit.

~~~
jianzong
I tried Google keep for a while (a few months I think). But later I find dm-
yourself is faster than Google keep so I abandon using.

I think the law of least effort applied to me.

------
isacikgoz
I add those “creative ideas” to a todo list. It is better to keep them short,
after a while when I look back and see the idea, if it sounds meaningful I
continue otherwise I delete it.

Keeping them short and simple avoids procrastiantion

------
BigBalli
I email myself with the idea. My compulsion to keep inbox zero then forces me
regularly notice it after some time. After a while, if I'ms till excited about
it or it makes sense I tackle it, otherwise delete.

------
joopdevries
I use vimwiki to keep notes. It's not synced out of the box, but as it's just
a directory with text files, you could make it so. If I'm not with my laptop,
I just make a note in Google Keep.

~~~
jianzong
Thanks, I use vimwiki for a while a year ago as well. I think it is more
suitable for idea organizing. Later I replaced it with a private github repo
using issues/wiki/projects.

------
jasey
I used to use a physical whiteboard but quicky ran out of space... Now I use
the free account of realtimeboard.com

Also I link out to Google docs etc within it. However its not the quickst tool
to get an idea on record...

------
nathan_f77
Evernote has been working ok for me. I organize things under lots of different
notebooks and tags, and the search feature makes it easy to find things.
Sometimes I will write something in a Google Doc.

------
oneeyedpigeon
Simple text files, in markdown format. Currently working on a few little tools
to manage them, including a simple web-based editor. That will let me take
notes on Mac, iPad, Android phone, etc.

------
chocks
I use Trello for this purpose. I have a Trello board with a laundry list of
random ideas that come to me. Those that mature get their own card on that I
start jotting down next steps etc.

------
huangc10
If I'm working on my computer, I write use an app called Quiver. If I'm
feeling more like brainstorming and just wanting to be creative, I write my
thoughts in my Moleskine.

------
catchmeifyoucan
Apple Notes App. Very simple. Just need to write a sentence or two to usually
remember. And if it's really interesting, I draw on a random piece of paper,
and take a picture.

~~~
catchmeifyoucan
The most important thing for me, and as you mention, is the accessibility
aspect. The father something is, the harder it is to remember to jot down
something. The notes app opens really fast on both Mac and iOS, whereas
Onenote can feel very bulky.

------
lordnacho
Same as my shopping list, use IFTTT to add a Trello card using Google
Assistant or similar.

It's the fastest way to get those thoughts stored, and I always have my phone
on me these days.

~~~
frrp
hey lordnacho, how to contact you directly?

~~~
lordnacho
I'll write you an email.

------
wvlia5-
Writer+ on android

For software related ideas on a project, a notes file in the project folder

For ideas I don't really intend to revisit, I write them in any piece of paper
I can find and leave it around

------
hkt
I use owncloud notes. It has desktop, web and phone clients. It is mostly just
a sync facility but I have found it very useful, especially as the notes as
kept as text files

------
libertas
I use simplenote it updates instantly on all my devices, I can send links
while browsing. I find it very usefull and don't miss notebooks and scrap of
papers at all.

------
systematical
I keep a standard notebook by my laptop. I've tried other things. I just like
writing by hand for some reason.

Longer thoughts or ones I want to access remotely go into google docs.

------
keraf
I bought a Surface Go with the pen for that exact purpose and use OneNote to
take my notes and keep everything in sync between the tablet, my PCs and my
Android phone.

------
werber
I keep an ongoing text to email chain going on between myself. When I'm not at
work I text my personal email and when I am, I email my cell phone number

------
juiced
You can start a chat with yourself in WhatsApp:
[https://messageyourself.com](https://messageyourself.com)

------
czam
Index cards, often i want to do a small sketch so pen and paper are best. Make
sure to put a date on the cards.

For rewiewing they can be easily clustered and amended.

------
upatricck
I use todoist, I have one project that contains my random creative thoughts. i
review them and remove those i think are useless from time to time.

~~~
ozim
I did that but then I wanted to group ideas, links, etc. to have some kind
connections. I moved all stuff from todoist to FreeMind. I still use todoist
to quickly note stuff because app synch is great, I have it on my mobile. But
then when I have some time I move it to mind maps to have categories and see
which ones are to be skipped and I don't care.

------
markhollis
I use bitbucket repositories for every topic I'm interested in. There I keep
track of the all the writing that I do, in markdown-files.

------
nixpulvis
Pen/pencil/paper, or git. That's it!

------
z3t4
dont worry. if the idea is any good it will come to you over and over again. i
used to write down all my ideas. on paper, the phone, compter, notes. but when
I look back at them i cant imagine how i thought they where good ideas.
sometimes i get really good ideas from dreams. i have a pen and paper beside
the bed. wake up to write it down. then go back to sleep.

------
rpz
I like to text myself that way theres always a subtle reminder of what i was
thinking since i look at my messages multiple times a day.

------
zeruch
I still bounce between physical notebooks, and Laverna. I spend regular time
consolidating stuff into stack order I can follow up on.

------
alexcnwy
Dynalist

~~~
ayoisaiah
It's fine but too expensive. I moved over to Notion.so recently

~~~
spraak
It's free - only a few features you need to pay for. I get along fine without
them

~~~
ayoisaiah
I need good support for images and that's under the paywall

------
kovek
My ideas I find most valuable are product ideas. I stand my iPhone in front of
the whiteboard and explain the idea in one video.

------
hannahzenkova
I use two things: physical notebook with unlined pages - I draw ideas pretty
often, and iPhone notes (I group them by topics).

------
Hoasi
\- Having a sketchbook in your pocket at all times

\- Voice recorder (possibly an app installed on your phone)

\- Water resistant board for in-the-shower ideas

------
meritt
I've had a draft email to myself for the past 12 years titled "Cool Ideas" and
update it accordingly.

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crehn
Synced with Git:

    
    
      vim -c 'r!date' -c 'normal i# ' -c 'normal o' notes.md

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TheOtherHobbes
Notes app for quick hits.

An insane collection of project/notes/ideas/code folders on iCloud for
permanence.

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pacifika
I’m using notes / Trello. but you might prefer to use imap drafts as a lower
overhead solution

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heshiebee
It's apple notes for me. 1\. Syncs with my Mac 2\. Will be probably be around
for a while.

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larrysalibra
I add to OmniFocus inbox and then eventually move into a sometime/maybe -
ideas project

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senderista
Plain text in Simplenote, synced across my devices (optionally share notes
with my wife).

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buboard
notes often end up like old photos, you never view them again

Ideally i would want a service where all notes are reminders, with default
perhaps 1 week. When you are reminded , you choose whether to be re-notified
or discard. The good ideas will stick

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weishigoname
emacs org-mode is very useful, but most of the time, I prefer picture, which
is easy to understand and review, there are some mind map tool, like
mindmanager, and xmind, you can have a try

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bitwize
Org-mode is your friend.

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sldjfkdsljffkjd
TLDR: I made my own in order to be as lightweight and quick to save new ideas
as possible.

For years I used Evernote but as the tool got more and more bloated it didn't
work for quickly saving a new idea. I tried Notes by Microsoft, Notes by
Apple, SimpleNote... in my opinion they were all too bloated. I wanted
something I could click into, type, walk away.

So I made my own. You create a single sheet of digital paper and it syncs
across all devices. My wife and I use one for a shopping list on both of our
phones, I have one for personal notes and one for work notes. If anything gets
more complicated, it goes into Evernote but this is what I use 99% of the
time.

[http://www.nopencil.club/](http://www.nopencil.club/)

(Warning I made this for myself. It currently doesn't have any offline
features. Use at your own risk?)

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Ibethewalrus
Notepad. Then transfer that to Scrivener. Also Google sheets

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cherrygarcia
A combination of notes, voice memos and music memos on iPhone

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xh2012
I use xmind zen and evernote to track my ideas

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renton
A maze of google doc directories and files.

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misiti3780
Try Anki — it works great!

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talavasek
Google Keep & Trello

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villgax
Google Keep works

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holri
emacs org-mode

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Xplosiveoctopus
GTD

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danielbigham
Your question is timely -- in the last year I've started to be deliberate
about this, and I've found a solution for myself that works really well.

There are five important parts to my strategy:

1\. Each idea gets its own notebook/document. 2\. Each idea gets linked
bidirectionally from/to its parent concepts. (more on this later) 3\. Each
concept / parent concept gets its own notebook/document. 4\. Each day gets its
own notebook/document that links bidirectionally from/to the ideas thought up
on that day. 5\. Various UI tricks such as hotkeys and "NLU" to make working
with the above as fast and efficient as possible.

To sketch the above, I'll give you an example of my workflow on a given day.

I'll often start by going on a walk for 40-80 minutes in the morning. The
energy of the morning air, the extra blood flow from walking, and the beauty
of nature stimulate various thoughts and ideas.

Once I'm sitting in front of my computer, I press a hotkey Ctrl-Alt-Shift-T,
which runs some code to create a "Today" document. The title and file name of
the document are, for example, "January 6 2019", and it has a hyperlink within
it to its parent document "January 2019". There's a section of the notebook
pre-generated called "Ideas".

To create my first idea, I press a hotkey Ctrl-Alt-Shift-N, which is for
"create a child document" which will link back to the document it was created
from. A dialog box opens asking me for a name/title, so I'll type in a one
line summary of the idea "Depression as Feedback Cycle that is Inverse of
Entropy". Pressing ENTER, this creates a new document of that name, and adds a
hyperlink from it back to its parent "January 6 2018", as well as a link from
the parent to the child. I then add a few bullet points to record the essence
of the idea.

Now it's time to link the idea to all of its "parent concepts". In this case,
the parent concepts are "Depression", "Feedback Cycle", and "Entropy". If I
don't yet have documents for those concepts, then I'll press a hotkey Ctrl-
Alt-N to create those new documents. Then, from my idea notebook I'll use a
hotkey Ctrl-E to create a link to a parent concept notebook. Each time I do
this, it prompts me for the name of the parent concept, so for the first one
I'll type in "Depression". Upon pressing ENTER, it will add the hyperlink from
the child to the parent, but it will also open the parent concept's document
and create a link to the child in a "Related" section at the bottom of the
document.

When this process is done, I have the following documents that all link to
each other:

Parents to children: (and vice versa) "2019" -> "January 2019" -> "January 5
2019" -> "Depression as Feedback Cycle that is Inverse of Entropy" "Mental
Health" -> "Depression" -> "Depression as Feedback Cycle that is Inverse of
Entropy" "Feedback" -> "Feedback Cycles" -> "Depression as Feedback Cycle that
is Inverse of Entropy" "Entropy" -> "Depression as Feedback Cycle that is
Inverse of Entropy"

In addition, I'll add links in the "Related" section at the bottom of the idea
notebook to any other ideas/concepts that aren't necessarily "parent concepts"
but are related. In this case, I'll press Ctrl-E and then type in "Depression
as Thinking Too Much", which create a link to that document, as well as a link
within that document to my new idea document.

Why create all of these bidirectional link from child documents to parent
documents, and laterally between documents? It's all about "making
connections" and making things "findable/noticeable at the appropriate time in
the future". Without all of those links, your idea will become an "orphan",
possibly never seen / though of again, or hard to find if you only vaguely
remember what it was called in the future. On the flip side, with all of these
bidirectional links in place, in the future when you're adding new ideas to
these same parent concepts, you'll see the link to this idea, and it will make
possible a new unexpected connection / aha moment. Being an idea person, you
probably realize how ideas are like popcorn -- one pop leads to another, ideas
connecting with each other to form richer and deeper understandings of things.

The final piece of all of this is that rather than only giving each concept
document a name (for future lookup / reference), I give them a regex like
name. So for example, if I create a concept document for "rectified linear
unit", I'd actually define the pattern:

"rectified linear unit" | relu

Then from a document in the future, I can link to it by either of the above
names. Or, if I simply want to get to that concept fast, I press a hotkey
Ctrl-Q, type in a name, such as "relu", press enter, and it appears.
(otherwise, if I just called it "Rectified Linear Unit", it wouldn't have been
found when I typed "relu")

This system has been working great for me. I've quickly developed a tree/graph
of concepts and ideas that are building on and connecting to each other. Any
time I have a new idea or learn a new thing, I have a place to "hang" the
concept, so things don't get lost.

------
egypturnash
Evernote.

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MarsAscendant
In order of descendance, I prefer to:

write down by hand → type on physical keyboard → type on virtual keyboard

I used to have physical notebooks to write things down in. Loved the idea,
never stuck with the process: too slow, can't do much on the go¹, can't do it
with one hand.

¹ I often take long walks around town, which is when I get a lot of good ideas

Nowadays, I spend a lot of time behind the table, at home. The table is wide
enough to comfortably host the laptop and a wide² yellow sticky paper stack.
If I have a quick idea and am near the table, I would write it down on a
sticky, take it off the stack, and stick it to the top of the table, by the
stickies.

² I find wide stickies better for writing and/or jotting down quick design

For outlining and quickly jotting down a complex idea – a character, a
description of a design – or a list of ideas I use
[Indigrid]([https://innovationdilation.com/](https://innovationdilation.com/)).
It's a quick, minimalist outliner ready for full-keyboard control, developed
by a friend of mine. There, I have several categories for long-term items I
keep track of:

* writing (plot, characters, details etc.) * worldbuilding * web game design * forum RPGs planning * major projects * non-fiction books * various notes (eating & dieting, songs of the year etc.) & ideas * thoughts (things that crop up on my mind) * questions (things about life I want to find the answer to)

For to-do, I use [Dynalist]([http://dynalist.io](http://dynalist.io)). It's
slow for my taste³, but the workflow is very useful for my kind of tracking:
mostly-linear, mostly-checkbox, what-to-do and what-needs-doing. I've also
been looking into moving to [Notion]([http://notion.so](http://notion.so)),
which is equally slow to load⁴, but provides a wider range of functions –
something I find myself needing sometimes, when the thoughts move beyond
linear structures.

³ it takes several seconds to load, so I keep it open constantly

⁴ both Notion and Dynalist being Electron-based apps, which takes very long to
load for such small apps

I take the iPhone wherever I go, so it seemed appropriate to find a notetaking
app for it as well. I scribe down ideas on the go, one-handed, onto Better
(which is a bitch to find now; its icon is a yellow square sticky; no clue if
there's an Android app). My criteria were:

* quick to access, * simple design, * easy to write things down

Better satisfies all three. It's like Google Keep, only even slicker-looking
and fast.

I used to use Google Keep for on-laptop notetaking. It proved to be too slow,
though I'd used it for a while and had accumulated a sizable stack of
disparate notes.

I'd also used OneNote for a long time, and it was okay. I did, however, find
myself having to navigate what ends up a maze of notes when you're in a hurry
to jot one down, so I didn't stick. Evernote was no good, either, for similar
reasons. (Notable, a notetaking app trending on GitHub for the last week, is
like Evernote, but slicker, so if you like Evernote, check it out.)

Long texts – like published worldbuilding – I write in Markdown, in [Caret
Editor]([https://caret.io/](https://caret.io/)). It's simple, straightforward,
a bit slow (Electron, eh), but exactly what I want from a .MD editor
otherwise. I love that it uses inline Markdown highlighting⁵ – it fits my
mental model of a Markdown document well. It's effectively free-to-use, as
long as you can tolerate the pop-up that asks you to buy the license. [Beta
releases]([https://github.com/careteditor/releases-
beta/releases](https://github.com/careteditor/releases-beta/releases)) –
stable as a hyppo, far as I can tell – are free, though.

⁵ if you wrap some text in asterisks, it becomes oblique while still showing
the surrounding asterisks, and so on

For life stuff, I have plain-text files for written stuff (journalling, dream-
logging, quotes, and some scattered thoughts) and a big, overarching Excel
table (tracking: habits, weight, exercise, finances).

Overall, I use Notepad for cases where I need to write down a thought quickly.
My main criterium is ease of use, centered around swiftness of response.
Notepad is the quickest so far, with Indigrid close second.

On a related note: there was a mention of a guy with a brilliant, if
sophisticated, method of notetaking on a podcast (could be Wireframe). He's
carried around glasses with an in-built projector (a la Google Glass, but
hand-made), and a one-hand keyboard. When he had a thought to write down, he'd
switch the whole device on (no idea how, exactly) and type it down. When he
needed to find a previous note, he'd switch modes and type out the text he's
searching for. It's been a while for him and his experiment, so he has _a lot_
of notes stored – about people, about fields of science, about himself etc.

I'd _love_ something like that. Even typing – I type quickly – is slow, and I
don't like the sound of my voice enough to tape it. If I ever get an advanced
prosthetic arm, I could program it so, after a certain gesture, it would react
to "muscle" movement for keypresses, and store text either on a connected
device or internally, and project the results onto a lens⁶, so I could see
what I'm typing.

⁶ I mean, I'm already assuming being able to program a prosthetic arm for use
as a keyboard, so _of course_ it's gonna connect to digital lenses wirelessly.

Alternatively, AR keyboard on my biological arm.

------
joe4322353
org-mode hands down

------
alex1761
How do I keep track of my creative thoughts? Very easy! I don't have one. :)

~~~
hdpq
I have creative thoughts, just don't go through the effort of writing them
down ...

