To amplify a key point: I think the core of your issue is "findability". It's not hard to collect a lot of internet stuff, or even your own ideas using differen

To amplify a key point: I think the core of your issue is "findability". It's not hard to collect a lot of internet stuff, or even your own ideas using different software - finding it again is the difficult task. I'm in the http://twine.com http://twine.com beta, and it works pretty well if want structured notes/data about your research/ideas. Along those lines, you can also try: http://diigo.com http://diigo.com http://clipmarks.com http://clipmarks.com I also use a personal wiki or blog with lots of tagging. Wiki's are very powerful for organically growing ideas, but I find navigation difficult and tagging with most blogs provides easier content organizations. Drupal's taxonomy can help. Flickr's concept of machine tagging is pretty useful for fast organization of thoughts. For offline there are more options like OmniOutliner for Mac. Here's more mac software for idea management: http://members.optusnet.com.au/charles57/Creative/Software/swindex.htm http://members.optusnet.com.au/charles57/Creative/Software/s... If more specific goals you have, the easier to solve the problem. But the general problem of note taking in turning it into a valuable collection is the hard part. I also use paper. :) Old school.