5 ms·

This is quite extreme: you absolutely can and will lose amazing ideas unless you can find them later written down. This comes up in interviews with great creati

This is quite extreme: you absolutely can and will lose amazing ideas unless you can find them later written down. This comes up in interviews with great creative people all the time. Just listen to David Lynch: "I write [ideas] down so I don't commit suicide later having forgotten the idea. I've forgotten probably two or three major ideas, and it'll make you sick, just horrible. Write the idea down. You'll say: I'll never forget this idea. Ah-uh: you can forget them." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHhf76z6BkM&t=197s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHhf76z6BkM&t=197s

Retric 5y ago
Seeming like a good idea is easy, actually being a good idea is much harder.
- hannasanarion 5y ago
  The first step to discovering whether an idea that seems good is actually good is to review it at another date, which necessitates writing it down.
  - Retric 5y ago
    I was writing them down for a while until I realized the ones I forgot about tended to have obvious flaws almost like my subconscious was filtering things.
    - angusiasty 5y ago
      It actually does :)
    - throw10920 5y ago
      Most of my ideas that I've almost-forgot (passed from easy remembrance, only regained with much mental agony) and forgot-but-wrote-down don't have obvious flaws in them. Maybe you have a good mental filter, but for many of us we just have bad memory.
- Psyladine 5y ago
  It doesn't need to be a good idea. It needs to be the next step in the branch; consider being in a conversation when some interruption happens. Interruption resolves, you say "and now back to...what was I saying?" In that moment, the value or proposition might have only been an argument or segue towards a broader point, or a sub-digression, but without that connective node, the entire pattern is lost. You could counter with "then it wasn't a good idea if you didn't remember it" but it's the structure of how we think rather than the quality of the outputs. Why do we retrace our steps when we misplace something? What does that have to do with anything? It's the scaffolding structure around which we build a mental model. It's so you don't run outside and start looking under rocks. If you believe you wouldn't do that, you have to consider then why, and that is innately tied to the pattern-finding structure of our brain. Creatives may cling to a lost node as the Rosetta stone, perhaps assigning more weight than is qualified, but then you won't actually know unless you find and explore that branch of thought. Its value lies in its unquantifiability.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Okay, but an idea can never make it from seeming to be to actually being a good idea unless you remember it for a sufficiently long duration.
Fnoord 5y ago
Back in the 90s, that feeling when Netscape or Windows used to crash. First, a feeling of utter sadness, having lost whatever work was open (imagine writing a Word document for school and hours lost, that's when you learn to save regularly). Then the feeling of relief: ah, at least I gotta start over. But it keeps gnawing. What did I miss? Back then, there was no term for it (or it wasn't popularized), now there is: FOMO. With regards to your quote, writing down helps the brain memorizing. It turns out typing it out doesn't help as much. In that sense, a notes app isn't akin to writing a note, the former isn't handwriting and the latter isn't digitized with all the advantages (and disadvantages!) attached. Its why I bought a reMarkable 2 for my mother (before they went all cloudy). She writes down a lot. It became a mess of notes, pure chaos. A digital notebook is the best of both worlds.
- silon42 5y ago
  I have the same feeling now... Firefox doesn't crash anymore, even with 1000+ (unloaded) tabs... but I will often found that the page (or a youtube video) is now gone/removed after months or even years. I suspect it still loses data and maybe corrupts profile if there is a disk full.
  - jolmg 5y ago
    > I suspect it still loses data It deletes history entries once they're too old, and it also only keeps the last timestamp of when a URL was visited, so you can't know how often you visit a URL. https://superuser.com/questions/1054833/does-mozilla-firefox-automatically-delete-old-history-entries https://superuser.com/questions/1054833/does-mozilla-firefox...
- klodolph 5y ago
  Back in the 1990s, on old Macs, when Netscape crashed, it crashed with a "type 11" error which brought down the whole system. (I remember Word had autosave... I don't know when it first appeared, though.)
  - analog31 5y ago
twomoonsbysurf 5y ago
marcosdumay 5y ago
Personally, when I am in idea mode I'm usually incapable of detailed problem solving, and when I'm in details mode I'm incapable of idea generation. It takes many minutes to change modes and on some days I simply can not change. So, if I don't write notes, I can't do anything complex. Some 20% of the ideas turn out to be useless, and must be discarded, otherwise they add up, but most of them, buy a large margin are stuff that should be executed.
- celdon25 5y ago
  Sometimes I can come up with great ideas while I’m not working on anything and therefore I’m not equipped to properly store them or efficiently vet them. I’ve been spending my spare time on improving my note taking process and organization. Knowledge management feels like the western frontier of tech in some ways. Lots of wins can be had if you get it right and it’s often up to the note taker. Tools alone can’t solve the problem for most, at least not yet. Hasn’t stopped many from trying though.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  When I work my side project I keep all ideas and tasks scribbled randomly on a page in a notebook. If I try to organize those pages or keep tasks away from ideas on a different page I just crash. I have to be sure not to try to organize any of it. I barely use the lines and just cram in little blocks of text wherever I feel they should go in the monlment. I flip back through the pages and have a record of what needs done, what I have done, and the things I need to do or think I need to do. This somehow enables me to chew through a tremendous amount of work compared to projects at work that are rigidly organized. Sometimes I will write down a huge list of tasks, never look at them again, work for a few hours, and check my notes to find that I can cross them all off. I have tried using the tools we typically use at work like Jira or Azure Boards. Total waste of time that stifles the mind.
toss1 5y ago
Yup. I'm often doing this with my wife when she cooks - trying to write it down so we can recreate it when something turns out great; and it often does and we haven't captured it. But I always remember the story I read about a guy whose side gig was inventing a colored solution for kids to use blowing huge bubbles (harder than you think - it's got to be colored enough to see, but become transparent and nonstaining or their moms will instantly kill the product). Several years in, he found a perfect solution - then discovered the next day he hadn't written it down and couldn't recreaate it. It took him several more years to find one that worked and successfully bring it to market. So, sure, maybe most of what goes in the notebooks is cruft, but the process is key. And the author DOES have an excellent point that the search & discovery capabilities of your system are key.
post-it 5y ago
> I've forgotten probably two or three major ideas, and it'll make you sick, just horrible. I wish I could remember ideas well enough to even remember that I've forgotten them. When an idea of mine disappears, it's gone without a trace. I think I need to sleep better.
j45 5y ago
So true. The GTD methedology can work well to park ideas in a Someday/maybe pile. There are plenty of to-do/task managers which can accept tasks via email, and having a sudden idea can be as easy as sending that email address a quick note.
technofiend 5y ago
Not that I can claim David-Lynch levels of ideas, but I've found more than a keyword or phrase is needed to restore the mental state I was in or chain of reasoning I had when the idea came to me. You really need to save context in addition to the idea itself.

Retric 5y ago

Seeming like a good idea is easy, actually being a good idea is much harder.

hannasanarion 5y ago
The first step to discovering whether an idea that seems good is actually good is to review it at another date, which necessitates writing it down.
- Retric 5y ago
  I was writing them down for a while until I realized the ones I forgot about tended to have obvious flaws almost like my subconscious was filtering things.
  - angusiasty 5y ago
    It actually does :)
  - throw10920 5y ago
    Most of my ideas that I've almost-forgot (passed from easy remembrance, only regained with much mental agony) and forgot-but-wrote-down don't have obvious flaws in them. Maybe you have a good mental filter, but for many of us we just have bad memory.
Psyladine 5y ago
It doesn't need to be a good idea. It needs to be the next step in the branch; consider being in a conversation when some interruption happens. Interruption resolves, you say "and now back to...what was I saying?" In that moment, the value or proposition might have only been an argument or segue towards a broader point, or a sub-digression, but without that connective node, the entire pattern is lost. You could counter with "then it wasn't a good idea if you didn't remember it" but it's the structure of how we think rather than the quality of the outputs. Why do we retrace our steps when we misplace something? What does that have to do with anything? It's the scaffolding structure around which we build a mental model. It's so you don't run outside and start looking under rocks. If you believe you wouldn't do that, you have to consider then why, and that is innately tied to the pattern-finding structure of our brain. Creatives may cling to a lost node as the Rosetta stone, perhaps assigning more weight than is qualified, but then you won't actually know unless you find and explore that branch of thought. Its value lies in its unquantifiability.
tshaddox 5y ago
Okay, but an idea can never make it from seeming to be to actually being a good idea unless you remember it for a sufficiently long duration.

Fnoord 5y ago

Back in the 90s, that feeling when Netscape or Windows used to crash. First, a feeling of utter sadness, having lost whatever work was open (imagine writing a Word document for school and hours lost, that's when you learn to save regularly). Then the feeling of relief: ah, at least I gotta start over. But it keeps gnawing. What did I miss? Back then, there was no term for it (or it wasn't popularized), now there is: FOMO. With regards to your quote, writing down helps the brain memorizing. It turns out typing it out doesn't help as much. In that sense, a notes app isn't akin to writing a note, the former isn't handwriting and the latter isn't digitized with all the advantages (and disadvantages!) attached. Its why I bought a reMarkable 2 for my mother (before they went all cloudy). She writes down a lot. It became a mess of notes, pure chaos. A digital notebook is the best of both worlds.

silon42 5y ago
I have the same feeling now... Firefox doesn't crash anymore, even with 1000+ (unloaded) tabs... but I will often found that the page (or a youtube video) is now gone/removed after months or even years. I suspect it still loses data and maybe corrupts profile if there is a disk full.
- jolmg 5y ago
  > I suspect it still loses data It deletes history entries once they're too old, and it also only keeps the last timestamp of when a URL was visited, so you can't know how often you visit a URL. https://superuser.com/questions/1054833/does-mozilla-firefox-automatically-delete-old-history-entries https://superuser.com/questions/1054833/does-mozilla-firefox...
klodolph 5y ago
Back in the 1990s, on old Macs, when Netscape crashed, it crashed with a "type 11" error which brought down the whole system. (I remember Word had autosave... I don't know when it first appeared, though.)
- analog31 5y ago

twomoonsbysurf 5y ago

marcosdumay 5y ago

Personally, when I am in idea mode I'm usually incapable of detailed problem solving, and when I'm in details mode I'm incapable of idea generation. It takes many minutes to change modes and on some days I simply can not change. So, if I don't write notes, I can't do anything complex. Some 20% of the ideas turn out to be useless, and must be discarded, otherwise they add up, but most of them, buy a large margin are stuff that should be executed.

celdon25 5y ago
Sometimes I can come up with great ideas while I’m not working on anything and therefore I’m not equipped to properly store them or efficiently vet them. I’ve been spending my spare time on improving my note taking process and organization. Knowledge management feels like the western frontier of tech in some ways. Lots of wins can be had if you get it right and it’s often up to the note taker. Tools alone can’t solve the problem for most, at least not yet. Hasn’t stopped many from trying though.
datavirtue 5y ago
When I work my side project I keep all ideas and tasks scribbled randomly on a page in a notebook. If I try to organize those pages or keep tasks away from ideas on a different page I just crash. I have to be sure not to try to organize any of it. I barely use the lines and just cram in little blocks of text wherever I feel they should go in the monlment. I flip back through the pages and have a record of what needs done, what I have done, and the things I need to do or think I need to do. This somehow enables me to chew through a tremendous amount of work compared to projects at work that are rigidly organized. Sometimes I will write down a huge list of tasks, never look at them again, work for a few hours, and check my notes to find that I can cross them all off. I have tried using the tools we typically use at work like Jira or Azure Boards. Total waste of time that stifles the mind.

toss1 5y ago

Yup. I'm often doing this with my wife when she cooks - trying to write it down so we can recreate it when something turns out great; and it often does and we haven't captured it. But I always remember the story I read about a guy whose side gig was inventing a colored solution for kids to use blowing huge bubbles (harder than you think - it's got to be colored enough to see, but become transparent and nonstaining or their moms will instantly kill the product). Several years in, he found a perfect solution - then discovered the next day he hadn't written it down and couldn't recreaate it. It took him several more years to find one that worked and successfully bring it to market. So, sure, maybe most of what goes in the notebooks is cruft, but the process is key. And the author DOES have an excellent point that the search & discovery capabilities of your system are key.

post-it 5y ago

> I've forgotten probably two or three major ideas, and it'll make you sick, just horrible. I wish I could remember ideas well enough to even remember that I've forgotten them. When an idea of mine disappears, it's gone without a trace. I think I need to sleep better.

j45 5y ago

So true. The GTD methedology can work well to park ideas in a Someday/maybe pile. There are plenty of to-do/task managers which can accept tasks via email, and having a sudden idea can be as easy as sending that email address a quick note.

technofiend 5y ago

Not that I can claim David-Lynch levels of ideas, but I've found more than a keyword or phrase is needed to restore the mental state I was in or chain of reasoning I had when the idea came to me. You really need to save context in addition to the idea itself.