Now I just throw all those ideas into a drawer and ignore them, tantalising as they are! I second the importance of having such a drawer. I once heard Jim Cou

Now I just throw all those ideas into a drawer and ignore them, tantalising as they are! I second the importance of having such a drawer. I once heard Jim Coudal talk about how at his company they have "The Book", where they put exciting but fruitless ideas, and how often they know before acting on them that that's where they belong. Since starting such a file, that's been my experience as well. It makes it easier to distinguish good ideas from ones that are just fun to think about, and gives you the freedom to revel in an exciting idea with the knowledge that you're not going to actually have to do any work on them. It also lets you share ideas with others without being that guy who is always talking about things he's gonna do. Just throwing them away and trying to forget about them doesn't work as well. Recording them prevents the feeling that ideas are scarce and you might "run out", because you have concrete evidence that you already have more ideas than you can handle.