A couple of weeks ago, lying in bed, I had a thought in my head for a great post.  There I was drifting off to sleep when the sugar plums started dancing in my head (seriously…was there any time in history where people actually dreamed of dancing sugar plums?) and I knew that if I didn't act I might lose the thought.  Normally, I bring my journal and pen to bed but I must've tossed it in my bag to process earlier that day.

I weighed my options, One, get up in the dark and risk stepping in cat puke  (I've done it many times…totally ruins the mojo) or sleep it off and hope that I remembered it in the morning.  Guess which path I chose? 

Don't underestimate the fear that cat puke can invoke.

Needless to say, the next morning I woke up refreshed, no cat puke on the feet and ready to write my totally awesome blog idea. 

Gone…just like those damn dancing sugar plums.

To this day, I still try to figure out what that lost thought was.  The Muse can be a spiteful witch if you ignore her calling. 

It was at that point that I vowed to never be without a means to capture life's great ideas again. 

Here are five great means to capture your ideas:

A Notebook for Every Room

I mean every room.  Always have one by the bed, one in the car, one in the kitchen, one by the TV, and even in the bathroom.  Like Archimedes, sometimes your best ideas come in the shower (or bath) when your mind is just wandering.  Little notebooks are cheap, you can buy them in bulk packs.  And don't forget the pens!

Hipster PDA

Yes, I know this is an older concept, originally named by Merlin over at 43folders.com.   But it's BRILLIANT!  He managed to put a cool tag on a concept that many folks practice.  Basically, it's a bunch of index cards held together by a binder clip that you carry with you wherever you go (again, don't forget the pen!).

Not too many folks use PDA's anymore.  Can I call it the Hipster IPOD Touch?  or the Hipster SmartPhone? Gluteus Pocketus Appicus?  Butt Pad?  Ok, enough…

Record it

Cell phone, digital record, the IPOD Touch, they all come with the ability to do Voice Memos.  You can even call your home phone and leave a message, or even your buddy's phone since he's probably screening his calls.

Digitize It 

 If your not online at the moment, you can always just keep some files on your computer or your IPOD Touch to upload later.  It so happens that my IPOD needs WiFi to stay online, as does my laptop obviously, and there are many areas of my city where you can't find a network when you need it. 

Online

I've been working with Nozbe lately.  Developed by a group of GTD (Getting Things Done) enthusiasts, it's a subscription service, though if you are tracking five or fewer projects, it's free.   Basically, it allows you to track your time and your projects via a web-based service that you can also sync with your IPhone (IPOD Touch). 

Is there an IPhone app for everything?  Because if there is, then I'd like a cat puke detection app.  If anyone can recommend one, please let me know. 

There's also Jott which allows you to record your voice on the IPhone (or IPOD Touch) and then it will transcribe it in an email and send it to you. 

For me, I prefer simple means.  While Nozbe is quite good, there are a number of features I will never touch.  I don't like getting bogged down in maintaining a system.  I Project Manage large global projects by day and notice that it's easy to get caught up in managing a project plan, at the expense of getting other things done.  That's why the good ole' Butt Pad works best for me for daily tasks but I often find that I use a combination of the above. 

The important thing is that you get the information down and then spend some time each week (or daily if you prefer) processing it into lists of things to do. 

If anyone has any other great capture techniques, please share.

Funny little post-script to this article.  After I finished the first draft last night, it was after midnight and so I trapsed (stumbled) off to bed.  My wife warned me when I walked in the room that there were three cat puke piles around the bed.  You thought I was kidding.  Needless to say, I found it an odd coincidence…fear the kitties!

Pic via http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitsa_sakurako/

Understanding that I am a bit new to this blogging game, I thought I would share my procedure for putting together blog content anyways, in the hopes that it may help out some other would-be bloggers.  Full disclosure, I failed to follow the good advice that most new bloggers should abide by, and that is first, find a niche, then second, write a bunch of articles for a few months before you launch your blog and start publishing content.

Since this blog started in earnest (meaning I actually posted more than thrice quarterly…yeah I said “thrice”) at the beginning of June 2009, I initially was using it as a means to update friends and family on the status of our newborn triplets.  I’ve now branched out into other interests including spirituality, parenting, productivity and exercise. 

It took me a few weeks to put a plan together and since I don’t really have a backlog of posts waiting to be published, I am forced to write them every week.  The process is not nearly as bad as it seems.  In fact, it’s quite like a Master Chef planning out the weekly menu for the guests at a restaurant.

I keep my eyes and ears open.  I ALWAYS carry my little red softback Moleskine and a pen or pencil.  On the off occasion where the Moleskine is not available, like when it’s packed as I am riding my bike, I use the Notes function on my IPOD Touch and then copy it later into my Moleskine.  I make no bones about writing ideas down when they come to me, even if it’s in the middle of work.  I would rather take ten seconds to get the idea out of my head then let it nag at me and affect my productivity during my day job.  Therefore I always have a bunch of recipe ideas (blog posts) waiting in my little red book.

Menu Planning – On Sundays, I pour through the Moleskine and pick out blog ideas just like I would recipes to plan the weekly menu.  I always pick six, even though I post only five times a week (Monday – Friday).  I like having a spare in case I find myself out of steak or lobster (uninspired on one of the other topics).  I write them down on an index card, divided by day, as my weekly menu. 

Creating the Shopping List - Then I have an index card for each and start jotting an outline for each idea.  This brainstorming is so important and it makes it so much easier to fill in the rest of the article later.  I consider this the ingredients and directions of each recipe.  As such, once I get down to cooking (sorry, writing), each note of the outline becomes the start of a paragraph in and of itself. 

Prepping the Food, Making the Meal - The recipe cards then go into my 43 Folders system so that when I grab a folder by date, each day, my outline is ready to go.  I keep the master menu index card next to my computer.  It typically takes me less than thirty minutes to finish the article after that.  In fact, it takes me longer to format the post and create the links in Wordpress than it does to write it. 

Pat Yourself on the Back, Then Do it Again! – It can be hard to come up with new content.  Basically, rinse and repeat, is easier said than done.  Every Sunday I make a new menu.  In many ways, it’s more exciting than being Master Chef at a restaurant in that I am trying out new recipes every single week. 

Ideally, I should be slowly building up a canon of extra posts, for those lean times when the Muse is a fickle witch.  When I have time on Saturdays, I will provide that as a to-do.  Otherwise, this process is working great.  Hope it helps you.