Now let’s see…where was I? Last week I pondered the need to have regular connections with sources if you want or need a steady stream of new ideas or materials. I promised a deeper look at the second key to interesting thinking: Having a notebook.
Ideas are fleeting. Like it or not as the years go by, our memories are not as efficient as they once were. Blame it on age, overload, or too little sleep – any one works. That brilliant quote you heard while driving to work will be as lost as the impulse that drove you into the kitchen last night. In both cases, you’re left standing in the middle of a room, shaking your head, and muttering, “what or why?”
When you bump into a worthy quote, statistic, or source, you need to develop the habit of jotting it down in your always-at-hand notebook. Two things can then happen. The act of writing creates a better possibility that you might just remember it, and if you don’t, you’ll have a record to refer to. Nice.
(Side note: please notice that the second key is having a notebook, not having a lot of little pieces of paper! Writing things down on little pieces of paper actually does the opposite of what I’m talking about. If you follow the little-pieces-of-paper behavior to its logical end, you’ll soon realize that not only do you have quotes, statistics, and sources to drag out of your memory, you’ll have to find that piece of paper you wrote them on! Trust me, this is not a pretty hunt!
Side note continued. But Chris, you’re saying, I’m a high tech kind of person. Paper and pencil are so passé. What about keeping these valuable pieces of information on my iPhone, Blackberry or whatever else vibrates in your pocket or bottom of your bag? Hey, I like my technology as much if not more – Kindle, anyone? - than the next early adopter, Okay, give your electronic note keeping a try, but I’m convinced that you trigger a different memory response from writing than from keyboarding. Let me know how it works for you.)
Carrying a notebook and making it the repository of all your sources and the ideas they prompt works effectively for both collection and recall. Once you get used to having it with you, you’ll feel naked without it. And even if you fall for the “grab a piece of paper and jot it down disease” you’ll have the good sense to tape said piece of paper in your notebook post haste!
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