We are bombarded by ideas every day. Whether listening to the news, attending a meeting or reading the paper, we are exposed to ideas that could be captured and used to advantage. If you don't capture an idea, it goes out of your life as quickly as it came in. Here are six ways you can capture useful ideas.
Create your own home study
Few things are more effective in improving your learning capacity than creating your own space devoted to study and learning. To promote learning, your study should be a room you love spending time in. Fill it with bookshelves jammed with books read and yet-to-be read, audio and video cassette tapes, a nice big desk, an oversized reading chair, excellent lighting, and a computer system. In essence you should be creating your own personal R&D lab, and it is in this room that you should be able to spend some of your most productive study time. - Highlight everything you read
Start reading every book or magazine with a highlighter on-hand. This will help you to keep track of the many good ideas to be discovered amongst so many pages and words. By highlighting the books and articles you read, you can quickly review the key ideas each contain at a later stage.
- Don't 'take notes' - 'make notes'
"I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it." - William Faulkner
Note taking is copying key information. Note making is a commentary of your own ideas about the information: your interpretation, implications and how it can be applied. Good note-makers often use trigger words to summarise and remind them of key concepts. They use plenty of white space. Crowded, jumbled pages are uninviting for review and make it difficult to read. Many use a form of shorthand. It makes note-making at speeches and seminars easier, and is less-time consuming and taxing.
- If you can't write it down, record it
Sometimes the best ideas occur when you least expect them. consider investing in a digital recorder. These tiny recording devices make it easy to capture ideas. By simply speaking into a recorder, you can create file folders of ideas that you can later transcribe or, in some cases, load directly into your computer.
- Keep a journal
Some of the most successful and creative people keep a journal.
While some may record the events of each day, the majority are jotting down their insights, reflections and information. More powerful than just keeping a journal, is to periodically review your journal to reinforce the important things you have experienced and learned.
- Make idea-hunting a weekly expedition
At the end of each week, search for the best idea you had in the past seven days. Record that idea in your journal, or your "Idea of the Week" log. By consistently recording those ideas, you will create a record of successful lessons that will put you in an elite minority of learners.
Most go an entire lifetime without recording their best ideas - The best do it weekly.
Many go months without recording and sorting through their best ideas - Effective learners do it regularly.