I made the mistake for many years of keeping all of my ideas in my head. Most of those ideas I lost, for I treated them like mental musings, not taking them seriously enough to write them down. There is something powerful about writing things down that moves us to action. I feel a sense of accountability when I look down in my planner and see my to-do list, much more than if I was simply ruminating on what to do.
I have shared over the years the various ways I keep track of ideas, thoughts, dreams, plans, and lists. The best way I have ever found is to use a spiral-bound notebook. Number each page. Make the first page an index. Use your notebook by filling it with birthday ideas, holiday lists, menu plans, vacation packing lists, goals for your home, anything and everything. Then after you have filled a page, go back to the index (table of contents) and write the page number and topic next to it. This keeps all your ideas accessible and organized. I have piles of notebooks from the past five years that I can open to see all the topics and ideas that fill that particular notebook. It’s the perfect place for a “brain dump”, a way of clearing all the anxious thoughts that our brain keeps repeating to us so that we don’t forget. Once you get everything out of your brain and onto paper, peace shows up. Then you can decide what is important and what actually isn’t. My friends and I encourage each other in this practice when we see each other overwhelmed.
Yesterday I went to Staples and bought some fresh index cards. I have used notecards for years for my children’s daily chores and to-dos. It’s been simple, doable, and not a “system” to keep up with. I have read a few articles recently on how writers use notecards as a means to record ideas that come to them, or for quotations from books they are reading, or for capturing a word picture that they want to remember. One idea per notecard. I have stored my writing ideas in my Notes app, but the problem is that I rarely go back to see what is saved. I am someone who functions best with tangible, sensory objects. Paper planners. Pens. Notebooks. So I am going to start collecting my writing ideas on notecards instead of in apps, storing them with dividers in a shoebox-sized container. If you are interested in this index card idea, I found this to be a helpful post.
I use sticky notes in my Simplified Planner as a way to capture quick lists, especially for the grocery store or for naming what errands I need to run while I am out. I begin the day by writing out my to-do list in my planner while also checking my schedule. Then I use a temporary sticky note on the calendar page if it’s a day that I will be out and about. Using the sticky notes lets me grab the list and go, leaving my planner behind. Sometimes I’ll write things that I want a child to do on a sticky note and ask them to carry it with them until completion. I’ll use stickies as bookmarks, or temporary placeholders in my children’s textbooks/workbooks, and as a way of flagging a quotation that I want to write down.
As my routine shifts in the next few weeks with my children’s school year coming to an end, I will begin to make space for some planning some home projects over the summer. Summer is the perfect time to cull our spaces of extraneous stuff and reimagine how our rooms can be used. I want to use a page in my notebook to jot down repairs that need to be made. Another page can be a to-do list for managing our garage space better. I can brainstorm paint colors for our entryway, make a list of furniture I would like to find on Facebook Marketplace, and a gardening plan. A notebook can be a gold mine of ideas for us to reference when we don’t know where to begin in our homes. You can have one spiral notebook fully dedicated to all things home! Ideas come to all of us all of the time, and we lose them or forget them or have them organized in too many places. You can even print the photos off of Pinterest or Instagram that inspire you and use double-sided tape to add them in your notebook.
But the main thing is: keep it simple. If we turn this into some sort of creative bullet journal or scrapbook, then we won’t do it. All you need is a notebook and a pen and an index page. Use notecards and sticky notes for quick captures. The point is to get all of these ideas out of our brains and onto paper, which frees our minds for more creative generation. Our brains get maxed out by trying to be a chronic reminder system but when we set them free, we feel better and move forward with what matters to us!
Lover of paper and ink,
Aimee