Where do you keep your ideas? You know, the ideas that pop into your head while showering, the notions that wake you up in the middle of the night, the inspiration that comes out of nowhere when you’re stuck in a traffic jam or a dull meeting.
You do keep those ideas someplace, right? No? You mean you just let them slip away, unrecorded? Well, I’m sure they’ll find a home. The idea will occur to someone else, and if it’s a good one, that person may even act on it. Too bad you missed that opportunity.
OK, OK, so you get the point. Back to the original question: Where do you keep your ideas?
Here’s what I’d suggest: Create an idea file. Open up Word or Google Docs or your favorite text editor and create a file. Call it “Idea File” or something original like that. Put your ideas there. You may want to use Jott, or emails to yourself, or a message left in your own voice mail to capture that idea if it occurs to you when you’re away from that computer. If you’re in the shower, you’re going to need to remember it at least until you can step out and scribble it down on a scrap of paper. Once captured, you can then record it in your idea file at a more convenient time along with the date that it occurred.
What do you do with this idea file? Review it from time to time. After a while you’ll find that some of those ideas end up getting transferred to some place where they’re actionable — on to your to-do list or your projects list, into that list of ideas for blog posts you keep or on to the list of ingredients on a shopping list for that special recipe you want to try.
There are other ways of doing this besides a file on a computer, of course. You could keep an idea journal in a notebook, or file pieces of paper in a file folder, or send yourself emails and file them all in an “Ideas” folder (or tagged with “Ideas” in Gmail, if you prefer). But whatever you do, stop letting those ideas slip away.
Have other tips for making sure you hang on to your ideas? Contribute in the comments.
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In no particular order, I'm a writer, MBA, ex-journalist, blogger, geek, strategic communications pro, father, struggling novelist 
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I have a notebook for all my ideas. I can take that with me to the café, or when I sit down in the park, or when I sit at my breakfast table. It works better for me than having a digital file.