Good ideas are crucial to your career as a freelance writer. Good ideas lead to salable stories, published books, and a higher income.
The best way to get a good idea? Have lots of ideas.
But one place many, many creative people — freelance writers included — hinder their success is not having a good way to immediately capture ideas, and then store those ideas for further refinement and action.
My strongest recommendation for capturing ideas outside the home: use a digital voice recorder.
Mine is small and lightweight, about the size of a cigarette lighter, and it’s always in my pocket whenever I leave the house. It has 5 folders, and each folder holds 199 separate audio files. Each folder has a specific purpose:
- The A folder holds notes I dictate when I’m listening to educational audios in my car.
- The B folder is for poetry. (I write haiku.)
- The C folder contains corrections given to me by my tai chi teacher during our private lessons.
- The D folder is solely for writing and business ideas.
- The E folder contains items for my to-do lists, or information I need in the short-term, like a phone number or address someone gives me, or directions to a house or business.
My digital voice recorder also doubles as a thumb drive/flash drive, so I can use it store two gigabytes of files, and it also plays mp3 and other audio files. If you must know, it’s the Olympus WS-331M; I like it a lot, but there are many other companies making similar digital recorders.
You may have a phone or other electronic device that can also record your ideas. Just be sure you can easily connect the device to your computer and save the audio files, and that the device has enough capacity and flexibility to meet your needs.
Many people still like to write ideas with a pen or pencil in a notebook or on scraps of paper. If this is truly what feels best to you, then do it.
However, there are 3 major problems with using paper for your ideas:
- You can lose the paper.
- You need to organize and store your written notes, which can be unwieldy.
- You can’t easily back-up your written notes, short of photocopying them or scanning them.
I put all my ideas in Word documents, with a different document for each writing project or business idea. Of course, if the idea comes to me while I’m near my computer, I just jot it down in a document. Otherwise I schedule time every week to listen to all the relevant audio files from my digital recorder. I can easily back-up and save both the audio files and the resulting Word documents, so I know I’ll never lose them.
It’s crucial that you review your ideas and decide which ones you will implement. So whatever scheduling system you use to organize the what and when of your life, be sure idea review gets its proper place.
(This post is based in part on Chapter 30, “Generate, Capture, and Keep All Your Ideas,” from Intelligent Productivity For Freelance Writers: Manage Your Time, Make More Money, and Get More Enjoyment From Life.)
How do you save your ideas? Any horror stories to share about ideas lost?
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Digital recorders are the way to go! When I have a “creative moment” while hiking, I whip out my little recorder and then the idea is not lost…now I just have to remember to download it on to my computer and listen to it.
I always have my digital recorder with me when I’m walking or hiking. I get many of my best ideas out in nature.
Here’s a tip to make sure you remember to download/listen to the ideas: make it an item in your daily planner or other to-do list.
Call me Old School, but I still love putting the pen to paper. I’m a copious note-taker. I keep a sketchbook by the bed for the a.m. epiphanies, a cheap composition notebook in the backpack for ideas on-the-go, and a tiny hardcover note-booklet for the gallery openings and nighttime networking.
My outfit is not complete until I clasp that shiny silver pen clip onto the lapel of my vest. BAM – ready for action!
Old School!
The key thing is making your system work and making sure you can capture all those ideas and create a way to store them and review them.
For some people, just the act of physically writing with a pen or pencil sparks further creativity.
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