Record Ideas!There is no worse feeling then ‘What was that idea?’. I remember when I was at school, I used to daydream my way through most lessons. I think the daydreaming has done me a lot of good, had I paid more attention no doubt I would have done better in exams, but I don’t care, the daydreams helped feed my business desire and ‘idea & creation ability’ (that sounds good!).

However, the one big thing that I regret is I never wrote any of my ideas down, nothing, not a sausage. No matter how big or small, crazy or stupid I wish I had made a note of them. Not because I could have embraced the ideas now and created real businesses (most ideas were probably outright rubbish). But they could have fed other ideas, and parts of business ideas could have been used on other ideas.

It’s Incredibly Simple – Write Them Down!
And the massive shame is that all I had to do, was write them down, it’s incredibly simple! Even after I left school I never started writing ideas down. Now, over the past couple of years I have kept, what I like to call an Ideas Journal to write ideas in. And I highly recommend you keep one to.

Recording Ideas
On my laptop I have an excel document (shortcut on desktop so always there) which I write all my ideas in. The vast majority are related to my current business, many thoughts/ideas/ways to improve and expand my business. But I also note any kind of ideas for new businesses.

Obviously you aren’t at your PC all the time, in fact many of your good ideas will come when you are not at your computer. What I do is make a note of ideas in my phone. I have a Blackberry Pearl, which has a ‘MemoPad’ on it, this is where I record all ideas when I’m not online. Then later on I put them into the excel document. Even if you don’t have a similar function on your phone you could just write a text message and save it as a ‘template’.

Conclusion
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you will just remember ideas, there is a good chance you will forget them. No matter how small an idea or insignificant it may seem – write it down. It costs nothing and can be done very quickly, a spur of the moment idea may be what helps you realise your business dreams.

Not got an ideas journal? Create one right now on your computer!