Why You Need A System For Capturing Ideas
“A brainwave in your stream of consciousness ripples past but once. Fail to catch it and an idea that could change your life and the world dissipates on the water’s surface and is gone forever.”
Robert Greene was born in LA in 1959.
He attended the University of California, Berkeley, before completing his degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a B.A. in classical studies.
After graduating, he held over fifty different jobs before becoming an author.
These employment spells included working as a translator, editor, construction worker, and Hollywood screenwriter.
In 1995, he pitched a publisher an idea about power while working as a writer at an art school in Italy.
That idea eventually became The 48 Laws of Power, his breakout success.
Greene has since written other bestsellers, including The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, Mastery, The Laws of Human Nature and The 50th Law, produced in partnership with the platinum-selling rap star 50 Cent.
He has also mentored Ryan Holiday, the author of the bestselling books The Obstacle Is The Way, The Daily Stoic, Stillness Is The Key, and Discipline Is Destiny.
What defines Greene’s books is the meticulous research and well-constructed narratives.
So, what’s his secret to success?
The short answer is he has an elaborate index card system to organise his research.
Each card contains specific information or an idea, and Greene sorts these cards into various categories.
They act like a physical database of insights that he can sift through while crafting his works.
Greene is one of many creative minds to do this.
When Stanley Kubrick, the filmmaker behind iconic films like The Shining, Space Odyssey 2001 and Eyes Wide Shut, passed away in 1999, his widow Christiane allowed the documentary filmmaker Jon Ronson into their large country house, Childwickbury Manor in Hertfordshire, England.
To their astonishment, Ronson and his crew discovered that more than one thousand cardboard boxes filled half the house.
Each one contained snapshots, newspaper clippings, film out-takes, notes, and fan letters, which Kubrick used for researching each of his films.
Travelling back to 15th-century Italy, we have the detailed notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, filled with sketches, scientific diagrams, and his musings on topics from flight to anatomy.
And in 19th century America, the famous Thomas Edison documented his ideas in 3,500 notebooks.
These jottings led to the invention of the lightbulb, the phonograph, the alkaline battery, and various elements that gave rise to the film industry.
Another fan of note-taking is the British Pop artist David Hockney.
He used it to record anything interesting or capture a particularly beautiful scene.
Taking notes was so crucial to his creative process that he made an unusual request to his tailor one day.
Hockney asked him if he could make a custom-sized pocket for his favourite notebook to easily carry it wherever he went.
He did this because he never knew when it might be useful.
The renowned choreographer Twyla Tharp swears by her "box method”.
As the name implies, it’s a box where she dumps anything that fuels her creative process for each new project.
This method has helped her choreograph more than 125 dances, five Hollywood movies and two Broadway shows. She’s also written the excellent The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life.
The lesson here is to have a system for capturing ideas for three key reasons:
1. We easily forget things.
2. You’re not always in the right place or mode to work on an idea when it occurs to you.
3. You may return to old ideas later on.
So, what are some practical tips you can follow?
1. Find a note-keeping system that suits you. If you’re old school, use index cards or a notebook. Otherwise, tools like Apple notes or Evernote are handy.
2. Organise your ideas by themes so they’re easier to find. This is much easier using a digital note-taking system, obviously.
3. Regularly review old ideas. They’re not necessarily bad; you just haven’t found a use for them yet.
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