Why Should You Write Down Your Ideas and Interesting Thoughts ASAP?
When you write down your ideas, they become harder to lose or misplace.
This is not the article I was originally writing.
Nope, that article was on a completely different topic. I was about halfway done writing it.
Then, my computer crashed. The usual recovery file that tends to pop up when I restart MS Word didn’t. After spending probably more time than I should have searching for this – it all proved to be for naught.
The worst part? I cannot for the life of me recall what I was writing before.
The title? Gone? Topic? Can’t remember. A good 20 minutes of work was erased.
Two lessons come from this. One – SAVE MORE OFTEN. You’d think, way back in college when I lost the entire beginning of a story because I didn’t save, I’d remember this. Yeah, MS Word nowadays should autosave. But…here we are.
Two – always write down your ideas and interesting thoughts as soon as possible.
Allow me to introduce another instance where I encounter this often.
Improv is my friend
In the medieval reenactment society that I’ve been playing with for 30 years now, I sometimes serve as the herald of the court. That loosely means I am the MC for the crown – serving as their voice as they call people up to give awards out, among other things.
Many of the awards come with fancy, handmade, custom scrolls. Incredible works of art featuring frequently impressive calligraphy and illumination. Some are seriously museum-worthy recreations for our purposes.
With said scrolls there are words. That’s what the herald reads. Sometimes they are based on historic texts, occasionally poetic, sometimes just fun, recipient-specific words.
Occasionally, either an award is done last minute – before a scroll can be created – or the scroll doesn’t arrive at the event. When that happens, some rely on pre-fab texts that cover the basics and allow you to add a name/award/date on the fly.
I don’t. I improvise.
Improve theatre has always been a specialty of mine. And, after all the time I’ve been part of the game, I can quickly whip up an original text and say it like it was written long beforehand.
Here’s the problem. After I have spoken it – it’s gone. I rarely remember just what I said. So, if it was particularly good – unless someone recorded it – I can’t recreate it.
More than once, someone asked me for these words. I’ve had to recreate them as best I can a few times.
But this is an excellent reason why you should write down your ideas and interesting thoughts ASAP. Because you might say or think something great – and lose it just as fast as it came to you.
In the aforementioned circumstance, I’ve had as little as 20 seconds to improvise. Hence, pre-writing the words wasn’t an option.
Write it down, type it out, whatever
Given the choice, I’m going to type before I write.
But sometimes, you don’t have a choice. This is why I started to keep a small notepad and pen on my headboard.
There’ve been multiple times when, just as I climbed into bed for the night, an idea hit me. A phrase, a title, a line, something. And if I don’t write it down, right then, it was gone.
More than once, I thought – it’ll keep ‘til morning. Yeah, not so much. Morning would come, and I had no recollection of what my thought had been.
Sometimes, I wonder what’s been lost to this over time? What stories, blogs, and other things were never started due to this? It’s an interesting question.
But not worth dwelling on. Past is passed. Done, over, can’t be changed, undone, or redone.
However – lessons can be learned and taken forward. Next time – I can and will be better prepared. I’ll make sure that I write it down, or type it out, as soon as it hits me,
At least, that’s the plan.
Don’t just write it down ASAP – back it up, too
One night, during my sophomore year of college, a story idea came to me. It was so amazing, and I was so into it. I banged it out and got the entire first chapter done. I was really excited about what it was and where it would go.
Then, I hit the wrong key. In the blink of an eye – it was gone. This was in 1993 – so I am rather sure MS Word didn’t have an autosave option back then.
Despite multiple attempts to recreate that story – I’ve never been able to bring it back. At least, not with the energy and drive I had that night.
In the early 2000s, I had a job with lots of downtime. As such, I worked on a writing project that I saved to a flash drive – rather than my work computer. I was expanding a story I had initially written for NaNoWriMo.
I would take the flash drive between work and home and used it a lot.
What I had not expected was for it to start bleeding memory. Guess what got lost?
You should write down your ideas and interesting thoughts ASAP so that they don’t get lost. And back them up, too.
Currently, backup options are plentiful. Flash drives and the cloud are open to speedy data saving and recovery. This is way better than floppy disks and ZIP drives. Seriously.
Take it from me – write it down and back it up. Often. If I can save anyone else from the infuriating frustration of data loss – you’re welcome.
Your ideas are worth saving
When you have an idea, an inspiration, a unique notion, or whatever – it’s worth writing down. You should write it down because you never know how it might serve you.
Or others.
True, it might only be something with immediate meaning to you. But you might not realize how much it means if you lose it. Thus, write it down so that you have it.
I’ve been working on journaling more regularly. This is good for writing down thoughts and ideas when they come to me. But I am still not as adept at practicing this as I should like to be.
Everything you create matters. You don’t need to be someone special, or otherwise important. Your ideas are worth being saved. Whether or not you share them is not important. They might be for you and you alone.
Or maybe they have a greater purpose – it’s just not obvious yet.
Either way – write down those ideas, interesting thoughts, and the like. Save them because you are worthy and deserving of them and any awesomeness they might draw to and for you.
Why should you write down your ideas and interesting thoughts ASAP? Because you never know what incredible, unexpected, and amazing places they might take you to. Don’t deprive yourself or the world of them by letting them get away because you didn’t write them down.
What new thoughts and ideas will you write down today?
This is the five-hundred and fortieth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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