An idea came to him while driving, so he sent himself a voice note in a messaging app. A second came before sleep, so he typed it in the notes app. A third he heard in a conversation and saved as a screenshot. A fourth he found in an article and saved as a browser bookmark. A fifth he emailed to himself.
Two months later he sat down to film and asked himself: what do I film?
And found nothing. He had more than thirty ideas, but they were in seven places, and there was no single place he could open and say: these are my ideas.
The problem is not capturing, it is scattering
We talk about "forgetting ideas" and buy apps for capturing them, when the truth is that most of us do capture. The problem is that what we captured now lives in places we never open.
An idea in a place you do not open equals an idea that does not exist. Worse, in fact, because it gives you the false sense of having a backlog, so you neither look for new ideas nor find the old ones.
One rule settles it
Capture anywhere, gather in one place.
Do not try to change the moment of capture. Ideas arrive while you are driving or walking, and you will use the fastest thing to hand, which is right and fine. Record it in your voice if voice is faster, and in most cases it is faster than typing, which we covered in record your idea in your own voice before you forget it.
But give them a single outlet that they all end up in. You do not need a particular app; you need one place you open when you ask: what do I film?
Where your ideas are right now
Before gathering, know what you are gathering from. Open a page and write the places down; the list will surprise you:
- The notes app on your phone
- A chat with yourself in a messaging app
- Saved or starred messages
- Screenshots in your photo gallery
- Browser bookmarks
- An email you sent yourself
- Paper: a notebook, the back of a receipt, a page on the desk
- Comments you saved under your own videos
Write the whole list, because that is your map.
The gathering pass: one hour, once
Sit down for one hour and do this in order:
1. Open one place only. Do not hop between places; hopping makes you circle forever.
2. Go through every item with a three-way decision. Every item has three possibilities and no fourth:
- An idea: something that could become a video. Move it.
- Material: a link, an image or a figure belonging to an existing idea. Paste it inside that idea rather than as its own entry.
- Delete: anything you do not understand after reading it twice, or that no longer concerns you. Delete it without sorrow, and the rules that settle deleting are in when to delete an idea from your backlog.
3. Write two lines with every idea you move. A title is not enough, because an idea goes vague within a month. Write: who this video is for, and the sentence you would say in it.
4. Declare the place closed. Write at the end of its notes: "done, the ideas have moved." So that you do not return in a month thinking something is still in there.
5. Move to the second place.
If there are many places, make it three sessions over three days. The one hour is not sacred, but an open-ended session with no limit ends with no result.
The difference between an idea and material
This distinction is what keeps your box from turning into a heap:
An idea is a possible video: "why does your audio sound bad in empty rooms?"
Material is something that serves an idea: a link, an image, a quote, a figure, the name of someone to ask.
What ruins an idea backlog most is saving material as ideas, so you open your list and see a hundred lines, eighty of which are links with no meaning. Material is pasted inside its idea; an idea with no material is still an idea.
What stays outside the box
Do not move everything. Leave three things where they are:
Tasks. "Buy a battery" is not a content idea; it belongs in your task list.
Footage files. Clips and photos stay in their project folders and never enter the idea box.
Ideas belonging to a live project. If you are working on a video now, its ideas go in that video's file rather than the general box.
The weekly habit: fifteen minutes
Gathering once is not enough, because the places fill up again within a fortnight. The habit that prevents that is small:
Once a week, at a fixed time, open two places only: the notes app and your chat with yourself. Go through what arrived this week and move it with the three-way decision. Fifteen minutes.
Then once a month, open the box itself and tidy it: what is ready to film, what is still vague, what gets deleted. Those three states of an idea are what keep a backlog from becoming a graveyard, which we set out in your idea stock: why it becomes a graveyard and how to keep it alive.
Three reasons people fail at this
Hunting for the perfect app. A week spent comparing apps, and nothing moved. Any single place beats seven places, even a single text file.
Tidying while gathering. Do not categorise, colour or sort while moving things. Move first, tidy in a second session.
Starting with the hardest. Anyone who starts with the photo gallery and its thousand screenshots gets tired and stops. Start with the smallest place so you feel progress.
Today, in five minutes
Do not wait for the full hour. Do this now:
Choose the place your ideas will live, and name it "ideas". Then open your chat with yourself and move the three most recent ideas across, two lines each.
Three ideas in one place beat thirty ideas in seven places. And the box you start today is the one you will open the next time you ask: what do I film?