I have found that if I have an idea, it will keep swirling around my brain unless I get it out in some way. In a way, I’m exorcising myself to prevent these ideas from plaguing me further. It’s not so bad having ideas pile up in my brain, it’s just that as long as they’re floating around, I’m not able to adequately devote sufficient brain cycles to other tasks. I don’t know the reason for this – but my sense is that my brain will keep returning to these ideas, circulating and cycling them, because I don’t want to forget about them – and it can only truly relax once it knows the idea is somewhere it can’t be lost / forgotten.
A while back I had suggested the only good way I had to deal with these recirculating ideas was to either act on them (building / blogging) or killing them (organizing / bookmarking). This wasn’t exactly true.
But, first, a digression. Many years ago Bre Pettis and Kio Stark created a “cult of done” manifesto, a short set of ideas about how to consider things “done,” written in 20 minutes since that’s all the time they had to write it. I think about this manifesto and this one particular poster implementation of it often.
I’m not sure what appeals to me so much about this manifesto. I don’t know that I agree with each element – but for something generated in 20 minutes, it’s pretty good. I guess the reason it comes back to my mind today, of all days, is that I happened to be looking back through my many blog posts with my eldest kiddo and was reminded of all the blogging I did here and at MakerBot.com and was reminded of those earlier, perhaps simpler and sillier, times.
Here’s how I actually exorcise / done-ify things:
- Build the idea
- Blog (and publish) the idea
- Bookmark the page and sort that bookmark
- Write the idea down in a note app
- Write it down or sketch it in a notebook / sketchbook
- Send the idea to someone
Sometimes I can accidentally let years go by without talking to a friend. It’s not a good quality – but at least I’m able to recognize this personality trait. My way of keeping in touch with people is that when I see something that reminds me of them, I’ll send it to them. This isn’t so unusual … but sometimes I do this same thing with a slightly less pure motive. Sometimes when I have an idea or see something interesting, I don’t just store it in a bookmark or by writing it down… I consciously make an effort to store it in a friend’s brain.
Yes, I’m sharing a thing with a friend as a way to connect, offer something to them that I know they’ll be interested in, perhaps to give us something to talk about, but I admit that I also consciously share it with them in order to further store the same data within their brain and in our communication channels.1 Again, not my finest quality, but it’s not an entirely selfish quality either.2 The hilarious thing about this last way to done-ify something is that you could even store the data in the brain of someone you hated! Heck, you could rage-tweet it to someone. And, the stronger your reaction to them, the stronger the connection you would have to the memory of the thing!
Taking all that into consideration, here’s how I probably actually exorcise / done-ify things:
- Implement: Build the idea
- Externalize: Publish the idea
- Memorialize: Write down, bookmark, sketch,
- Incept: Store the idea in someone else’s brain