Idea-Bank

A thing I (and probably some other people too) go through as a person who tries to write as much as he can is that sometimes, I’d get an idea to write about something. The thought would cross my mind and I’d say in my inner-voice “ha, that’s a good thing to write about!” and I’d ‘save’ it in my ‘idea-bank’ in my mind. 

Thing about my mind is that it’s a very crappy idea-bank. Things spill all the time, it’s not even funny. So when I say to myself that I’ll ‘save’ an idea there, it’s more often the case that I’m in all actuality deleting the idea from my system altogether.

And sometimes I’d get these thoughts that make me go (internally) “ah, this idea’s so good and relevant to me that there’s no WAY I’m going to forget this one!” and three hours later when I get in front of the laptop to write it down, all I’m left with is “I KNOW I have something to write about, but WHAT?” and I’ll just sit there in front of the laptop being angry with myself for forgetting that really good idea, for trusting the never-to-be-trusted idea-bank of Anwar Hadi’s mind.

But I am taking some steps in improving myself in this regard. Sometimes I’ll come across something funny in class or while listening to grown-ups talk that I could tweet about, and I’d quickly look for a pen and write that thing down on the back of my hand. I wouldn’t wipe what I wrote there until I have tweeted that thing. It’s worked so far, and I am able to make some people’s days better by giving them something to smile about online.

But that’s only for tweets. I still haven’t gotten down the habit of writing down ideas for the blog yet, I guess since I figured I can’t really write 500 words on the back of my hand and still be able to read it.

A thing I heard Mike Falzone (who makes two videos a week on Youtube without fail) say in one of his interviews is that he’d write his ideas down on anything he can put his hands on, such as on the back of receipts, used paper napkins, even toilet paper (he wrote on these things because he didn’t have his phone with him at the time, I guess). he does this because he KNOWS that he won’t be able to remember them a couple of hours later, or even a couple of minutes later for that matter, so he makes the thoughts concrete before he even has a chance to forget it.

I should do that more often. Write what I want to blog about down on something. It doesn’t have to be five hundred words, just a topic, or maybe even a mind map or something (whoa, teacher sangat nak guna ithink maps). And I shouldn’t limit myself to just one idea down a day. If I have multiple ideas a day, I should write all of them down somewhere before I forget. Then I can create a real idea-bank that is concrete, using a shoebox or a folder on the computer or something.

So yeah, concrete idea-bank, please, Anwar.