Robby on Rails

I have not come up with a good solution. There are two problems, for me. The first is that my mind is incredibly good at convincing itself that THIS idea, as opposed to the ten thousand that have come and gone before it, is so cool that I will remember it. The second is that there’s a bit of a Heisen-issue: if I try to capture the idea and write it down, I wake myself up too much, and I often can’t remember it.

“Idea” is to some extent a superset of “dream” here, though of course there are differences and I know exactly what you mean.

I have this happen a lot with music. If conditions are exactly right, I can play music of various styles in my head as I’m falling asleep… but if I try to write any of it down it tends to disappear.

David

I carry a Moleskin notebook around everywhere. They are pocket sized and you feel smart when you write in them. :) I have tons of application ideas in there. I write in a codename for the app, a date and then any thoughts. Over time I can see how ideas have evolved and the next time I have time to do some coding, I don’t have to think what do I want to make. I just open the notebook and create the thing that seems most interesting.

Beware leaving a pad of paper by your bed with a pen. I did this years ago to help me record ideas, only to wake up one day and find I had written on it while I was asleep.

What I had written was a strange mix of squiggles I couldn’t recognise, letters that were upside down (!) or backwards, and non-words, which left me feeling really, really freaked out. It was like it should make/had made sense but no longer did.

I tore the top sheet of paper into tiny pieces and never left a pad next to my bed again.

I always keep a pen and paper by the bed. But i usally can’t sleep after I come up with a new idea.. But that’s another problem.. :-)

My partner at Scrawlers just wrote about this exact same thing Tuesday. He uses sticky notes. I just use an old notebook that was lying around. Though I love moleskines as much as the next guy, I can’t justify buying an expensive book expressly for bedtime/wakeup notes.

OTOH, in 20 years I bet I’ll wish I had 4-5 moleskines sitting on my bookshelf labeled “Notes from the Dreamstate.” That’d be pretty cool and interesting to page through.

I get several ideas right before falling asleep. I recently found a solution to this problem. The solution is to record your ideas using a cell phone voice memo. I keep my cell phone charging on my night stand, and mapped the voice memo feature to a hot key. The phone records the date and time of the recording, so you can transcribe it in the future. Using this trick, I simply open the phone, push two buttons, and record the thought. You don’t even need to turn on the light and lose your train of thought!

Works for me.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a flurry of ideas as I’m drifting off, but when I did, I used a voice recorder to capture them. Similar to the idea above, but if you can afford it the instant Rec on/off would make the usability better.

I sometimes found that I would forget ideas if I didn’t record them. But if I did record them I often didn’t need to go back and listen to them. The act of recording them made them stick around at least until the morning so I remember them and put them in a more organized location.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a flurry of ideas as I’m drifting off, but when I did, I used a voice recorder to capture them. Similar to the idea above, but if you can afford it the instant Rec on/off would make the usability better.

I sometimes found that I would forget ideas if I didn’t record them. But if I did record them I often didn’t need to go back and listen to them. The act of recording them made them stick around at least until the morning so I remember them and put them in a more organized location.

Oh, I see the form didn’t disappear when I hit submit. So I thought I didn’t go through and hit it again. Sorry.

I get my best ideas in the shower in the morning – it’s the only time where there are no distractions. Now I just need a whiteboard or something in there!

I want to hang a giant whiteboard over my bed. I tried pen and paper, but like Michael, I would often wake up to rarely readable scribbles. I figure the whiteboard is big enough, so I wont have to worry about staying on the page. I have also tried recording ideas, but like Tad said, you actually have to go back and listen to them (which I never did).

Damien, we bought inexpensive shower board at our local home supply store to use as whiteboards at the Planet Argon office. Maybe you just need to bring some whiteboard pens with you next time. ;)

I often get ideas when I am cleaning… so I keep an idea box handy. It is just a box with a slit cut in one side that says “put ideas in here.” Then I just carry around some notecards and a pen. This also keeps me focused on what I am doing (I am easily distracted).

I don’t have a good a solution for the falling asleep notes problem but I have found one for the driving in my car or standing in the line at the supermarket and getting a momentary thought. I use jott.com plus backpack. Jott let’s you dial a number and voice record a message which then get’s translated into an email and sent to you. I’ve configured my jott messages to get sent to the email address for my backpack inbox page. The jott.com number is a hotkey on my phone, and presto! A voice record system that Batman would be jealous of.

I keep hundreds of notepads around the house (including the bed) so I can write Ideas down when I can. The only problem with that plan is I get my best ideas strange enough when I am out for breaky.

I actually sleep with my laptop. If I wake up in the middle of the night with an idea, I pop it open and add a note on my backpack.

So far nearly 100% of these ideas are useless and retarded… but it doesnt hurt to have them written down so if I do stumble upon a good idea, I’ll be able to remember it a few months later when browsing through my backpack pages.

For me, some sort of voice recorder would make most sense - now that I’ve seen it suggested, I think I’ll have to go acquire one - because it’ll not take so much cognitive effort to activate it, and so it’ll be less likely to wake me up. The trouble with a pad of paper & a pen is that by the time I’ve grabbed it and switched on the light to see, I’ve not only woken myself up, but my wife too. Which usually results in a ‘conversation’ which is enough to make me forget the idea I had in the first place! Apparently I mumble in my sleep anyway, so the voice recorder wouldn’t disturb her more than usual. :-)

@Damien me too. And by the time I’ve gotten out of the shower and dried off, I’ve forgotten what the idea was. There have been times I’ve run through the house with shampoo in my hair to type a note into my computer lest I forget it (keyboards are more forgiving to soggy hands than paper).

I get this all the time. About a year ago i started firing up a mind mapping tool whenever I thought an idea was worth exploring.

I can’t remember which I use on the laptop, but it’s handy enough to just fire up when I get the urge. If I’m away from a computer I’ll write nested bulleted lists to try and record the structure of things – moleskines or 20p bundles of paper bulldog clipped together, all works :)

Now I have a documents folder full of ideas I still think are worth pursuing and I can dip in and out of the idea and refine it, without committing to any significant chunk of work. Handy when I’m up to my eyeballs in client work anyway.

They’re queued up for development at the office, it’s just a matter of time!

Kee

I flip my alarm clock on it’s side well telling myself the idea. In the morning when I go to hit snooze the alarm clock is sideways and I instantly remember the idea as clear as it was the night before. It also allows you to continue to fall into sleep with out jolting yourself with a voice record or laptop.