Writing Productivity — Using an Idea Log

Some writers know exactly what they want to say. They merely have to start typing and passion flows from them. This doesn’t necessarily mean they write well, but they don’t sit around wondering what to write about. Most writers, however, need a little prodding. Sometimes they have great ideas, and sometimes they stare at their computer screen waiting for something to come to them. If you fall into the second category, you can reduce your time spent staring at the screen by creating a log of your good article ideas when they come to you. You can also spend those slow times looking at a few tried and true idea resources and seeing what ideas you can grow for the future.

What is an idea log?

An idea log is a way of cataloging your ideas for articles, posts, fiction, poems, essays and stories. Your idea log can be as simple or as fancy as you wish. Some people create file folders for their ideas. They fill them with notes, clippings, pictures and whatever else will assist them. When they pull out the folder, they have all they need to start work. This can be a great system, but it is a lot of work, especially if you never pursue that idea later.

Many people take advantage of their computers. They write quick notes, or even put them in the form of a query to an editor, and keep them in individual documents or add them to a database. This is an excellent system and one that can also get you going quickly once you decide to write because part of the document is already written. You just have to expand on it.

The third way that I propose is simpler and not as thorough. I use it myself, however, because of its ease and portability. I keep a stack of 3×5 index cards in which I jot down my ideas. I put a title and description at the top then jot down the note below. I rarely fill up more than one side of one card. It isn’t as thorough as a file or as ready to roll as a computer note, but it keeps me from prattling on about what is just a single idea that I may or may not follow. Plus, when I have a stack of these cards, I can pull them out and thumb through them quickly, more quickly than going through a file folder or a computer database. I can also take these cards with me anywhere and jot down the ideas as they come. I am a big fan of computers, but for this task I really do prefer the simplicity of a 3×5 index card.

What do you like? What do you hate?

A great place to start looking for ideas is to look at your likes and dislikes. What makes you happy and what makes you sad or angry. These are the things in your life that will provoke your most passionate writing. This can range from politics, entertainment, to a lump in your carpet that you’d like to get rid of. It all depends on what interests you enough to upset or please you.

Who do you know?

The people in your life can be one of your greatest sources of ideas. They have jobs, hobbies, interests and problems that make them experts hundreds of things. Your architect friend can now be interviewed about what makes for a good or bad home design. Your divorced friend with three kids probably has much to say about child support issues. With a little fictionalization, the annoying woman at work might make for a great short story. Look at the people around you. Evaluate them as article sources, interview topics and as story ideas.

Who would you like to know?

People often portray writing as a solitary task, but one of the great benefits of being a writer is that you can use it to meet people. Think about the respected or famous people you would like to talk to: writers you respect, experts in fields you are interested in, actors and politicians. Some of them will be difficult to meet, but many are easier than you think. While the ten most famous writers in the world may be hard to contact, most writers do not spend the majority of their time fending off interview requests. The same is true of experts in most areas. Politicians and actors are probably the hardest to get an interview with, but even then you might be surprised. Just remember that the top few in those fields are nearly impossible to interview without some clout behind you, but there are plenty of others in the field who would be happy to answer your questions.

Where have you been?

Travel is a great way to generate ideas. Look at the places you’ve gone and the things you’ve done there. Think also of the trips you would like to take. From travel guides to the settings for stories, your journeys can be a great source of ideas. Whenever you travel, it is a good idea to keep a journal and write down your thoughts and impressions. You never know where you might find your next idea.

What have you been doing?

Take a look at your areas of expertise. What jobs have you held? What hobbies have you had? What have you studied? These are your areas of knowledge. You may not be an expert, but in writing it is generally enough to be an intelligent amateur as long as you are willing to do the research for your story. Just as your friends are great sources of information, you are your greatest source. Not only do you know something about these things, but also you can rely on yourself, more than anyone else, to do the work required to find out more. Every job, from working in a warehouse to being a phone solicitor to managing a small office, has requirements and areas of interest. Think about how these things can become articles or stories.

What have you been reading?

If you are a writer, then chances are you are an avid reader, and it pays to keep a few notes while you read. The daily paper, magazines, the Internet and the books you read are great sources for ideas. My favorite example of this process is the movie The Player, in which a studio executive challenges anyone to read him a newspaper article and he’ll come up with a movie based on it. Over and over he turns the most mundane articles into feature film ideas. Ideas are everywhere.

What happened to you?

Beyond the jobs and hobbies you’ve had, there is plenty more to your life. There are hundreds of high points and low points in every person’s life: people found and lost, love shared and unrequited, accidents, plots, plans, choices and mistakes. Most of your memories are worthy of a story or article, because chances are you haven’t managed to remember the ordinary and mundane parts of your life, just the highs and the lows and the elements that contribute to who you are. Your life is an endless source of material if you have the talent to make it interesting to others.

Ideas are all around you. If you go through the items above, you will have plenty of ideas to work with, but beyond that, you just need to keep your eyes open and your other senses ready to back them up. Ideas will come to you if you are paying attention. Just remember to have some system to keep track of them, even if it is just a notebook for you to jot things down in. Your ideas are fuel for your writing. Keep plenty of fuel handy.

What is weighing you down?

Do you really want to delete all 92,452 emails in your archive?

I stared at the question for a solid minute. This was serious business. If I hit the button, I would be erasing my past. It would all be gone. I hadn’t carefully sorted through the messages looking for value. There could be important stuff in there: Letters from friends, questions from readers, passwords and PINs, half-written articles that I could still finish someday. Was I really crazy enough to hit the button?

The mind is a curious device. Somewhere in the back of it there’s a place that keeps track of all the things you should be doing but aren’t. It doesn’t matter whether they are good things or bad things, they just keep echoing in the back of your mind. You should be cleaning the kitchen. You should be losing those extra pounds. You should be finishing that blog post. You should be figuring out why the check engine light has been on for 30,000 miles. You should be watching that Freaks and Geeks DVD that Netflix sent you last November.

There are four things you can do about your unfinished tasks. You can do them, you can delegate them, you can renegotiate them or you can decide that you’ll never do them. That last one is tough, but necessary. You can’t do everything you want to do, everything you need to do, and especially everything you feel like you should do, but don’t really have to do. At some point, you have to eliminate some of the things on your list. Eliminating the wants is hard. It is hard to give up on something you want to do. Eliminating the shoulds is also hard though, because somewhere along the line you made an agreement with yourself that you would take care of these things. It doesn’t matter that they aren’t really important or enjoyable; you made an agreement with yourself. At some point though, you have to cut out the shoulds, or you’re going to end up eliminating too many wants.

So, I hit the button. I deleted the 92,452 emails. There was a momentary feeling of regret, but there was also relief. Those 92,452 things had been eliminated from my to-do list with the click of a button. I was free. I could start over.

Starting a New Technical Writing Project

They picked you. You get to be on the new documentation project. You might even be leading it. This may be a new duty at an existing job or a whole new job. You need to get up and running and prove that they made the right choice when they decided on you. Here are a few things that you should do at the beginning to make the rest of the project easier.

Put the past behind you

Projects create things like paper files, computer files, sticky notes, white board entries and the like. When you are starting a new project, you want to put any dead projects behind you. Whether you throw your old files away or just put them aside for safe keeping, now is the time to purge. You’ll want plenty of space (physical and mental) for the new project to occupy. This is also a good time to remind yourself that any personal conflicts you had in the past with potential teammates and other working relationships need to be put in the past. A fresh project needs a fresh outlook.

Create a project file

A new project requires new files, whether they are on your computer or in your file cabinet. Create a space to store all of the documents that inevitably come in as a project moves forward. This includes previous documentation attempts, specifications and business reviews, emails, notes, project tracking, graphics and anything else that needs to be captured.

Set up a tracking system

There are more ways to track a project than you can count. People use to-do lists, milestones, Gantt charts, daily calendars, workweek calendars, personal organizers, Blackberries, Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, color coding, severity levels, Harvey Balls and a variety of other systems. Use what your company wants or whatever works for you, but take the time to track your progress on the project. Not knowing where you are makes it hard to decide where you are going.

Make a contact list

New projects often come with new people. You need to remember who does what and how to contact people when you need to. Even if you are working with the same group you always work with, it doesn’t hurt to make sure everyone has the same email addresses, phone numbers and job roles that you think you remember. Additionally, you need to record information about file locations, websites, logins, teleconference phone numbers, meeting room phone numbers and any other key information that you’ll need at your fingertips. I recommend programming this information into your mobile phone so that it is with you all the time, but make sure you have another version you can access from your computer.

Remind yourself to relax

New projects can be tense, especially at the beginning and near the end. At the beginning people are struggling to find their roles and define their needs. Towards the end people are under the pressure of deadlines, especially if a project has fallen behind. It is easy to get overstressed. When you feel yourself starting to lose perspective and get tense, find a way to relax. Tense people tend to make bad decisions, and then they have to scramble even more to correct them. Find a way to constructively release the pressure. Tools include meditation, stretching, walks or other exercise, and friends. Take the time to deal with your stress and relax. In the long run you will be more effective.

The Organized Blogger

My adventures in organization have had a few rough days as I have been battling both a cold and a ruthlessly time-consuming new project at work. After performing the big purge on my home office, I have had to be content with small moments dedicated to the overall task pf putting everything in its place, especially all of the unfulfilled mental loops that come from 40+ years of living on this planet. There are many things I want to do, many things I need to do, and many things I need to decide I am never going to do. This is all part of the organizational process. You cannot get a handle on all the tasks that lie before you until you make an accurate list of them and decide what you are going to do about them.

Because I am using the Getting Things Done organizational system, I am obliged to make a complete and accessible collection of these unfinished projets. At minimum I need to list each project, the desired outcome, and the next action step towards achieving that outcome. Projects may be as minor as transferring data from my wife’s old notebook computer or as major as publishing a book of poetry or taking a trip to New Zealand. Once this information is collected, I need to track my progress on each item. This is no small task, but it is certainly achievable.

My first major hurdle was to decide what system to use to track these projects. Getting Things Done proposes several systems, but none of them suited me particularly well. Paper files were exactly what I didn’t want. The idea behind getting organized was to free up both my mental and physical space. I want to dispose of every piece of paper I can possibly be rid of, so having a file cabinet full of them was not a pleasant thought. I tried it, but I just had no enthusiasm for the idea. If I have too many papers to keep in an inbox, it is time to purge.

The alternative to paper was electronic organizers, but the problem with most of them is convenience. I want to be able to access my tasks from anywhere, but I don’t want them tied to a particular device because then I am out of luck if something happens to it. I needed something that I could access from my Blackberry, my iTouch, my personal computer and my work computer. In fact, the best solution would be something that I could use even if I didn’t have access to any of these. I thought about using some of the Google tools or some other online package, but I wasn’t sure I could have access to them from work. An organizational system would do me no good if I couldn’t use it in the main place that I needed it.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that the answer was right in front of my face. What I needed was a blog! I’m a blogger. I know Wordpress better than almost any other tool at my disposal, and it is perfect for capturing individual items that require notes and updates. I can write as much as I want about each task and even attach files if I need to. The list is searchable and can be filtered using both categories and tags. More importantly, I can access the blog from every one of my key devices or from any open computer. I know enough about WordPress and file protection to keep the new site secure and invisible so that nobody needs to see it but me. I can even use the scheduling feature to move items into future cues so I see them on certain dates and not before. In essence, WordPress is my new organizational tool and it meets every one of my needs. Blogging has scored another brownie point in my life,

Of course, there is theory and then there is practice. I am still imputing all of my loops, but I’ll keep you updated on how things go and at some point I’ll give the details behind setting an organizational blog up for yourself.

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