UXL Blog

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with a brilliant idea? Or thought of something you needed to do as soon as you stepped into the shower? Or had a poignant thought in the middle of a Zoom meeting, but didn’t want to interrupt the flow?

And then…the thought left your head. No matter how hard you tried to recall your brilliant idea, you could not.

This happens to me, and I’m guessing we’ve all experienced something similar. One way to capture these fleeting ideas is through note-taking apps.

That may sound simple (and it is), but the trick is getting into a note-taking habit. If this isn’t something you’ve done, you’ll have to train yourself to recognize when you’ve had a poignant thought, pause, and jot down the note. Tiago Forte, author of Building a Second Brain, says that it helps to view ourselves as “givers of notes to our future selves.” In a three-minute interview by Daniel Pink, Forte describes the benefits of note-taking apps and suggests a number of different apps to try, including:

• Apple Notes
• OneNote
• Google Keep
• Notion
• Craft
• Evernote
• SimpleNote

Another advantage of note-taking apps is that they can keep all your thoughts organized in a single place. Instead of sifting through folders, documents, emails and tabs to find information, everything can be collected into one central hub. Plus, you can use the search feature to quickly identify what you’re looking for.

In a nutshell: using note-taking apps can help capture ideas and keep you organized. It’s a great way to grab ahold of those momentary flashes of brilliance and record them. You never know when your next big idea will strike!

MARGARET SMITH IS A CAREER COACH, AUTHOR, INSIGHTS® DISCOVERY LICENSED PRACTITIONER, AND FOUNDER OF UXL. SHE HOSTS WORKSHOPS FOR PEOPLE WHO NEED CAREER OR PERSONAL GUIDANCE. 

HER NEW EBOOK IS CALLED A QUICK GUIDE TO COURAGE.

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