Notepad and Pen

By Jonathan Halls

Not all great ideas come out of a brainstorm or buzz session.  Your imagination often starts working when you are away from the pressures of the office and are in free-thinking mode. 

Your imagination also starts working when it sees everyday items and behaviors from a different perspective. 

Often our imagination takes off and ideas bubble to the surface when we are asleep.  This happens when our minds finally let go of the pressures of the day. 

Great ideas pop up when you least expect

Often our brains processing power is monopolized by the general pressures of life.  It can be difficult to stop thinking about budgets or the kids exam results. 

As your mind slowly switches off from those issues, it wanders to other thoughts.  Thoughts and ideas that have been sitting patiently at the back of your brain slowly connect with each other and like a chemical reaction create new ideas.

The common factor among all these scenarios is your ideas bubble to the surface when you least expect it.  And usually they emerge when there’s no flipchart and pen to write it down and remember. 

Usually you mull it over for a few seconds, then gently it fades away.

Carry something to your ideas into

Classical music composer Beethoven was known for carrying a notepad and pen to make sure he wouldn’t forget his ideas.  When he had a musical idea, he scribbled it down to remember it.   

One of my most successful seminar titles popped into my head back in 2004 when I was walking down a backstreet in Washington, DC.  I was wondering how I could help people develop their communication skills in leadership, work, personal life and church.

I wanted to share what I’d learned in broadcasting because I believed it could add real power to communication in just about every context.  The phrase, “Confessions of an ex-Talkshow Host” popped into my mind. 

An idea that created success

I used that phrase the following year for a seminar at an ASTD conference in Orlando.  That clever little phrase was one of the keys to our success at attracting a sell-out crowd. 

It was a standing room only crowd of more than 400 delegates.  We had to turn more people away because the room wasn’t big enough.  We adapted that neat little phrase for this website and it has been getting just as good a response.

If I hadn’t been carrying a notebook and pen as I walked along that street that afternoon, I would have lost that idea.  It would have evaporated over a very short space of time.

Always, Always, Always

Always travel with a notepad and pen. Alternatively make sure your Blackberry, Palm or iPAQ is nearby and create a folder to store all your ideas. If you only ever use 5% of them, you may find they bring your more success than otherwise.

A lot of people plan to carry a notebook and pen with them but many forget.  I often find it difficult.  But it’s an important discipline if you want to be a good steward of your imagination and what it offers you.