Getting the most out of your thoughts – Part 1 – UBIQUITOUS CAPTURE
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In our last post we discussed the importance of thinking ($450,000 ideas). In the next few posts I will describe a few tips and tricks to get the most out of your thoughts.
Personal Note: If you put into practice the skill than I am about to teach you, your life will never be the same. I learned this skill originally from David Allen’s book Getting Things Done and applied it immediately. Disciplining myself to develop this skill has paid off in greater reward than I could have imagined. So pay attention. 
#1 – Ubiquitous Capture
Ubiquitous simply means being everywhere at one time (and it is a cool sounding word). So the idea is that anywhere you are doing anything you should be able to capture thoughts that may be important to you. These thoughts can range from simple to-do’s such as remembering that you need to pick up Gatorade for your kid’s basketball game on Saturday, to to ideas about long-term goals or life-vision such as an inspiration to spend more time with your extended family.
There are two aspects of ubiquitous capture: mindset and tools.
Mindset:
This is the harder of the two. You need to believe two things: First, that your thoughts at random moments have great potential value; Second, if you don’t capture these thoughts in the moment, they may be gone forever.
First, because our lives are so complex and intertwined, you probably will not have your best thoughts about a topic you want to have the most. They will come at times when you’re least expecting them. They will come when you’re at the grocery store buying bread, at your son’s tee ball game, or out to dinner with friends. If you begin to capture these thoughts and review them at a later time, you’ll be amazed to find how much potential value is there.
Second, you will lose these thoughts if you don’t capture them. I know you have had this experience: You’re driving somewhere and a thought pops into your head about something that you need to do. You think that you will remember it later. Within five minutes the thought is gone and all you’re left with is a nagging sense that you just forgot something important. This happens more often than you probably estimate. Therefore, you need to train yourself to capture these thoughts in the moment.
Tools:
In order to to develop the mindset of ubiquitous capture you need to have the right tools in place to help you do it. In fact, if you have the right tools in place, the mindset will be much easier to learn. So here are some of the tools that I have enjoyed using or have seen others use with success.
Mini notebook – this could take the form of a 3"x2" notebook that you can keep in your back pocket all of the time. You could use this notebook that is a combination of a wallet and a notebook. If you carry a bag or purse you could use one slightly bigger like this Moleskine. Obviously, bring a pen or pencil too.
- Hipster PDA – this little contraption was invented by the productivity fanatic and funnyman Merlin Mann. In response to
the overcomplicated gadgets on the market, Merlin took a stack of 3 x 5 index cards and fastened them together with a binder clip thus creating the ever stylish hipster PDA. I used this for quite a while myself. Check out the article here for a laugh.
- reQall or Jott – use your cell phone to call a phone number, dictate your
message, and have the transcription e-mailed to you for later reference. reQall was featured on this blog here. Jott is a similar service with some cool additional features.
- Electronic note taking – for those of you want everything to be in digital format this could be a good option. You can simply use the notes feature of your PDA or smartphone or install one of many applications available for this purpose. If you use the notes function on your device, you can probably synchronize it with Outlook to have your notes on a computer as well. On an iPhone or Windows Mobile phone I recommend the free application Evernote (also available on the Windows mobile phone). Evernote allow you to capture typed text, audio notes, or pictures. One of the neat things about Evernote is that it is all searchable from your phone or computer. Evernote will even recognized text within images.
- Voicemail – simply call yourself and leave a voice mail.
What tools do you use to capture thoughts anywhere? Do practice this habit of ubiquitous capture? Let us know in the comments!
Thanks for be a great readership!
