‘Catch’ That Inspirational Thought

The brain is a funny organ.

If you try and force it to come up with a solution to a problem, it won’t play ball.

The brain decides when it will give you an inspirational thought. It could be on the train going to work, in the gym, walking the dogs or in the middle of the night. Whenever it is, you need to be ready to ‘catch’ that inspirational thought.

Whether you are looking for inspiration for your next project or venture, get into the habit always carrying a note book and a pen with you.  If that is too old school, then download one of the many ‘digital’ note books that are now on offer.

 And when your brain decides, without warning, to say something like this: ‘‘Hey, that newspaper article you just read, surely that could form the basis for the next chapter in the book you are currently writing?’’; or ‘‘ Hey, that TED talk you just watched, perhaps the main ‘example’ used in the talk could be incorporated into the PowerPoint presentation you are struggling to finish?…… you write it down then and there.

Artist David Hockney had all the inside pockets of his suit jackets altered to fit a sketch book. The entrepreneur, Richard Branson has a habit of carrying a notebook everywhere he goes. Beethoven always carried books of music paper with him to jot down musical themes. The musician Arthur Russell liked to wear shirts with two front pockets so he could fill them with scraps of score sheets.

Aristotle Onassis, the legendary Greek shipping tycoon, gave this advice: ‘Always carry a notebook. Write everything down. When you have an idea, write it down. Writing it down will make you act upon it. If you don’t write it down, you will forget it.’

Get an ‘addiction’ for always writing down your thoughts, insights and ideas. See this note book as a place for ‘dumping’ the things your brain says to you – wherever you are.  As soon as it talks to you with an inspirational thought – write it down.

If you get into the habit of doing this, you will be amazed how many ‘full’ note books you will end up with.