Capture your genius

If you’re a knowledge worker, ideas are your most valuable currency. You should collect ideas, invest in them, and manage them more carefully than money. In a world awash with information technology, ideas are backed by more leverage than at any other time in history.

Ideas are incredibly valuable.

And, from what I’ve observed, I think absolutely everyone is exposed to more good ideas than we could ever need. Any time someone tells me “I don’t have any ideas worth sharing”, I think to myself “yes you do, you just haven’t found a way to capture and document them yet”.

If I held a gun to your head right now and screamed "have a good idea, right now!", I imagine you would struggle. It's difficult to create good ideas on command.

That process of collecting and developing good ideas becomes vastly easier, though, when you develop an active awareness and a simple system that you employ in your daily life.

By active awareness, I mean, you’ve gotta constantly be on alert for potentially useful ideas. You read, you converse, you work with clients, you help solve problems. You’re exposed to so much good stuff, and you need develop a kind of constant background awareness that you’re looking for it, much like you have a constant background awareness that twigs every time someone says your name.

When you see/hear/think a good idea, you’ve gotta notice that it’s there and strike while the iron is hot.

Which brings us to the system you use to do your capturing. It’s gotta be EASY. It’s gotta be right there with you, always. You’ve gotta find the tools that work for you. A pen and a moleskine? A notes app on your phone? Record your zoom calls and transcribe with Otter.ai? Apps like Cogi, Backtrack?

I collect 5-10 idea fragments every day, because my awareness is keen and my system is simple and easy. It means every time I have an opportunity to speak on stage, or sell my services, or offer advice to someone, I have a library of knowledge to draw from.

Capture your genius, peeps.