Ask HN: How do you keep track of your ideas? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your ideas?

#11

Post by johnnyjustice » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 10:28 PM UTC

lien wrote: post #3

i never keep track of my ideas. i only have a few that really stand out and those i never forget. if your ideas don't come back to you over and over again, then those aren't good ideas. also, i try to be proactive about finding out whether they're good ideas by talking to people - anyone - old bosses, old friends, new friends, guys who hit on me at coffee shop, etc. Why do ideas have to be private? if you have an ide…

How do you balance that with the culture of patenting and fear of ideas being stolen?

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your ideas?

#12

Post by fabiandesimone » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 10:32 PM UTC

Have you tried Evernote?

Is fantastic. I can't imagine not using it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your ideas?

#13

Post by darkmethod » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 10:59 PM UTC

fabiandesimone wrote: post #12

Have you tried Evernote? Is fantastic. I can't imagine not using it.

Evernote is a fine tool to retain content for later retrieval.

I use http://www.evernote.com/about/download/web_clipper.php and later add additional comments where needed.

I also use a pocket size Moleskine to keep ideas/thoughts/daily-journals. Some of my coworkers/friends refer to it as my Dr Jones journal.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your ideas?

#14

Post by sahil_lmn » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 11:02 PM UTC

A combination of things that isn't optimal: - Text files, named by date, in a directory called "notes" - Items in my to-do list in Astrid (app for Android) - For things I've thought a lot about, either text files of their own or pages of a notebook (the latter being rare).

I was actually thinking about building an app to deal with this. However, EverNote looks appealing and I should try it out . . .

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your ideas?

#15

Post by tectonic » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 12:14 AM UTC

And I put up a website too: http://ideaperdiem.com

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your ideas?

#16

Post by fjw » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 12:19 AM UTC

fabiandesimone wrote: post #12

Have you tried Evernote? Is fantastic. I can't imagine not using it.

I use Evernote as well. I have one journal that is only devoted to my ideas and expanding on them. When I'm on the go, I sync on my phone using the Evernote iPhone app.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your ideas?

#17

Post by buttzmcgee » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 3:26 AM UTC

rorrr wrote: post #8

Email to myself, tag with "idea".

I use this and will often reply to the emails whenever I want to expand an idea. It allows me to track the growth and trends of specific ideas.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your ideas?

#18

Post by Zakuzaa » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 3:33 AM UTC

I have been using trello lately.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your ideas?

#19

Post by DrData » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 11:08 AM UTC

I email myself from my iPhone and #tag the email with the topic in the subject line.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your ideas?

#20

Post by caw » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 12:05 PM UTC

johnnyjustice wrote: post #11

lien wrote: post #3

i never keep track of my ideas. i only have a few that really stand out and those i never forget. if your ideas don't come back to you over and over again, then those aren't good ideas. also, i try to be proactive about finding out whether they're good ideas by talking to people - anyone - old bosses, old friends, new friends, guys who hit on me at coffee shop, etc. Why do ideas have to be private? if you have an ide…

How do you balance that with the culture of patenting and fear of ideas being stolen?

While that's possible I would say that's extremely unlikely, so you're better off getting the feedback.

Think of this way, on the spectrum of loathing to loving your idea, they have to be on the top end and have either the resources or technical knowledge to execute, and now they have to pass you who has a hypothesis already and is looking for feedback. They don't know how much or what you've already gotten, so if they flat copy/paste based on what you've spoken to them about they could be heading off in a different direction. If that's the case they're not really competing with you because they're somewhere else in a different niche.