There are times throughout the day when my mind is zooming through endless possibilities and scenarios, never really settling on anything. Sometimes it turns into daydreams, other times it’s just a whirlwind of ideas. It’s more controlled than it sounds, it just feels that way. Every once in a while, sometimes once a day, my mind fixates on one idea. It can be anything: a sound, a musical idea, something to write about, an image, a smell connected a memory, really, anything. And most of the time, as it should, it stays on that idea because of pure interest and intrigue. It’s an “a-ha” moment, not quite a “eureka” moment, but the potential for that is always existent. It’s a slight moment of clarity, but on average it’s not an epiphany. It’s just an idea that grabs my attention and doesn’t let go.
Until, of course, it lets go. And that point of letting go always coincides with me trying to remember it. I’ve lost hold of so many “good” ideas, that I truly wonder if the good ideas I do remember are just a return to the ones I thought I had forgotten. And it’s not as if I don’t have the proper tools to write down while the idea grabs my attention. I’m successful, sometimes, at using my phone to take down an idea, or even using it’s voice memo application while I’m on the run and can’t type. But I’ve yet to make a consistent effort to write those ideas somewhere. There are a lot of ideas that catch my attention while I’m in the shower, making me wonder if I should buy one of those waterproof notepads that you can stick on your bathroom tile. Or maybe I should get a waterproof case for my phone and just bring it into the shower with me, notes application open and ready to go. (It would provide a nice in-shower stereo so I can listen to music in there, or practice my own singing to instrumental tracks. Singing in the shower never gets old…well when it’s yourself in it, I suppose. It can probably get annoying if it’s loud for others, or just plain out of tune.) I need to have these writing tools handy for any given moment.
It’s like I need reminders to make myself reminders. Maybe it’s something I should add to my vision board: “remember to remember and then WRITE IT DOWN” is what I’d write on the yellow sticky-note that I’d put on it. Nearly everything else on my board is already in action. Some things are much further along than others, and some things are simply states of mind to adopt, and I’ve done so with almost all of those ones. But a reminder to remind myself might not be a bad idea. The concept itself is so “meta” that you’d think it’d just stick in my head from its sheer absurdity, but I imagine that everyone goes through things like this more often than they realize or care to admit and forget to actually do something about it.
I guess that’s my plan of action then: put it up on my vision board, and then look into some waterproof cases for my phone. I just have to remember to do those things, now.
Also, did you know that the reason you forget the reason you walked into a room as soon as you walk into a room is because your brain perceives doorways as “closing a folder” of your thoughts from the room you just departed? I’ll find the article and go into it more in another post…if I remember.
– Mickey
MR Mind Dump 365 