Whenever I ask someone where they keep their ideas, they generally point to the same place — their head.
Yep, index finger to forehead, “It’s all right here,” they tell me.
Your brain is a funny place.
On the one hand, it’s a factory, churning out idea after idea.
On the other hand, your brain is like a warehouse. It’s where you store all of these ideas.
Now, what happens is the factory keeps coming up with ideas, and soon enough, the warehouse is housing more and more of them. And the more ideas you come up with, the more the old ones get buried and pushed to the back. And soon enough, your warehouse is filled with ideas — old and new, good and bad. And then, the more ideas you have, the more likely the warehouse overtakes the factory.
You lose the good ideas on the way back because you keep coming up with new ones.
And…none of those ideas are getting done.
It’s think and store. Think and store. Think and…
Well, there’s a solution to this capacity issue.
Take your ideas out of your warehouse.
Indeed, take your ideas out of your head and put them on paper.
Notebook, note cards, somewhere.
Because…science. Neuroscience, to be more precise. Research shows that forming letters by hand opens more sensory pathways, including your visual, tactile, and kinesthetic ones. These sensory pathways strengthen neural connections. And neural connections make things happen. As they say, “synapses that fire together, wire together.”
So, writing doesn’t just catalog an idea; it literally makes your brain “own” it more fully. Which means when you put an idea on paper, you’ve made the first step to making it happen.
I also like the physicality of seeing an idea as a thing. There it is. On paper.
My spidey-sense tells me having ideas isn’t your problem.
My spidey-sense tells me making them happen is.
So, take the first step: Pick up a pen and write that sh*t down.
Rob Schwartz is the Chair of the TBWA New York Group and an executive coach who channels his creativity, experience and wisdom into helping others get where they want to be. This was originally posted on his Substack, RobSchwartzHelps, where he covers work, life, and creativity.
Photo by Jacqueline Brandwayn on Unsplash.
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