For me: (a) I keep a Spark List in Simplenote that serves as a running list of random ideas, and (b) I mostly jot stuff down in my Baron Fig notebook (which has become the driving engine behind my day-to-day productivity).

The takeaway however, is not what you do to capture your ideas…

Here’s what you need to know about ideation:

  1. Don’t be afraid to write down every whopper of a bad idea you have.
  2. Have a system plus some sort of movement in your day-to-day life that will help you synthesize your ideas, test them, and then take action on the ones that matter.

Anyway. So long as we’re on the subject of ideas, I wrote more about ideation last summer in what has turned out to be one of my favorite articles.

How Jeff Sheldon Comes Up With Ideas