The flood of ideas

Seth's post yesterday struck a chord with me, as it reminded me of how I felt a few months ago. At the time, I was posting extremely regularly here in the blog, and it seemed like ideas were flowing easily – my idea notebooks in Evernote were overflowing. This continued into November, even when I turned away from the blog in favor of working on a book proposal. I was still writing things down, however, and that kept the ideas flowing. Towards the end of November, however, I took a break from writing (RubyConf, travel, and a few other things intervened). At first, the idea flood continued – I essentially ignored them, and for a time they continued to build, until I felt an almost-physical pressure. Finally, I gave in and recorded a dozen or so into trusty Evernote, but by then the damage was done, and what had been a constant stream of ideas (both good and bad) ended up more akin to a floodplain than a flood. It's taken some effort, but I'm finally getting back into things, and I'm wiser for the experience now. Ideas seem to be one of those "rich getting richer" phenomena, where the people who respect and encourage the flow of all ideas are the ones who end up having more of them. So, if you haven't tried, start carrying a notebook or a voice recorder around, and record all those things that pop into your head. Who knows which one of them might be amazing, and end up changing your life?