Bedside notes

I need to have pen and paper available wherever I go because my brain works in mysterious ways and often ideas pop up when you least expect them. And the thing about ideas is that if I don't write them down, they are gone.

They may come back later but there's been so many times when I have thoughts on something that I deem important enough that surely I'll remember them later; only to wake up into a new day only remembering that I was supposed to remember something.

One place where ideas are born when I do expect them is when I'm lying in bed in the evening. What makes that time and place special compared to all the other times when ideas are born is that I don't want to follow them into the rabbit hole. That would risk me pushing the sleep further and further away.

But I do want to record these thoughts so that I can explore them more later.

At one point, I had a notebook on my bedside table but it didn't work as well as I was hoping for. Instead, what I do these days is I keep a stack of index cards and a pen. These index cards are handy because in the morning, I can pick up the stack of notes that I recorded the previous night and take them with me so I can continue with them when it works best.

Importantly, I don't have to remember to bring them back like I would with a notebook. As long as I keep my index card stack from running empty, I'll always have a way to do a quick note to get it out of my head.