An Example from Leonardo

Leonardo Da Vinci was a great and talented man. He was said to always carry a notebook tied to a string on his belt. He would be seen jotting down his ideas and thoughts.

I have found it to be really helpful to have a notebook with me all the time to do just that - write down the ideas that come to me.

Often I am writing something or doing something and an idea comes to me. Rather than interrupting what I am doing I just jot it down in my note book. That way I

A) Avoid becoming distracted

B) get it out of my head and onto paper

C) I can go back to it later and take appropriate action

I do this because I used to find that if I started "doing" something with that idea it would invariably lead to something else, and then something else and I would be busy doing many things at one time. What does this lead to? Confusion? Chaos? Mostly overwhelm in my case.

If you don't like the idea of a notebook, there are alternatives like desktop notes, programs like ONENOTE or EVERNOTE. I tried those and found that they also distracted because they take time to upload/open, I had too many sticky notes on my desktop,...Even the notes function on my phone was a distraction because I would invariably check the last message, email or whatsapp message I had received. My notebook is always on hand right next to me. And I can always take it with me.

I hope this will have been of some help to someone.

Wishing you all a happy and joy-filled day

Valina