The key is to do all of this so quickly that you don’t lose focus (more than you already did by thinking of something unrelated), and trust the system to keep that written note in store for your later retrieval. You don’t need to think about it now, because it’s now stored, and you can always go back to it.

Often the ideas turn out to be crap. But the point is that you don’t judge ideas when ideas come. You just file them as quickly as possible.

Haha – judging from the pile of post-it notes and other scribblings, “master” is not the first word I’d choose :-)

“How much time do you usually spend scribbling down your new idea?”

A few seconds. I even use short-hand codes for projects, tools, customers and so on. And I confuse these often.

“And how does it affect your focus (or does it)?”

My trick is to be so quick and “multithreaded” about it that my focus isn’t lost. Just now, when typing this, I also wrote a note on a pad with my left hand while still typing this message with my right hand (looks like that note will be difficult to read later ;-)

“How do you know when you have written enough and can get back to the previous task?”

I don’t. Most of my notes are not good enough for anything; sometimes I re-write them a while later, if I feel there’s something to it but not enough details, but if I don’t do that, I can have notes saying something like “++ to cols on i.w. 1.3″. “i.w” probably relates to ItemWindow on one of my apps, “++ cols” means I thought of adding another column, “1.3″ is the current version – but now I no longer have any idea *what* column I was thinking of adding…

If I’m not sure, I tend to rely on the following factors:

1. How valuable would this idea be if perfectly executed?
2. How much progress can I make on this idea right now?
3. Given #2, which of these ideas returns the most value most quickly?

“And how has this approach worked for you so far?”

It’s working out very well for me thus far, though it is a bit biased toward projects with quick turnaround time, like I Heart Comment Spam (1 hour) and Wedding Spotter (1.5 days).

The big advantage, especially for someone with ADD, is that having all these micro-projects keeps me excited and focused on my work.

Thanks for the prompting Jarkko. I think you’ve inspired my next micro-project: a blog entry! :-)

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Sorry for making this comment sound like an interrogation, I’m just excited to see other pen-and-paper people enjoy the method as much (if not even more) than I do :)

And great job in describing the insanely interested mindset towards focus, sounds just like something I could have written :)

@Joshua: Yes! This is just what I was secretly hoping for: that someone would come and provide me with option four!

I think your approach makes a lot of sense. It’s sort of a combination between options 2 and 3, and intuitively it feels like something worth trying. Personally, I tend to lean towards option 2, but I’m intrigued by 3, so this option 4 of yours might just be the perfect one.

But one question. How do you know which one is more valuable. You say that you know intuitively, but is there a heuristic you fall back to if you are not sure? And how has this approach worked for you so far?

I’ll iterate on the post tomorrow and definitely include your fourth option to it! Thanks!

Most of the time, when I become distracted, I have an intuitive understanding of which idea is actually the most valuable. If both are valuable, then I write one down and focus on the one which I believe I can make the biggest difference with at this moment. I can always redirect my focus later if my circumstances or understanding changes.

Joshua Clanton´s last blog post: Unprofessionalism #1: Blog Dis-Integration