10 Things I Learned Writing 100 Idea Lists in a Row

Ideas are the currency of progress. Everything starts with ideas.

Consciously thinking and generating an idea list every day builds creativity muscles. My ability to generate ideas about anything has improved.

I write ideas about important projects at work; 10 important attributes of an A-team, a great hire, 10 fastest ways to test a hypothesis, etc.

I realized I retain most of the content when I summerize the learning into a list. One of my favorite episodes from James Altucher Show is with don Luiz talking about the Fifth Agreement. Writing an idea list summarizing the episode helped cement the core ideas that James and Luiz talked about.

Getting into the Flow becomes easier when you force yourself to squeeze 10 ideas from a quote or expand on an idea to generate more ideas. They say if you want to build a habit, start by creating the right environment. NotePD is the perfect place to write and get into the Flow for me.

My first article on Medium was incepted in NotePD, a 10 idea list that morphed into an article, which I am turning into a book, thanks to James’s idea lists about how to publish a book.

Idea lists become atomic ideas to build upon.

What you focus on expands. I noticed a tendency to want to build idea lists from thin air. I see ideas everywhere.

The world is full of ideas. We just need to pay attention.

I love how people in the community turn their daily gratitude or reflections into idea lists.

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” – Albert Einstein.

“If I can’t put it in an idea list, then I dont understand it well” is becoming my mantra.

I loved the challenge about what advice you would give a new graduate. People share different but very insightful advice from their perspectives. The information generated from the challenge alone is enough to write a book.

The community is amazing. People give feedback, encourage other people to write. I loved an idea list about how to encourage others to start.

NotePD is where I put ideas for later use. Some ideas can turn into an article, others projects, and some are simply a snapshot of myself in time.

These ideas are great data points to come back to at some point.

NotePD is an essential node in my decentralized 2nd brain system.

One of my favorite features. Some challenges are thought-provoking, and some are fun and light, perfect for a slow day.

Challenges are also great for soliciting feedback and ideas for a specific topic. There was a challenge about what app you wanted to have, which I thought was a great way to research before committing.

I was at an airport about to check in when my PC and mobile batteries died. The funny thing was that I was more worried about missing my idea list streak than not being able to show my vaccination QR code to be able to go back to Japan. I managed to do both.

As James said, there is no excuse.

Before: no published articles, didnt write for pleasure, ideas kept in the head.

After: 2 published articles on Medium with more than 26K views, more than 100 idea list, a book in the making, and few projects I am executing based on idea lists.

And more importantly, I am part of an amazing community.