Matt Ragland shows a five-minute system for capturing ideas before they disappear: write a headline, a few bullets, and one clarifying question in a note app. He anchors each note with time and location, then answers the question later. The method lets you build on ideas without chasing the original spark.
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Welcome back everyone, thank you for watching this video. One of the things that I struggle with most as a creative, and I think a lot of us do, is how do we take like those lightning bolts of inspiration, make them into something that we can actually create? Because a lot of times, you know, I'll be laying in bed, I'll be driving, I'll be walking, and/or just like maybe I am working but I don't have the time to put into this particular, you know, lightning bolt right at the moment. So what do you do in those moments? I've come up with a method that I've been using to grab the essence of those ideas, put them down in a workable way so that I have something to anchor myself to that moment when I come back to it. And I want to share it with you right now. You know, whether you call it the lightbulb moment, the flash of inspiration, the muse speaks to you, whatever it might be, that is the moment to take the essence and put it down on paper, on your phone, your bullet journal, whatever it might be, and take the essence of it. Let me tell you about something that just happened for me. So I'm creating a knowledge base article for ConvertKit about our new visual automations that are coming out. And I'm thinking about what is an analogy that I can use in order to communicate this in a real world example. If I can tell a story that connects it to something in addition to email marketing, to online business. And so I thought of this, the structures in visual automations for ConvertKit are kind of like going to a club. An event is immediate. So let's say that you are waiting in line for the club and some like really high roller like chooses you and is like, "Hey Matt, come on, you're in here with me." And so you get to skip everyone and go straight to VIP. That is like an event. It's immediate and it doesn't matter where you are in line. It doesn't matter where you are in the automation queue. You just go right into it. I'm having this idea like, what if I created like a little sketchnote animation that could communicate this in an even more visually appealing way than just like writing it down on my computer? And that's how I type right there. Now, I don't have the time to do that right now. Okay, there is something that I could do with that later. So the way that I communicate this, the way that I grab the essence of this idea, I take literally no more than 2 minutes, okay, maybe 3 minutes, and I write down the essence of the idea. You're gonna see my screen. This is in the Bear app, which I've really enjoyed using, but I'm gonna give it a headline. I'm going to give it a little subtitle, the way that I'm thinking about it, and then I'll just list a few things that I'm thinking about in terms of the idea. So I'm trying to grab the essence of it. The other thing that I'll do is like ask a question at the end, like, what are you like for just for myself, Matt, what are you really trying to do with this? And so I'll answer that question for myself. And then if I want to further anchor it, I'll think about, you know, where are you? And so I'm sitting at the table in Valley View, beautiful mountains outside. Okay, that's where you are. Again, another anchor point. What is again, what is the purpose? So Those are really just a few things I'm doing. I can get that done in, okay, no more than 5 minutes. Even if you're driving, you know, maybe you don't have the AirPods, just got them the other day. Maybe you don't have AirPods, but you know, Siri, you know, just do a voice memo and just grab the essence of it. So that's what I encourage you to do whenever you get that inspiration that strikes, that light bulb moment, the muse speaks to you and you think, oh, this is really something I can use, go ahead and take that idea, grab the essence of it, anchor yourself to the time, to the place, to the purpose of the idea, so that you can take it next time you're like, oh, it's content time. I actually have time to do this now. Now I can go back. I don't have to think of something in the moment. I don't have to wait for inspiration to strike. Like, hey, it's 7:00 AM or it's, you know, 11:00 PM and it's time for me to write or do a video. Now I already know what it is. I can take that and I can run with it. Try it yourself.
