I have found one of the biggest challenges that I face when working on a project is focus.  Whether it’s writing a blog article or cleaning the house, it is so easy to get distracted.  Our minds, which keep thinking of stuff not associated with what we’re doing, don’t help.  We are constantly having thoughts pop into our head: “I have to remember to call Bob.” or “I need to buy more paper towels next time I go to the store.” or “What was the name of the guy who sang that song?”.  We have two choices.  We can ignore the thought that pops in our head and focus back in on our current project, or we can stop what we’re doing, act on the new thought, and then get back to the project.  This costs us time and it’s hard to get back in the rhythm of what we were doing.

An easy solution to this is to create an Idea Sheet.  It is very simple to implement and using one creates huge benefits.  Actually making an idea sheet is easy.  Take a piece of paper (bigger is better), and put it on your desk or table, wherever you are working the most.  Write “Idea Sheet” somewhere on the piece of paper, and you now have an Idea Sheet.  To use the Idea Sheet, simply write out any ideas or thoughts that aren’t topical to what you are currently working on but that you want to remember or act on in the future.  It’s that simple.

Although very simple, it is also very powerful.  The idea sheet has three main benefits:

First, your mind only has so much conscious thinking ability, like the RAM in a computer.  When you try to keep things stored in your conscious mind, it tends to prevent you from using that brain-power for something else (this was well explained in David Allen’s Getting Things Done).  By writing down the thoughts in your head, you are allowing them to clear out of your conscious thinking, and this gives you the ability to focus better.

The second benefit of the Idea Sheet is that you don’t lose the good ideas that you have and the important things that you want to remember.  For example, if you are at work finishing up a quarterly fiscal report, and you suddenly remember that you need to pick up the drycleaning on the way home, you can put it on your Idea Sheet and you won’t forget it.  Also, when you are working on a project, it’s common to have great ideas about other projects associated with the one in front of you at the moment.  It’s easy to jot those thoughts down so that you can work at them another time.

This brings us to the third benefit, which is that the Idea Sheet prevents you from getting distracted from the project you are working on.  If you acted on every thought that popped in your head, it would be hard to get any one project done, as you bopped from doing one thing to another.  Even if you just take care of something for a few minutes, it can easily take 5, 10, or even 15 minutes until you are refocused on what you are doing in the first place.  The Idea Sheet gives you a way to take just a few seconds, jot down a note, and then get right back to the matter at hand.

The Idea Sheet is especially handy because it keeps all of these random thoughts in the same place.  You can then process these notes when you have the time.  I suggest you do it regularly on a daily or weekly basis.  This prevents good ideas from slipping through the cracks.  If you have more than one Idea Sheet, you can use this time to consolidate them into one, and choose when you are going to act on each idea.

In this way, you can stay focused and capture all of your ideas – think of what that will do for your productivity!