How Good is Your Idea Capture System?

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with an amazing thought and then said, “I’ll remember it in the morning?”

I have. And just like death and taxes, it’s a guarantee that I’ll completely forget it in the morning. As my friend Cat Mulvihill pointed out on social media recently, “if it’s important enough, I’ll remember it,” is a lie.

If it were true, then we’d always remember birthdays, milk, and our kids’ lunchboxes in the fridge as we’re running out the door.

Without the right systems in place, we’d forget more than we remember.

That means following up with clients, fixing our product, and great ideas for podcast episodes.

That’s why idea capture is so critical to me — and why my system might seem like overkill.

But today I’d like to walk you through all the ways I easily capture ideas and thoughts — and the system I put in place, so I don’t miss anything.

Then we’ll cover what you should think about!

The Apps I Use

We’re already off to a start that probably has you saying, “Apps? Like how many?”

It’s 3 (and a half).

Obsidian is my primary Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) System.

Apple Notes is for quick capture, info I need readily available, and family stuff. It’s a lot faster than Obsidian on my phone. Plus, after years of trying to impose whatever app I happen to be using that month on my wife, I’ve decided to stop torturing her and use the native apps for stuff we share.

Whisper Memos is a fantastic dictation and transcription app for iOS. I set it up on the Action Button for my Apple Watch, and I can just stream-of-consciousness speak. It’s also a Shortcut. This is especially helpful when I’m driving or otherwise need to be hands-free.

The “and a half” is 2 apps I wouldn’t really consider note-taking apps but want to mention them anyway:

1. Notion, which I use for project management and when a database is necessary (like for all the manuals for my home appliances)
2. Tot, which is basically just a scratch pad on my Mac.

How I Manage my System

Let’s throw out Notion and Tot because they’re pretty bespoke use cases in the context of note-taking and idea capture for me.

So, as I mentioned, Obsidian is my PKM. Every single note eventually makes it there.

This includes quick thoughts, text snippets, and tasks, time tracking, and events thanks to various integrations.

It also includes all of my highlights from Readwise, meeting notes, and planning documents.

When I’m at my computer, I’m likely typing directly into Obsidian. But when I’m out and about, I don’t open Obsidian unless I need to look something up, or if I’m doing my start-up / shutdown routine from my phone.

In that instance, I capture notes somewhere else and move them to Obsidian.

With Whisper Memos, it’s a combo of email + automation. It has a feature where you can automatically email all transcripts to a specified email address.

I have a custom email address setup for (My gmail address with a + modifier), and a filter to put any emails to that address into a folder called @SaneMemos.

Over in Make, I have an automation that watches the @SaneMemos folder, and when a new email lands there, creates a new note with the contents in Obsidian.

There is a moderately frustrating caveat that you need a separate app, Actions for Obsidian, to get this sort of functionality. But I also don’t recommend Obsidian for most people.

For Apple Notes, if I determine I want to move it to Obsidian (which is usually the case), I have a Shortcut on my phone called “Text to Obsidian,” which does the trick. It will create a new note with the push of a button.

All new notes created outside Obsidian go into a folder called Inbox, and every couple of days I review the Inbox and sort the notes.

I’m using the PARA method from Building a Second Brain for organizing inside of Obsidian (Projects, Areas, Research, Archive).

What You Should Take Away From This

What I don’t want you to take away from this is that idea capture is a complicated mess.

It’s absolutely not. It’s just that my toxic trait is to over-engineer things.

When you’re considering how to make idea capture as easy as possible, think about your most common contexts, and make sure you can easily capture in them.

For me, I’m in the car a lot, transporting my kids to school and other activities. I know for sure if I have a thought in the car, I will forget it by the time I get to my destination because I have 3 small children who ask countless questions during our drives.

But my parents also live nearly 5 hours away from me…that’s a lot of time to hold an idea in my head. So I want to make sure that when I’m in the car, I have a safe, easy way to capture what I’m thinking.

Whisper Memos is perfect.

It’s also much easier for me to dictate when I’m around the house, and with the app’s native Apple Watch app, I don’t even need to keep my phone on me.

When dictation isn’t an option, I want to be able to go from opening an app to typing as quick as possible. Apple Notes is the clear winner because it’s very fast, super focused, and the quick note action can go right on my iPhone Home Screen.

You likely don’t need everything I need. In-fact, you can probably use the native voice app on your phone, and the native notes app.

The real key is making sure your notes make it someplace that’s easy for you to review and take action on.

What’s your current system for idea capture? Comment and let me know!