What do you notice about the picture? Yes, it’s a treadmill, more specifically, my treadmill. But what’s on the treadmill? Notice the memo pad. Beside it is a pen. Riding the treadmill provides “think” time. With think time comes good ideas. Good ideas, however, can be easily forgotten.

When you awoke this morning, you could probably recall your dream. At that moment, you may have been able to describe it to someone else in vivid detail. What about trying to recall that same dream later in the same day? The same thing happen to our good ideas.

If pen and paper are handy, nothing is forgotten.

For over 30 years, I have kept a memo pad in my pocket. In this post, I talked about carrying it instead of a wallet. When my wife and I go to the local park and walk the track, I have a piece of folded paper in one pocket and a pen in the other. As we walk, those good ideas and “to-dos” which come from our conversations are trapped on paper. Nothing is forgotten.

• Where might you want to have a memo pad?
• On the nightstand beside your bed?
• Beside the sink in the bathroom?
• Beside the phone?
• On the end table where you watch TV?

The master thinker knows that ideas are elusive and often quickly forgotten, so he traps them with notebook and pencil. He heeds the Chinese proverb: “The strongest mind is weaker than the palest ink.”
—Wilferd A. Peterson in Adventures in the Art of Living

Where are you when good ideas occur? Are you ready to trap them?