In today's fast-paced world, where attention spans are dwindling, the simple act of collecting and storing your ideas is crucial for nurturing creativity. The practice of jotting down thoughts, sketches, and observations ensures that valuable insights are not lost to the chaos of daily life. This lesson explores the importance of this habit, drawing inspiration from famous creators who meticulously document their ideas, and offers practical advice on how to make this a ritualised part of your creative process.
What follows is a guide to starting to take notes as a general behaviour—which for you may be as far as you want to go. Subsequent lessons however guide tyou to systematise this process according to the principles found in other courses here, especially DNA of Ideation Part 1 and Part 2.
In our digital age, distractions abound. The constant influx of information from social media, emails, news, and entertainment fragments our focus, making it increasingly difficult to maintain sustained attention. This environment of perpetual distraction can cause fleeting ideas and observations to slip through the cracks of our consciousness, never to be recovered.
Consider how often we encounter a brilliant idea or an inspiring sight, only to have it overshadowed by the next notification or urgent task. These moments of inspiration are ephemeral; if not captured immediately, they can be lost forever in the noise of daily life. This is particularly concerning for creative individuals, as these fleeting thoughts often contain the seeds of future projects, innovations, or artistic expressions.
Writing or drawing regularly becomes a powerful antidote to this modern challenge. By establishing a routine of documenting your thoughts, you create a reliable system for capturing the sparks of creativity that might otherwise vanish. This practice ensures that your ideas are preserved, providing a tangible record that you can revisit and expand upon later.
Moreover, the act of writing or drawing can help to slow down your thought process, allowing you to reflect more deeply on your ideas. This deeper engagement not only helps to solidify and elaborate on your initial thoughts but also fosters a more mindful and attentive approach to your creative work. In a world where our attention is constantly being pulled in multiple directions, this deliberate practice of recording your ideas serves as a sanctuary for your creative mind, enabling you to nurture and develop your creativity amidst the chaos.
Many renowned creators have emphasised the importance of collecting and storing ideas. Here are just some of them.
Frida Kahlo, the renowned Mexican artist, also had a deep relationship with her notebooks. She used them to sketch, jot down thoughts, and write poetry. Kahlo's notebooks were filled with vibrant illustrations, reflections on her intense physical pain, and her passionate feelings about love and politics. They offer a window into her creative process and her innermost thoughts. Her use of notebooks was both therapeutic and an essential part of her artistic practice, capturing the raw emotions that would later be expressed in her famous paintings.
Twain’s first pocket notebooks were purchased in 1857 at the age of 21 during his training to become the “cub” pilot of a steamboat on the Mississippi River. He felt confident that the job would be easy to learn but found he could not remember the instructions his teacher, Horace Bixby, imparted to him. Bixby advised Clemens, “My boy, you must get a little memorandum-book, and every time I tell you a thing, put it down right away. There’s only one way to be a pilot, and that is to get this entire river by heart. You have to know it just like A B C.” Clemens accepted Bixby’s advice, beginning a lifelong relationship with the pocket notebook.
Twain kept 40-50 pocket notebooks over four decades. He often began one before embarking on a trip, filling them with observations of people he met, thoughts on religion and politics, drawings and sketches, potential plots for books, and ideas for inventions (he filed 3 patents). He felt that if he did not write things down as they came to his mind, he would quickly forget them. He would also record little snippets of daily events, such as what he had eaten and who he had seen. He even wrote dirty jokes in the back of them.
He had his leather-bound notebooks custom made according to his design, with each page having a tab that he would tear off once used, allowing him to easily find the next blank page for his jottings.
Leonardo da Vinci, much like Emerson, was an incredibly prolific writer. Approximately 13,000 pages of his writings have survived, with an estimated 10,000 more lost over time. He often wrote on loose sheets of paper, organizing them haphazardly and creating his own “notebooks” by folding the sheets and wrapping them in fabric. At thirty, he began using leather-bound journals and always carried small, bound notebooks measuring 3.5 by 2.5 inches, tied to his belt, ready to capture his thoughts, observations, drawings, and ideas.
Leonardo has been called “the most curious man who ever lived,” constantly posing questions and exploring new ideas. His notebooks are a testament to his wide-ranging interests, filled with musings and sketches on philosophy, art, botany, geology, anatomy, flight, and water, among other topics. His restless mind jumped from one idea to another; a single page might feature a poetic reflection on the human form, a plant sketch, a draft of a letter, as well as records of his expenses and that night’s dinner menu.
The rapid shifts between topics on the same page are just one aspect that makes Leonardo’s notes difficult to decipher. He famously wrote in “mirror writing” from right to left, not to keep his writings secret, but to avoid smudging the ink as a left-hander. His writing lacks punctuation, and he often combined short words or split long words into smaller parts. While the chaotic nature of his notebooks can make them challenging to read, this disorder adds to Leonardo’s mystique, enhancing our fascination with his legendary mind.
While working on a draft for Star Wars, director George Lucas confined himself for 8 hours a day in his writing room, only taking breaks for Walter Cronkite’s Evening News. He also carried a pocket notebook with him to jot down ideas, words, and plot angles on the go. While mixing the sound for American Graffiti with Walter Murch, Murch asked Lucas for R2, D2, meaning Reel 2, Dialogue 2. Lucas liked the sound of that phrase and jotted it down in his notebook. This note would later come in handy for naming the famous robot. Names like Jawa and Wookie also began as quick scribbles in Lucas’ notebook.
Charles Darwin began his pocket notebook habit while sailing as a naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle. While exploring the South American coast, he gathered specimens and filled 15 field notebooks with observations on subjects like zoology, botany, archaeology, and linguistics, data like latitude and longitude, barometer readings, temperature, and depth soundings, sketches of maps and specimens, and personal information like diary entries, shopping lists, and financial information.
In Notebook B, Darwin began to speculate on the origin of species, drawing his first evolutionary tree. Near the end of the voyage, he began writing in his Red Notebook, devoted to more theoretical speculations. Upon his return, he continued hashing out his theories in a series of notebooks labelled with letters of the alphabet: A, B, C, D, and so on. These notebooks provide a window into how Darwin’s theory of the transmutation of species evolved. The entries are chaotically arranged and wide-ranging, jumping from one scientific subject to the next and interspersed with notes on correspondences and conversations.
When traveling and making field notes, Darwin wrote vertically down the page with a pencil, as this was easiest when holding the book in one hand and writing with the other. At home, he wrote horizontally down the page with a pen. Sometimes, he started from both ends of the notebook and worked toward the middle.
Ludwig van Beethoven was a devotee of the pocket notebook and was seldom seen without one in hand or pocket. He would walk city streets and forest paths with it clutched behind his back in case inspiration struck while away from home. His notebook became a memorable part of his appearance, often included in artists’ depictions of him.
He used his notebooks to write down personal thoughts, maxims, and passages from literature and poetry he wished to remember. But their primary use was as musical sketchbooks, where he would compose the beginnings of symphonies and then tinker with them on page after page. He believed writing stimulated his imagination and even kept a small table by his piano where he would hash out his creations on paper.
Later in life, the notebooks served a practical purpose as a means of communication. Because of Beethoven’s hearing loss, his friends used conversation books to write down what they wished to say to him, and he would respond orally or in the book.
“I belong to this notebook and this pencil,” Ernest Hemmingway once said. The writer filled notebook after notebook, famously penning new story ideas in the cafes of Paris. He would sit there most of the day, waiting for inspiration to strike. Hemingway’s notebooks didn’t just come out at the cafes; he brought them on all his travels and adventures, jotting down notes wherever he was—a bar, a train, a bullfight. He was a keen observer of life, trying to capture the richness and texture of his experiences, which later emerged as vivid passages in his short stories and novels.
Of course, the notebooks were not just for literary purposes. He used them to record expenses, make lists of gifts he wanted to bring back to loved ones from his travels, and even to keep track of his first wife’s menstrual cycles.
Janice Lowry, an artist celebrated for her intricate collages and assemblages made from found objects, began keeping a diary at the age of 11. Using small notebooks, she filled them with daily thoughts and drawings. This practice continued throughout her life, evolving into a larger format in the mid-70s. Each notebook covers about four months and includes to-do lists, personal reflections, and significant world events, such as 9/11. One entry captures her immediate reaction to the attacks: “8:45 Eastern time. A second hijacked plane. Oh my God! 50 thousand people work in the trade center,” and “The only solution for me is to do ordinary things.” This entry is accompanied by sketches of the planes striking the World Trade Center and a collage featuring a dollar bill and a Teletubby saying “Uh-oh!”
Lowry called her notebooks “reportage,” initially intending them as a way for her sons to learn about her life and progression. They also served as a means for her to assert her presence in the world. These diaries eventually became significant artworks, now housed in the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art.
Many comedians carry around a little notebook to jot down funny thoughts or observations that might come in handy later. Larry David is particularly devoted to this practice. He always keeps a small notebook in his breast pocket. When he worked on Seinfeld, he would scour his notebook for ideas for the show; episodes like “The Contest” came right out of it.
The notebook continues to provide fodder for his current show, Curb Your Enthusiasm. David’s notebook is a ratty brown thing that looks as if it might have cost forty-nine cents at a stationery store, its pages covered with his illegible scrawl. The notebook even makes appearances in the show itself.
Isaac Newton began his habit of keeping a notebook as a boy, writing out lists of words and recipes for things like colored dyes. But his notebook-keeping began in earnest when he arrived at Cambridge as an undergraduate. In the 17th century, students were encouraged to keep a large “commonplace book” in which they recorded all their notes and acquired knowledge. On the advice of his Cambridge tutor, Newton started a set of small notebooks, each dedicated to a specific subject: theology, mathematics, chemistry, and philosophy. Newton’s method of inquiry was to pose a question, study and analyse all the evidence, and record his deductions in his notebooks.
Newton had an obsession with organising and categorising information, typically laying out his notebooks by listing the subjects he wished to study throughout the book and then entering notes under the headings as he learned and gathered new knowledge. He would also start at both ends of the notebook, covering different subjects on each end, and numbering the front half with Roman numerals and the end half with Arabic numerals. He would then return later to fill in the blank middle section with a different subject.
In his autobiography, Frank Capra recalls how, without any real previous experience, he stumbled into being asked to direct his first short film, The Ballad of Fultah Fisher’s Boarding House, based on a poem by Rudyard Kipling. Worried about failing, Capra prepared as much as possible, with help from his pocket notebook. Capra had every scene sketched out in his pocket notebook, with long shots, near shots, and face shots all in chronological order.
Picasso utilised his pocket notebooks to make preliminary sketches before he began a painting, particularly for preparing to paint Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Picasso made 809 sketches for the painting in many notebooks over nearly six months, more preparatory sketches than for any other known artwork in history.
Picasso thought so much of his notebooks that he wrapped some of them with pieces of colourful fabric. Others he painted with stars, zig zags, stripes, and dots. From 1932-1935, Picasso experienced significant personal upheavals. Hoping to strip his life back to the essentials
Here are some general ways to start making taking notes a habit:
Julia Cameron, in her book "The Artist’s Way," advocates a practice called "The Morning Pages." This involves writing three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness thoughts first thing every morning. Cameron asserts that this ritual clears the mind, unlocks creativity, and captures fleeting ideas that might otherwise be forgotten. Whether the content seems important or trivial, the act of writing itself is what matters, as it keeps the creative channels open.
The practice of collecting and storing ideas is not just a safeguard against the forgetfulness of a distracted mind; it is a vital part of the creative process itself. By ritualising the act of noting down thoughts and observations, you create a treasure trove of potential that can be drawn upon when the time is right. Embrace this habit as a sacred part of your creative journey, and you will find your imagination continually furnished with fresh material, ready to be transformed into innovative creations.
By integrating these practices into your daily routine, you will cultivate a fertile ground for creativity, ensuring that your ideas are never lost and always available to inspire your next great work.