It doesn’t matter where or how an idea emerges. What matters is that the concept exists somewhere on paper, a napkin, an envelope, a Tweet, or a blog post.

We can’t begin to assess and dissect our thoughts unless we can see its basic framework and bones visually.

I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now.

Field Notes

It is an inherent response to draw what’s already in the mind — it is another to attack the stimulus and make it come to fruition.

Jack Dorsey sketched Twitter out on a napkin. Hugh MacLeod started drawing cartoons on the back of business cards.

There isn’t a perfect time, place, nor medium to write out our ideas. But it has to get recorded somewhere as a sketch, an iPhone note, or as a sticky as the first step toward execution.

The heart to start is easier said than done. The trick is to avoid the perils of thinking too logically in the beginning. All ideas exist in rough draft before we can test, tweak, market, and sell the idea to see it actually works.

The struggle for answers and subsequent failures is where all the learning takes place.