* IDEA: This is neat and could be helpful, but is probably okay if it never gets done.
* TODO: Not doing this has some measurable ill effect. Maybe maintainability or constraining scale.
* FIXME: This is a temporary work-around while finishing a feature. It should never be shipped.
Nowdays I moved to paper so NSA can not read my ideas and tasks anymore. For TODOs I use one paper sheet per project/subject and carry all these 10-12 sheets in a folder. Then I move the tasks on my daily TODO list in Moleskine... For IDEAS: I draw/sketch/write them on paper and store them in archive folder (just in case I need it)... :-)
I don't think that paper is a good medium for that. Often I'm not sure if I had written about this or a similar idea yet, so full text search is very handy here. Also, I'm sometimes changing ideas, which is also not so good on paper (unless you use pencil & rubber instead of a pen).
http://lifehacker.com/5941997/defrag-your-brain-with-a-spark...
edit Also do you have anything written down about using org-mode for todos and ideas?
Indeed! The concept of a "spark file" describes exactly what I'm doing.
> Also do you have anything written down about using org-mode for todos and ideas?
This is pretty basic Org-mode usage. My To-Do list is just nested headings, each with a TODO or DONE marker (Shift+Left, Shift+Right). My IDEAS list doesn't even have those markers, it is just nested headings and nested lists. The only "advanced thing" that I do is moving items via Mod+Up and Mod+Down. This is very handy, as that moves the whole subtree up and down. And I'm using the "Tab" key for folding and unfolding subtrees.
Org-mode offers much more than what I'm using here. I'm not yet a power-user of Org-mode. For example, the "agenda view" might simplify a lot of what I'm doing (not for IDEAS, but for TODO, meetings, etc). But I didn't find the time to dig deeper into Org-mode yet.
(setq org-agenda-custom-commands
'(("w" "Agenda and Next todos"
((agenda "" ((org-agenda-ndays 1))) ;show anything scheduled for today including habits
(todo "NEXT|IN PROGRESS"
((org-agenda-overriding-header "Working On"))) ;things that I am currently working on
(todo "TODO"
((org-agenda-overriding-header "Check Todo's"))) ;Todo items to check on periodically
(todo "WAITING"
((org-agenda-overriding-header "Waiting On"))))))) ;things I am blocking onEDIT: Nevermind: http://orgmode.org/
So why didn't I just delete those items? Because writing down that stuff helps me not to think about it the whole day if I don't want to.
The IDEAS list grows and grows, but that's okay. I don't feel obliged to implement any of these ideas. Whenever I recall an idea, I go to that document, add some notes, and that's it. No deep research, no domain buying, no name searching. Just writing or extending on what comes to my mind, and roughly structuring it.
From time to time it happens that I do want to implement one of these ideas. And in that case I have some nice, simple spec to start from.
As a side note, I started to do that after I read "Writing, Briefly" from Paul Graham (http://paulgraham.com/writing44.html), which contains the following great advice:
These points are applicable far outside the scope of writing. In that sense, my IDEAS list is the clearly separated "bottom" of my TODO list that contains the "accumulated notes".As a final note, this concept seems to be somehow related to the Not-To-Do list that some people advocate.