Development

Filtering Out Ideas Made Me More Productive

Agustinus Theodorus

January 5, 2021·4 min read

Being Creative Doesn't Help When You Can't Filter Out Your Thoughts

I have to be honest, having too many ideas slowed down my workday. Every day that I work these random concepts always come up. Ideas for articles, businesses, and different improvements in how I do my job, but sometimes I'm busy or worse, I do not have time to meet those ideas.

I want to learn how to control myself in these situations. I need to be able to contain my thoughts and concentrate on what is at hand. In this post, I can discuss how I handled it. It may help you realize an answer for yours.

#1 Forget About It and Move On

If you can't or don't have the time forget about it. Even if we all want to be good dancers and singers, some of us wouldn't have the talent and time to practice. Heck, the idea may not be one of our life goals. Have you ever heard of “good but not necessary”? Yes, these ideas fall into this category. Choose very carefully what you want to do overtime. The path to minimizing regret is sometimes the best way to go.

don't have the time? forget about it.

After all, it's up to you. If you don't think those concepts are sensible then maybe it should be thrown away. You can recognize what's best for yourself.

#2 Write The Important Bits Down

Do this when you can easily explain your idea in a few sentences. I don't like notebooks, so save my ideas on my phone. I write articles this way. My article drafts are increasing. Nowadays, I have a lot of ideas that I would like to explore later, so I enter the title of the article, sometimes with subtitles, then move on. At the very least, you won't lose your ideas, so you can rest assured.

Do this when you can easily explain your idea in a few sentences.

The feeling of losing an idea can be related to a painful moment trying to remember the name of an old colleague. Only to fail dramatically in front of them.

#3 Talk About It

Validating your ideas can help a lot. Because when you discuss an idea with a friend, their intuitiveness can help you see things that you don't see. Consider this, it might not be as good as you think when you revisit the idea the next day. Your idea may sound good in your head for about a week or so, but people can see flaws in their thoughts easier when they talk about it.

The only good idea is not the one that's stuck in your head, but the ones you are willing to test

Don't get stuck in the infinite loop of "Is this good enough?" try it, talk about it, and then judge whether you want to continue or not.

#4 Take Action, Immediately!

This last section is actually my personal favorite. This answer is good if your ideas are small and actionable, but have a medium-to-high potential for impact. For example content creation. Writing a post on LinkedIn, promoting a photo of your work on Instagram, or even writing an article on Medium.

It is better to get IDEAS out of your head asap and it doesn't hurt to take action instead ThrowING them away.

I personally do this every time I'm very excited about an article. I keep writing until I have satisfied my thoughts. After I finished, I can feel the burden lifted off my shoulders, coupled with a surge in productivity. The excitement after I clicked the "Submit" button. The feeling that everything is under your control.

Final Words

These are the ideas that I personally use. It might not work for you, but I hope you got something out of this article nonetheless. Having too much of a good thing can be bad, we all deserve more balance in our lives.

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Agustinus Theodorus

Agustinus currently works as an IT Architecture and Web Services Staff at Bina Nusantara IT Division. Handles crucial API for the company's core data process. His hobbies include reading, writing, and coding (obviously!). His interests include automation, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence. Though he isn't a tech-specific writer, you can read more about Agustinus and his works on his blog.

Filtering Out Ideas Made Me More Productive

Being Creative Doesn't Help When You Can't Filter Out Your Thoughts

#1 Forget About It and Move On

#2 Write The Important Bits Down

#3 Talk About It

#4 Take Action, Immediately!

Final Words

Turn this article into a video

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