{"id":124,"date":"2017-01-03T15:23:39","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T20:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smartsimpledigital.com\/blog\/?p=124"},"modified":"2017-05-26T16:51:46","modified_gmt":"2017-05-26T20:51:46","slug":"use-post-notes-organize-bring-ideas-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartsimpledigital.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/03\/use-post-notes-organize-bring-ideas-life\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Use Post-It Notes to Organize and Bring Your Ideas to Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Over the years I\u2019ve grown to realize that failing to properly capture and organize my thoughts during a brainstorming session can be the difference in an idea that grows into an actual product and one that loses steam and gets shelved into a dark corner of my mind. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">One method that I\u2019ve adopted to help bring structure to my brainstorming sessions and to make them more productive is organizing my ideas on post-it notes. \u00a0It\u2019s a technique that I first learned while studying <a href=\"http:\/\/www.designkit.org\/human-centered-design\">Human Centered Design<\/a>. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Here\u2019s a look at how I use post-it notes to organize and bring my ideas to life:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/siXLL7XzR_I\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<ol class=\"ol1\">\n<li class=\"li3\"><span class=\"s1\"><strong>The Setup<\/strong> &#8211; I usually start by assembling a collection of post-it notes in at least 2 to 3 different colors. \u00a0One color to record creative thoughts, a second color to record themes or category labels, and a third color to record notes or tasks. \u00a0You also need a workspace, such as a desk, table, whiteboard or wall that\u2019s free from clutter. \u00a0I normally use one of the walls in my office.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span class=\"s1\"><strong>Recording<\/strong> &#8211; Next I choose a stack of post-it notes (it doesn\u2019t matter which color) and begin writing any thoughts that come to mind about the product that I\u2019m brainstorming on. \u00a0In this case, let\u2019s say that I\u2019m brainstorming about a podcast. \u00a0I capture each creative thought that I have on a separate post-it note, and then place them on the wall. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t matter how big, small, or ridiculous the thoughts may seem&#8211;I capture them all!<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li3\"><span class=\"s1\"><strong>Organizing<\/strong> &#8211; As I have breaks in my thinking, I \u00a0step back to take a look at the collection of creative thoughts that have been generated so far. \u00a0I look for any themes or patterns that may be present. \u00a0Since the brainstorming session in this example is centered on the creation of a podcast, I may notice that some thoughts that I\u2019ve captured are related to content, while others may related to the administrative tasks that are necessary for the growth of the podcast after it\u2019s been created. \u00a0I\u2019ll move the post-it notes around and group them into a logical order based on those themes. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li3\"><span class=\"s1\"><strong>Adding Additional Layers<\/strong> &#8211; After grouping the creative thoughts by theme or some other logical order, I begin to fill in the gaps. \u00a0One of the first things that I\u2019ll do is create labels or headings for the thought groupings that I\u2019ve created. \u00a0Based on the podcast example here, I might create labels such as \u201cepisode content\u201d, \u201cproduction equipment\u201d, \u201ctarget audience\u201d or \u201cmarketing\u201d. \u00a0I find that adding this additional level of organization helps me to drill down in my thinking, and also causes more focused ideas to emerge. \u00a0At this point I also capture additional creative thoughts and place them on the wall under their appropriate label. \u00a0I\u2019ll also do the same with any extended notes or tasks that may come to mind at this point. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li3\"><span class=\"s1\"><strong>Continuous Improvement<\/strong> &#8211; At this point we have a wall full of creative thoughts, notes, and tasks related to the idea that we\u2019re brainstorming on (a podcast in this case). \u00a0All of those things combine to form a blueprint or roadmap which will help to guide the development of our idea into an actual living product. \u00a0We can look at the idea groupings that were created in the previous step and begin to break them into actionable steps. \u00a0As the project moves forward additional thoughts may also emerge and can be added to the road map.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">So that\u2019s it. \u00a0Although a podcast was the example product that I brainstormed on in my example here, this process can be applied to the creation of just about anything. \u00a0In fact, I\u2019ve used it to help guide the creation of some of the tutorial videos and blog posts that you see here on this site. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Give this method a try if you have any ideas or projects that are trapped in your mind but begging to get out into the world!<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Do you have any special tips or methods that you use to brainstorm and jumpstart your ideas?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the years I\u2019ve grown to realize that failing to properly capture and organize my thoughts during a brainstorming session can be the difference&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,13,11],"tags":[26,24,25],"yst_prominent_words":[117,115,109,120,121,106,111,114,104,119,118,110,112,107,113,116,105,122,108,123],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-how-to","category-videos","tag-brainstorming","tag-human-centered-design","tag-post-it-notes","post-item","post-even"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartsimpledigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartsimpledigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartsimpledigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartsimpledigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartsimpledigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/smartsimpledigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184,"href":"https:\/\/smartsimpledigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions\/184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartsimpledigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartsimpledigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartsimpledigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartsimpledigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartsimpledigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}