Do you have random ideas that just pop in your head? Usually some of my best ideas come up when I’m talking with someone else and we get to throwing ideas around. We would talk about how we could do some things in youth ministry, dream about ways to change our program, think about outreach programs, or an idea we read about in a blog or stuff like that.
It never failed though that one interruption, one phone call or something else would take us off task, the meeting would end and we would have nothing but the ideas in our head. I don’t know about you, but ideas just left in my head get lost quickly.
That’s when my youth assistant started pulling out her phone and writing down everything in Evernote. We have one shared note called Random Youth Ideas. Every time we meet we will write down everything we talk about, no matter if it is a good idea or bad idea. Sometimes there is some structure, sometimes it is more like random notes, but it all gets written down.
Since it is a shared Evernote file, we can each add to it at anytime. Whenever either of us runs across an idea or thought we will pull out Evernote and add it to the list. It’s like an ongoing, never-ending brainstorming session.
About once every two weeks we will take time and go through the list. We may organize some thoughts into a more coherent list, or flesh out some ideas to use in an upcoming program. We often leave things on the list to sit for another day. Often reading through the list will spark another round of ideas and thoughts for our youth ministry.
I tend to use Evernote for this and many other things. However you could use a shared google doc, a file on dropbox or even an ongoing text message conversation. The idea is to keep the ideas going, and refer back to them often.
Do you use something like this?
What works best for you?
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