Harness the Power of "Idea Bombs"

And keep them from blowing up your flow

You: “Okay brain, it’s time to put that presentation together that I’ve had on my mind for the last week. How should I start the presentation? What are the three main points I should highlight? And how I can connect this to our team’s culture?”

Your brain: “Wait, what? Ever since you planted the seed last week, I’ve been giving you ideas left and right for this presentation. What did you do with all of those?”

You: “Really? They were coming up at the oddest times. I was in the middle of work, or I was out on a bike ride, or I was in the shower. You expected me to be capturing them?”

Your brain: “Oh great, you lost them all? Why do I even bother?”

You: “There has to be a better way.”

Your External Brain¹: “There is.”

Your brain is a magical idea factory, but it plays by its own rules. You can’t prompt it like you would ChatGPT and expect an immediate and organized response.

Your ideas are your most challenging input into your work management system for you to manage. All the other triage processes that we defined center around you selecting the time to perform the triage. Until you triage your mail, it just quietly collects in the corner. When you’re in the middle of work, your notifications are turned off so you don’t see new chats stacking up. Not to worry, you’re going to get to all of that … when it’s time to triage. Your ideas, on the other hand, wait for no one. You’ve no doubt seen how useless it is to say, “Not now, brain, I’m busy.”

Let’s return to the original Triage Shield image.

The inputs are coming in from every angle, but you’re Triage Shield is blocking all of them. All that you’re aware of is what’s happening inside the shield.

Inside the shield is your sanctuary of productivity. You are alone at your desk, producing gem after gem. It’s a clean, protected space. Well, not completely protected. There’s a rogue agent on the inside, sending off intermittent “idea bombs” to throw you off your game.

You’re trying to just work on those gems, but your brain keeps going off on a tangent. You finish your hour working on the presentation, look at how little progress you’ve made, and again say, “There has to be a better way.”

And your External Brain again responds: “There is.”

This month has been dedicated to detailing the value of a complete Triage Shield². And I’ve saved the best input for last. Learning how to reliably and instantly capture your brain’s ideas as they pop up is the key final step to keeping you productive under your Triage Shield. And, in the process, you will also unlock the full creativity of your brain.