Embrace the Muse

“Inspiration is perishable. Act on it immediately.”
- Naval

Innovators from Beethoven to Jeff Bezos have dutifully carried notebooks. Anne Lamott prefers to keep an index card in her back pocket. Henrik Werdelin has programmed an application to send messages directly to his Trello board. Capture mechanisms may vary. But that preparation is all for naught if you don’t actually do the painstaking work of writing your ideas down. The truth is, it can be inconvenient. But creators value inspiration enough — and know how fleeting it is — to capture it whenever it strikes.

Documentation is the innovators way to embrace the muse. Here’s a fantastic example from Victor Hugo’s eldest son, Charles (from Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals):

“At family dinners Hugo felt compelled to hold forth on philosophical subjects – pausing only to make sure his wife had not fallen asleep, or to write something down in one of the little notebooks he carried everywhere he went. Hugo's son Charles described the scene: ‘As soon as he has uttered the slightest ideas – anything other than “I slept well” or “Give me something to drink” – he turns away, takes out his notebook and jots down what he has just said. Nothing is lost. Everything ends up in print.’”

You might be thinking, “That’s pretty extreme…” I’d say that “extreme” might be just what it takes to create work that endures for generations.

As Jerry Seinfeld says in Is This Anything?, “Whenever I came up with a funny bit, whether it happened on a stage, in a conversation or working it out on my preferred canvas, the big yellow legal pad, I kept it in one of those old-school accordion folders…

A lot of people I've talked to seem surprised that I've kept all these notes.

I don't understand why they think that.

I don't understand why I've kept anything else.

What could possibly be of more value?”

Related: Carry A Notebook
Related: Reinforce Your Memory

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