The Power of Idea Books for Multi-Passionate People

Today I would like to show you a tool that has helped me to organize my various interests and use them in a more productive way. If you’ve ever struggled to keep track of all your thoughts and ideas, or felt overwhelmed by your many interests, this video is for you.

A while ago I talked about a book that has inspired me many years ago called Refused to Choose by Barbara Sher. I mentioned idea books or day books and today I want to go into more detail and show you an example of the way I’m keeping my idea books.

First of all, what is an idea book?

Barbara Sher got the idea from the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Maybe you have heard of them because Leonardo da Vinci had a lot of different interests as well.

He kept notebooks where he collected all his ideas and drawings and writings and everything that came to his mind. People found them later and were amazed of what was going on in his brain because he had so many different interests.

They included nature, flying machines, geometry, mechanics, municipal construction, canals and architecture.

Key Aspects of an Idea Book

1. A Place for Everything: Scanners often have many ideas that come and go rapidly. An Idea Book allows them to write down and store these ideas in one place. This way, they don’t have to worry about forgetting or losing an idea, and they can revisit it whenever they want.
2. No Pressure to Complete: The Idea Book is not about setting goals or making plans to finish projects. It’s a creative space where you can explore possibilities, brainstorm, and sketch out ideas without the expectation of having to follow through on them.
3. Organizing Interests: Over time, as you collect more ideas, you can start to see patterns and connections between your various interests. This helps you understand your Scanner personality better and can guide you in choosing which projects or activities to pursue.
4. Freedom to Explore: With an Idea Book, Scanners have the freedom to indulge in their curiosity. They can jot down an idea for a novel one day, a business plan the next, or even a design for a new product—whatever captures their imagination at the moment.
5. A Record of Your Passions: The Idea Book also serves as a record of your interests over time. It can be enlightening to look back and see how your ideas and passions have evolved. This can also help you see which ideas have persisted and might be worth pursuing further.

Overall, an Idea Book is a tool that allows Scanners to embrace their diverse interests without the fear of losing track of their many ideas. It helps them feel more organized and less overwhelmed, making it easier to enjoy their multifaceted nature.

Now I want to show you what my books look like.

Examples of How I Use My Idea Books

Back in 2018, I started using these regularly. I began with just a simple spiral notebook, scribbling down whatever came to mind.

Little drawings often help me to visualize something.

I make lists. Write down plans. Maybe morning routines or evening routines if I want to try them out. Or recipes. Garden plans. All these different snippets of things that come to my mind and I don’t want to forget. I put them all in here.

It’s great to even look back over them. I said this in my last video that I’m a cyclical scanner so I keep coming back to the same topics over time. I can really see this in my idea books.

When I come back to an interest for healthy food or seasonal food, I can go back to my old idea books and see what recipes I wrote down during a season. Like in autumn or summer, whatever, winter. And I find those recipes again.

Idea Books and Homeschooling

These idea books helped me a lot as well when I was homeschooling my kids, or my two boys at the time, because my daughter went to school. And I was always going between unschooling, which is kind of an interest-led learning style, and then Charlotte Mason, which is like a book-based, it’s not really a curriculum, it’s more like a lifestyle, where you read lots of books, and you do nature, study, and listen to music, and look at art, read poems, things like that.

So these notebooks gave me a place to organize my thoughts about how I wanted to homeschool.

If I was more in a season of following my kid’s interest, I could have a place where I write down what they were currently interested in and what they were doing in any given day. So to give me the feeling that there was learning happening in their days, even without me instigating it.

During other phases when I was interested in giving them more inspiration through books and music and art and so on, I was writing out plans what we could do in the mornings together or during the day and then I was trying them out and see how they went. And I never really forced my kids to do anything because I just don’t believe in that.

I think interest-driven learning is the best, because I can see that in myself and I can see it definitely in my children as well.

It was different for each of my three children and well, I have one of them who really loves reading books and reads everything I give him. And then I have another one that’s not really interested in any books and he loves hands-on projects, like doing anything with his hands and real stuff out in the world. And then I have my daughter who loves books as well, and movies and various things, but she needs to choose herself what she takes in and it needs to be completely her own choice. I can offer and suggest, but usually she finds her own stuff.

My Idea Books were the perfect place to keep track of all these different approaches and what worked best for each child. It gave me the freedom to experiment and adjust without feeling overwhelmed.

So I hope you give it a try and start keeping a notebook or an idea book yourself.

If writing isn’t your thing, and you prefer talking, you could use VoiceNotes, which is a free app that lets you record your ideas on your phone. It’s great for keeping everything organized when you’re on the go. I’ve made a video about it, so feel free to check that out if you’re interested.

Thank you so much for reading or watching. I hope this inspires you to give Idea Books or VoiceNotes a try.

Let me know how it goes for you. And if you’ve got any tips for keeping track of your many interests, I’d love to hear them in the comments.

Talk to you soon. Bye!