Graphic Idea Journal for Content Creators

Your ideas are so precious

Have you ever done any of the following:

had an idea then thought, I have to remember that for later
forgotten that idea
failed to write your idea down
wrote the idea down but in a very rough, unintelligible fashion
written the idea down only to have it buried under other loose pages

Don't Let these Ideas Go to Waste

If I had a Nickel for every Idea I'd Forgotten I'd be Rich

As a teacher, I get to the summer and I go into a kind of spring cleaning mode. I go through all my loose pages, generally to get reorganized. And I find all these brainstorms I had written down and set aside, never to be developed.

My ideas for YouTube video lessons and blog posts stem from my face-to-face English lessons. I often write some on the spot illustrations or diagrams for my students when I’m explaining them something, and then I think to myself, that will make a great video for my channel.

Sadly, most of those never saw the light of day.

That’s why this summer, I put my design skills to the test, and I’ve created my latest masterpiece of an organizational tool.

The Graphic Idea Journal

Visual Thinking Writing Aids for Content Creators

It’s a truly digital productivity tool for both teachers and creatives.

It will enable you record the idea in the kind of detail that allows for you to recall the idea at a later date no matter how much time has passed.

How it will work for you

During my summer learning journey of 2021, I read a book (I really mean listened on Audible) by Adam Grant called Originals. In the book, he talks about how original thinkers incubate ideas using the Zeigarnik Effect. The theory goes that unfinished tasks are more easily recalled than finished tasks.

As a teacher, I often teach several different English lessons to my private students, and often, each one of those topics might make for a good video lesson. Yet at the same time, I would already be working on a different video lesson. While I try to avoid stopping one project only to start another, I at least want to record and develop the idea to the extent that I can easily pick it back up in the future.

What I do, and how the journal works, is I start developing the idea to the point that I get the proverbial snowball rolling downhill. I develop the idea just enough that when I bank it in the journal, I know I can come back to it a week, a month, or even a half year later and pick up right where I left off – taking advantage of the Zeigarnik Effect!

the Full layout

This isn’t your typical empty-page journal with a fancy name on the front with no substance inside.

I have thoughtfully developed an info-graphic to help frame and organize the key components for you to do your “brain dump” so you can bank the idea for later.

A brain dump means getting the idea out of your head. You also leave yourself breadcrumps to follow back to the original inspiring idea for content or style of presentation.

The Info-graphic (left-pages)

Contain four framed sections for you to make notes and instructions to self.

The "Where" Section

For me, the first thing I fill in is “Where.” I use this section to note down where I can find exercises and example sentences that I might want to use in the idea for the video lesson.

These are the breadcrumbs I leave myself so I can quickly find the content that led me down that line of thinking. You could do something similar in that space such as:

Where will you post your content?
Where did you find articles, research, or any other links to your idea.

The "What" Section

After a bit of brainstorming, I usually complete the “what” section. I typically makes some bullet points or a numbered list of “what” I will teach in the video lesson.

The "How" Section

After I have organized my “What” into steps or parts of the video, I go and complete the “How”. This is a good space to record how you planned to present the content. What was your idea and how it should look or be presented. You might use this space to use visual thinking to outline the process and what should happen at each stage of the presentation.

The "Why" Section

The “Why” section is important because it frames how I will approach the “intro” and “outro” to my video lessons.

Use this space to write out why this topic is important to your audience and how they will benefit from it.

Why Download it a PowerPoint?

I originally designed and published this as a medium content product for the Amazon Kindle Store as a medium-content book and idea journal for my English video lessons. I even have a few print copies of this and use the printed versions still to this day. Yet I began using PowerPoint in combination with my graphic pen tablets (yes, I have more than one!) to write my notes and develop my ideas digitally. I store the digital version of this in the cloud and have shortcuts to it on both my home and office computers so I can pick up my ideation from anywhere, anytime!

Most “digital” idea journals are, in fact, digital in name only. You can download them as digital products on Etsy, for example. However, when it comes to using those PDFs digitally with a graphic pen, the only way I know to do it is by inserting it into OneNote.

With a PowerPoint file, though, you get a fully digital product to use with a graphic pen. You’re ready to go right from the download file.

Print Only what needs Printing

This is available in print version with Amazon print on demand, which is an eco-friendly way to buy your journals and other low-content books.

Yet the eco-friendliest way of all is to never need to print. You can still get that brain-to-pen feeling of ideation and brainstorming with a pen in your hand minus the need for paper.

What are you waiting for?

Don’t let any more of your precious ideas slip through the cracks. Get your copy today from my shop.