Organize your inspiration

During my recent magazine purge, I found a number of interesting articles. Rather than throw out the article with the magazine, I tore out a few to keep. As you might have guessed, I’m a bit of a packrat. But, I am an organized packrat — I’ve taken those “articles of interest” and filed them for future reference.

By categorizing the articles I’ve collected over the years, I can pull them out easily when I’m looking for ideas. They are within reach — in a desktop file caddy on top of my filing cabinet — so I don’t have to go far to find them.

If I am looking for inspiration on a particular topic, I can leaf through a file folder and see if anything stirs an idea. To keep it simple, the files are organized into categories that reflect my main areas of interest:

• Marketing and branding
• Business and innovation
• Sports and fitness

I also keep my “Inspiration Journals” close by so that I can look up “that comment I heard on the radio the other day” or remind myself of a contact that someone suggested to me. Keeping things simple and being organized means that you access the information you need without too much trouble — important for a packrat like me to put all the “stuff” to use.