Great post Mitch - how to handle ideas and idea lists within GTD is always tricky for me. Here is my proposal for a system to capture and process ideas.

I will apologize in advance for the length of this comment. I know most people will not read it. That is cool.

OK: Ideas occupy kind of limbo for me in GTD. They are undeveloped projects (or potential projects), and so don't go into my projects list. But they aren't reference material either - an article I liked or a bill I've paid. Those things require a prompt from the outside world for me to pull it out. A text file of ideas in your Someday Maybe list is the most obvious container for these things.

OK BUT: you're talking about how to capture and then organize the ideas within that Someday Maybe container.

First the capture: I walk around with a thin, paper notebook - something that can fit in my pocket if I don't have a bag. This thing is like my wallet - I never go anywhere without it. This notebook captures my ideas wherever I am. I actually try and write these ideas down on it even when I'm at my computer - my opinion being that the less ways I capture ideas, the better.

OK GREAT: but the main part of dealing with idea lists is in how I process them once they are written down. Because idea lists are potential projects, I need a system for turning them into projects with either definable actions or, at the very least, a definable time frame (for all those folks for whom creating next actions for, say, a fiction project, is unhelpful).

HERE IS THAT SYSTEM: A set of four folders that sits next to my tickler file. (You can totally recreate this in some computerized form, but I like real folders). Rather than a set of ideas and lists organized by subject or context, I propose a set of files organized around the freshness of the idea: ideas from last week; ideas from last month; ideas from the last six months; ideas from the last year.

WHICH IS TO SAY: you have an idea for something (an article, a blog post, whatever), you write it down. At the end of the day, you rip that idea from your note pad and drop it in your "Ideas from Last Week" folder. Then, each week, force yourself to do a review. Go through each idea and decide if:

A. This is a great idea that I want to work on now (in which case you push it onto your active projects list)

B. This is a terrible idea that I want to forget (in which case, throw it out)

C. This is a good idea that I want to maybe work on later (in which case, you move it to your "Ideas from Last Month" folder)

NOW: do that same routine monthly for the Monthly folder, biannually for the six months folder, etc. This accomplishes two things:

1. It forces you to touch base with your ideas in the same way you should be touching base with your projects. There is no getting around it - there is no silver bullet application that will keep you on your game like a good old-fashioned review does.

2. It allows potential projects to stew without completely taking them off the stove. Hiding ideas in some idea file in Yojimbo or whatever that you have to remember to look at makes it far less likely that you will ever return to an idea or let it turn into something.

After a year, if you haven't acted on an idea, but you still don't want to forget it, then maybe file it away; or extend the set of folders to periods of lesser freshness.