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The Holy Crap Reaction to Competition —
When you spot another company in your market that seems to be doing exactly what you’re doing, don’t panic! Focus on your strengths and core goals and press ahead. (Thanks Demetrius for the lin…

Good idea about reading the old ones.

I tend to use them as a sort of writers’ sandbox. There are no rules. I can even write in sentence fragments. Well, maybe there are rules. I never say things like world-class value-driven solutions that maximize customer satisfaction throughout all touchpoints in an ever evolving process of excellence. If I did, my notebook would catch fire, and rightly so.

There’s a Sarah Evans (country) song called “Suds in the bucket” with a great line: “You can’t fence time…and you can’t stop love”

That song gave me some blog posts and sales letters to launch a time management seminar.

Content is there if you’re open for it!
David

I do believe that might be the first appearance of Oscar Wilde on this blog.

My real fun with the notebooks is to go back and read some of the entries I made years ago – I keep them all after I fill them.

I couldn’t agree more. I also carry a small Moleskine notebook around with me and it has proved invaluable. Even writing something that seems obvious at one point in the day/week/year may not be so obvious at another time. I overheard this gem, “People are different.” “Hey, I know that,” I hear you say. But what does “people are different” mean?

If we don’t recognize that people see the world differently we fall into the trap of thinking they will look at the world in the way we do. So we need to ask questions. So what kind of questions would they be? This is the sort of thing my notebook is good for.

I have a paper conversation with it (a bigger size Moleskine). I ask my dumb questions and then let that sit: I let my question incubate and come back to it later.
It is remarkable how I then can come up with a new response, or at least something I can write about. And I write for a living as well as for the pure fun of it.

I think it was Oscar Wilde who alway took his notebook on journeys with him because he never wanted to be without something outrageous to read.

I came up with this term “Crepuscular Thinking,” It’s that time between sleep and wakefulness in the morning is where my creative ideas come from. I have my notebook by my bed.

The downside of this is that I am so sleepy, I can barely read my own writing. But the upside is, if I can read my scribble, I get some good ideas. I’ve never been short of ideas, my problem is only to sort our the wacky, hilarious, or useful. But what’s a wacky idea today, becomes a useful and even lucrative one tomorrow.

The notebook is an essential writer’s tool. Thanks for you post. I love the blog.

Christopher