Idea day!

So yesterday I had what I've decided to call an "idea day". It's a day where my creative juices are flowing, and I have a far above average number of crazy ideas, 99.97% will never go anywhere beyond the idea stage.

It seems there are a few factors that go into having an idea day. Based on yesterday's experiences, I've attempted to distill it down into the most basic components:

1. Low stress levels
2. Well rested
3. Inspirational reading material
4. A feeling of excitement about the future

I wish I could say these things came together for me on a regular basis, but it's a semi-rare occurance these days. I wonder if I had idea days more often if they would be as fast and furious as they are now. Am I actually generating the ideas right then or just releasing the ideas that have been building up in my head?

One of my ideas from idea day was an effective way of capturing the ideas. Even though I know most of them will never come to fruition, I want to know what they are. I have a mini-voice recorder I use for this sometimes, although I hate having to hear my recorded voice when I play them back. Being a nerd, there's going to be a database involved. Boo yeah!

Another idea that came out of idea day is a webmaster group at the University to provide the kind of collegial support I was longing for yesterday. It looks like this one is actually going to happen - I have a meeting next week to get the process started.