This week’s JournalingFix newsletter:

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​– Why your best ideas show up in the shower (and don’t come back when you need them)
– 4 quick writing steps to get brilliant ideas back on track
– How to turn “lost” ideas into something you can use later

Hi, it’s Áine.

You know those brilliant ideas we all get when we’re in the shower, on a walk, driving, pretty much anywhere we can’t do something about them?

They’re so sharp and obvious in the moment. I always think, “There’s no way I’ll forget this.”

Then later I sit down, open my laptop, and… nothing.
I remember having the brilliant idea. But I can’t remember why I was excited about it and it feels like it evaporated.

Here’s what’s happening and a quick writing fix.

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​There’s a principle in memory research called encoding specificity. It basically says:

Your brain doesn’t just remember information.
It remembers information plus the state you were in when you learned it.

Context and internal state become part of the retrieval cue.

In the shower, you’re relaxed, a little bored, not scrolling, not performing.
On a walk, your body is moving, your visual field is open, your mind is looser.

At your desk, you’re in “perform and respond” mode: screens, notifications, other people’s expectations.

Different state = different retrieval cues = worse recall.

So it’s not that “the idea is gone” or “your memory is bad.”
It’s that you changed state and didn’t leave your future self anything to work with.

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The fix is to rebuild the state and leave yourself better breadcrumbs.

Next time you have a half‑remembered idea that felt important but won’t fully come back, try this.

You can type or write by hand - but the key is to write, not just think about it.

Step 1 - Write “Where I was when this felt clear was…”
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Include as much description as you can: Location, time, what you were doing, what was going on in the environment around you.

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Step 2 - Write “What my energy and focus was like then…”

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​Include things like energy, mood, pace (relaxed, wired, relieved, curious, annoyed).

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Step 3 - Write “The part of the idea that’s still clear and how I might use it is…”

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​One or two sentences on what felt intriguing (even if it’s just a phrase, a tension, or a feeling) and how you might use it (hook, article, product tweak, etc.).

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Step 4 - Write “Next time I work on this idea, the first step is…”

You’re doing two things at once: You're recreating enough of the original state for your brain to find more of the idea - and leaving breadcrumbs for next time.

In memory research, this is called using retrieval cues: small pieces of the original context that make the full memory easier to access again.

You don’t need to “capture everything” perfectly. You just need to leave a big enough breadcrumb trail that the idea has somewhere to land when you have time to work on it.

Over time, you’re also building a running log of partial ideas with clear next steps, so you’re never starting from a blank page - you’re just following the breadcrumbs you already left for yourself.

It makes sitting down to work feel less like starting from zero and more like picking up a thread you’ve already laid out.

– Áine

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