Ask HN: How do you manage/store your ideas? (I'm building a tool)

7 points by withoutfriction 14 years ago | 8 comments

Interested to see how you manage ideas.

I have almost finished building a website to track ideas, I know I will be using it myself.

The key feature of my site is that you enter in ratings of the ideas, and your user settings for priorities in different categories, and then all ideas you enter received a weighted total score and can be sorted by #points.

The url: ideatool.herokuapp.com

Questions:

How would you improve it?

Suggestions on a name/url?

Would you use it?

Are there any premium features you could think of that would be worth paying for?

TobbenTM 14 years ago |

How I store my ideas now: item in tasklist with project name, and a folder for it in my Dropbox with all related ideas, thoughts and material for the project.

As to your webapp, How would you improve it? Better landing page with some info and/or pictures of what it actually does. When you create a new idea I think the private checkbox should be checked default (personal preference perhaps). Would be nice to be able to create a bullet list in the 'Notes' section. Also, when viewing an idea, the notes section strip away line breaks. This, and bullet list, would make it easier to get an overview over thoughts.

edit: also, when you have created a new idea, I would like a button at the bottom that takes me back to my ideas.

edit2: don't know if it's a bug, but it's nagging me to confirm my email adress, when I have not received an email. Maybe add a way to resend confirmation?

Suggestions on a name/url? Nope, sorry.

Would you use it? Seems kinda useful, I'll try it for a while to see if it's easy enough to keep updated.

Are there any premium features you could think of that would be worth paying for? I would pay for a mobile app (Android)

Hope this helps.

matkiros 14 years ago |

How I store my ideas now: Evernote, 'nuff said. However notes are organized in Evernote seems to be the perfect way for me to organize my ideas. I can just create a separate note or notebook to collect all the related ideas in one place, and I can write down my ideas in the most organic form possible.

Also, some critiques on the app's features based on what's written above:

1. People probably don't want to use an app for organizing ideas that actually SHARES those ideas with other people.

2. When I have an idea that's still a little abstract, I think the idea pointing system is kind of useless because obviously I'll have to spend more time thinking about it, but I still have to write it down. I'm just saying, it doesn't always have to be put out in the open for feedback right away.

3. Idea validation is, from my experience, better off done via conversation with the people you trust the most. So either I'm saying that automating that process is less useful, OR you can make the app a bit more social by allowing only a user's most trusted friends to evaluate the idea. That way you don't scare away people from your app because of number 1.

jbui 14 years ago |

I used your app and it seems like a nice idea. After accumulating a lot of ideas myself, I often have to go through all of them after while to reevaluate why I chose not to pursue them at that time.

For me a 1-10 scale is not how I like to answer the questions in your app. I prefer a simple passionate/not-passionate & expensive/inexpensive type answer instead.

Also a way to tag an idea would be helpful for sorting later.

I use wunderkit/wunderlist to track my ideas because it has a native desktop and mobile application. I'm not sure if I would be willing to use a web application to track my ideas.

jurre 14 years ago |

It would be great if I didn't have to sign up first before trying the app out. Like being able to add ideas (perhaps you could use localstorage) but only having to log in to actually save it. Also I'm curious as to what your association with the amazon affiliate program has to do with this?

redspark 14 years ago | |

I was curious about the amazon affiliate thing as well. Once I read that, I left the site, assuming it was just some sort of scam to funnel people to an amazon affiliate page.

anusinha 14 years ago |

I use a private wiki that I use for storing lots of my personal information. I make a new page per idea and link to it from a bigger page. a good friend of mine keeps a giant google document of ideas and uses text to tag ideas.

wicknicks 14 years ago |

I use Google Documents (Presentation) or SlideRocket. SR is very nice for sketching block diagrams. I tend to think more in terms of pictures than words.

sixQuarks 14 years ago |

I just started using Trello for this purpose, I love it: http://www.trello.com