If you're in the “expert” business an interesting new idea is worth its weight in gold.

It hooks the attention of potential clients and harnesses their curiosity to find out more.

It differentiates you from everyone else toeing the line of accepted wisdom.

It creates value for potential clients and makes you more memorable.

Good ideas aren't easy to come by. But I've found a surprising source I've been using more frequently recently.

It's where last week's “value legacy” idea came from.

And the “time to value” email from a few weeks before.

And a whole bunch of other ideas I've been sharing.

That source is…

Me. In the past.

I should perhaps explain.

If you put me on the spot and asked me to come up with a good idea for an email to send out tomorrow I'd really struggle

It would take me hours. And I'd come up with something mediocre at best.

But give me 30 minutes of quiet time and a pad of paper and ask me to scribble down some ideas about a broad topic without the pressure of having to publish them and I'll do a decent job.

Or even better, get me to jot down stuff that randomly strikes me in the shower or gardening or doing the dishes or DIY and I'll come up with something decent at least once a week.

The “value legacy” concept from Sunday's email and the video from the week before both came from a venn diagram I scribbled in my “random thoughts” notebook 2 months ago.

I didn't know how I was going to use it at the time. It just felt like a good idea to “me in the past”.

2 months later when I was looking for something interesting to write about I scanned through the notebook and it felt like a great follow-on from my previous emails about delivering value in your marketing.

I know from many, many discussions I've had that I'm by no means special in this. I don't think of any more ideas than the average person.

But one thing I do that most people don't is I write them down as soon as I have them.

And I take time out regularly to scribble ideas.

I don't hope that my memory will somehow pluck those months-old ideas from my faulty brain. Experience (and the immense frustration of knowing I had a great idea but being unable to properly remember what is was) tells me that's not going to work.

So when I'm looking for interesting ideas to share as content I can just jump in my metaphorical time machine and harvest the ideas past me scribbled down.

And like I was last week, I'm often quite shocked at how good my random ideas from months ago are.

If you've ever had writers block or struggled to think of what to write in an email or blog post it could well be because you're putting yourself on the spot to come up with something now.

That pressure doesn't help.

It's much better to regularly come up with ideas, write them down, then come back to them later.

It seems like stating the obvious, but sometimes the obvious needs stating.

Write your ideas down when you have them – don't try to remember them. And take time out to jot down thoughts and ideas on a regular basis.

Then comb through those ideas later when you need them.

It's a much, much easier way to do things. But one few people do.