Whenever I get a chance to sit and think during the week, I usually try and come up with ideas to write for an article every week. It’s usually not too difficult, though I’ll admit, some weeks are more difficult than others, with school, work, and social obligations taking up a fair amount of time. This past week however, I couldn’t remember the exact circumstances, I came up with a really good idea for an article. Sometimes there are ideas that I think are cool to write about, others are about recent trends or events, but this idea in particular came to me in a flash, and I couldn’t help but get excited about the possibilities that came with this idea. I pocketed the idea away, and proceeded to carry on my day, intending to come back to the idea later. Moving ahead a few days in the week, after I get some free time to write this article I decide to get back to that brilliant idea that I had to write about.

Only one problem: I had completely forgotten what that idea was!

Now, initially, I decided not to fret about it, figuring that I was having a momentary lapse in memory/thought, and the idea would return to me before my due date was up. However, as time went on, it occurred to me that my idea wasn’t coming back; it had packed up and left the train station without so much as a note saying goodbye. I thought and thought about what my idea could have been, mentally working through the categories that I generally write about, geeky stuff, television stuff, or more serious stuff. I even thought about other off-beat stuff that I usually don’t write about, but I still couldn’t remember what my “great idea” was.

This isn’t the first time that this has happened to me, and I’m sure that it’s happened to everyone reading this at one point or another. Whether it’s a great intro to that essay you’re about to write, or an excellent story idea, or even walking into the kitchen then forgetting what you went to go in and get. This momentary lapse in memory is, for better or worse, a natural part of life. Granted, its one that is possibly the most inconvenient experience in life, but it is a part of it.

So how can we combat this epidemic? Usually, when I’m actively trying to remember an idea, I’ll follow the breadcrumbs of thought, so to say, and try to remember what I was thinking about prior to the idea I’ve forgotten. If it’s been awhile (an hour or so) and I still can’t remember, I often try to keep my mind off of the idea, because the more I would try and think about it, the more frustrated/further away from the idea I would get. Usually it would hit me during an inopportune time (at the gym, work, class, etc.), where I would forget it almost immediately. Another way to combat this problem, if it’s a scenario similar to my own, is to immediately jot down/text yourself the idea, so you’ll never forget an idea again.

Unfortunately, for all my advice, I can’t seem to follow it, as my idea still vanished like Rip Van Winkle. Will I ever remember my really good idea for an article? Who knows, perhaps next week I’ll have thought of it.