Steve/Michael
Imagine the array of brain cells you use for writing. They edit, type, color, format. And they have ideas. Some ideas are a product of logical development, but the best ones hit you like Moe with a mackeral, smacking into consciousness. They are bright and shiny. Sometimes they come with context and background and life, usually more than you can remember after the flash bulb of the idea. And then they are gone. Did you capture them? Is that even possible?
Imagine all those brain cells as little magnets, which they kinda are, little electromagnets running off your internal wiring system and battery. Ever hear the critical joke: If you lined up 500 of the leading Economists in the world, they would all point in different directions. Your brain magnets are like that, whirling, spinning, pointing but commonly not all in same direction. Suddenly, maybe due to a quick stimulus, a sound, an image, a hiccup, they momentarily, briefly, fleetingly, ephemeraly, line up and an IDEA happens!
They have life, context, they are clever, Pulitzer Prize-worthy ideas, and then they are gone. Did you write it down, madly noting phrases, colors, sounds, impact, meaning, subtext in a mad note to yourself? Don't worry format, get the gist on paper! Now! Interpret it later. Any thinking other than this Flash Idea will interfere with the process and destroy the beauty of its symmetry.
Oh, you confidently fool yourself by assigning the idea to your wonderful, whirling brain. I'll remember. No, you won't. You might remember some basic element, but the ephemeral glory of the idea is not memorable. Your day will include doing the laundry, noting things for the grocery list, trying to remember that promise you just made to a friend in an email. I'm in my 70's. Yes, the head may be slower, but not by much, because I keep things busy and renewed. But....
I can forget what I was doing while I'm doing it. You?
Really! Because it's busy in there and thoughts quickly get overwritten. The day will erase the Idea or overwrite it with senseless BS until the magic is gone.
Great Ideas blow away in the wind of the day.
My writing space is Full of paper. My telephone bill occupied two sheets of paper, but the bill took only the first page and a half. The Legal BS completed the page and spilled over to half the next page. I used to just keep the bill portion, but look at that second sheet. It's a tri-fold of mostly clean, clear white paper. I carefully tear the tri-fold into three panels of about 3.5 by 8 inches, and put them in a narrow box next to my writing space. Paper ready to be snatched up for the next flash of an idea. Titled, numbered, if necessary, dated after the rush of the idea has passed. Of course, now I have the task of properly preserving and filing, and using these ideas, but I'm doing better with retaining the Idea.