What Is it?
A place to store notes, quotes, ideas, half baked ideas, or basically anything that we want to remember.
Who Is It For?
Anyone that needs it, which might be most people
What Kind of Stuff Would I Write?
Quotes from books, podcasts, movies, or songs that you want to remember
Ideas for rearranging or redecorating your house
Places you ‘d like to visit for vacation, and maybe why you’d like to go there
Something you’d like to learn more about
Foreign language grammar or phrases
Interesting signs you’ve seen, or pictures of them
Interesting overheard conversations
Important memories or news items
Do I Need Index Cards?
No. You can store your spam file on index cards, in a google doc, apple notes, Notion file, on a piece of paper in a file folder or a notebook. Whatever you want. I recently read of a writer who keeps his spark file in a Notion document, and it’s just 50 pages of random notes.
How Is It Different From A Commonplace Book?
I use my commonplace book as a place to collect raw material. Only the best quotes, ideas, thoughts, or comments make it into my spark file, so I’m basically curating the contents of my commonplace books. Once I have items in my spark file, they are easier to review and to move around.
How Do I Use It?
You’ll need to come up with a process to review your spark file. Your purpose in reviewing is to remind yourself of its contents, and perhaps you will come up with new thoughts or ideas during your review. You might even find that two ideas are somehow related to each other. New action items would be added to your “to-do” list.
Do Other People Do This?
Sure. I’ve read that Ronald Regan and Martin Luther King had boxes filled with memorable quotes that they would use for inspiration in speech writing. Authors Robert Greene, Ryan Holiday, and many others use them as a source of raw material for their books. I even think that a sketchbook is a kind of visual spark file for artists.
Here’s part of George Carlin’s spark file, where he collected ideas for jokes.
How Do I Get Started?
The way that I think about it is that each card, or each entry in a google doc, would be one thought or idea. This approach will give us flexibility in organizing our file, which I’ll cover in a later post.
What’s Next?
Just start. Don’t worry about anything being perfect. Don’t worry about organizing them. Clip cards together with a paper clip or put loose papers in a box or a file folder.