Create a memory pop-out book

'I don’t keep a lot of notebooks. I sometimes regret that I haven’t. But I sure have developed a memory notebook -- I have lots of ideas for pieces that I haven’t done yet. One piece I’ve had in mind for fifteen or twenty years is a setting of Walt Whitman’s “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” a landmark American poem. I have so many notes for this potential piece interleaved in my copy of "Leaves of Grass" that the book looks like a cabbage in bloom. So in a sense I do have notebooks -- collections of ideas partially worked out, here and there.'

Eric Stokes from The Muse That Sings: Composers Speak about the Creative Process by Ann McCutchan

The above shows how Eric Stokes makes note-taking a valuable and intrinsic part of his creative process.

Making notes at the time of inspiration and physically placing them inside and beside the source that generated them enables Stokes to develop a 3D memory map and timeline of his ideas which steadily grows outwards and along, filling out and continuing the narrative of his creative journey.

He creates a memory 'pop-out' book which quickly captures his ideas, faithfully marks when and where they were first thought of, accurately maps their subsequent development, and easily enables new ideas to be added to and linked with them.

Every time he flicks and thumbs through his memory enriched book he sees his ideas in motion and once again experiences the pace and energy generated by his sparks of inspiration. The book's touch and feel, together with its physical sense of growth and onward movement, invite Stokes to continue his creative journey and associate ever more creative ideas with his initial inspiration.

 
You can create your own memory notebook. When a book inspires you immediately begin transforming it into a 3D map and timeline that captures your ideas at the place of their birth and faithfully records their progress as they grow, develop, reach out and connect with other inspirational ideas.

Frequently flick and thumb through your budding memories and ideas, adding and adding to them until they bloom into something new.

Stop press!

Isaac Newton used the above approach:

How Isaac Newton remembered everything he read