One of the fundamental concepts in managing a heart attack is the “door-to-balloon time (DTBT)”. This is the time between a patient’s arrival to hospital, and when a balloon is inflated in the blocked coronary artery, resulting in reperfusion.

Most hospitals have a door-to-balloon protocol of <90 minutes. The shorter the DTBT, the better. Every minute that the occluded artery is not opened is another minute of dying heart tissue (cardiologists have a phrase for this: time is tissue). The consequences are a matter of life and death.

Similar, the “thought-to-note time” is the time between a thought forming in one’s head, and the act of writing it down as a note. Like the DTBT, the shorter the time, the better. Also like the DTBT, the consequences of delay are a matter of life and death – albeit not of heart tissue, but of an idea.

I’ve previously written about being on the lookout for ideas that hit you. It is wonderful to capture these unexpected gifts when they arrive. It is equally devastating to lose these when you forget to write them down. It is depressing to think about how little of our lives we remember.

I’ve recently established a thought-to-note time protocol of <5 minutes. The faster, the better, but sometimes you’re in the middle of something and it’s awkward to take your phone out. But when a moment arises, I take out my Notion page, and jot down whatever hit me. These are very rough – just vomit out the idea and worry about structure and grammar later. But once I’ve captured it, I’m happy. The thought will stay forever, and I can re-examine it whenever I like.

Not all days contain ideas that hit me. Some days I feel like a broken antenna: receiving nothing but radio silence. But on others, it feels like I’m discovering something new every few minutes (these usually occur when I’ve been reading a lot). You will never really know when they will come.

The main thing is to be ready.