Merlin’s tip for doing a fast mind-sweep is critical to GTD success, even for those who haven’t “fallen off the wagon.” The recent 43 Folders entry rightly points out the importance of this sweep for getting back on track, but I find that it helps on those days when I experience Idea Floods. These floods may be a product of inspiration, great coffee or some other brain chemistry magic. Either way, they can make it hard to focus on the action at hand. By doing several of these mind sweeps during a day where the Idea Floods are really rolling, one can keep on task and get back to the ideas when time permits without having that disturbing open loop in the background nagging and stealing focus.

One important note: if you have the ability to leave the current task and run with your flood, do it. GTD is a tool to support creative thinking and the execution of ideas, not the other way around. While diverting one of these floods feels like (and probably is) the wrong thing to do in most cases, sometimes there isn’t a choice in the matter. If you’re on site with a paying client (or helping your child tie their shoe), they naturally deserve your undivided attention. This flood storage can be the best availabe option in this situation. When you return to your Inbox processing, give these ideas the attention they deserve, starting new projects, placing them on your someday-maybe lists, in your project support folders, etc.