I carry a small, cheap, notebook with me at all times. I usually "divide" the notebook up into sections as I work on ideas. If I have a particular story I'm working on, it will start at the beginning of the notebook. If I have an idea for another story that I don't want to forget I will write it either near the back of the notebook or in the middle. I have over a dozen small notebooks in a drawer.

Every once in awhile I will create a spreadsheet and list all potential story ideas that excite me at the time. Some old ones fall off as new ones get added. Some old ones get re-worked, but really I try not to spend too much time "organizing my ideas" and more time trying to develop a single story.

I've noticed, for me, that I can get too involved in simply thinking of stories I want to write instead of actually writing the story.

I've wished for a computer program I could use to store my story ideas, favorite phrases and words, and other things I want to remember which would allow me to "search" through them later. Is there such a thing?

Every script has a folder on my hard drive (backed up to Dropbox) and a folder in my Favourites in FF.

Recently, I've started collating in Celtx - so, I have the script file, but I also keep characters in the Master Catelogue (which has great character development prompts) and a Beat Sheet as a text file.

And I use Evernote to save random e-mails, webpages, quotations, etc.

I do strive to live a relatively green existence... except when it comes to this.

Every new notion, every sparkling birth of a project - a new spiral and/or composition book.

"Eureka! A definite blockbuster! Off to Office Max!"

Makes my wife nuts.

JEFF'S WIFE: Why are you buying more notebooks, you have ten on the desk, and they're barely half filled?!

To me, the idea is not "real" until I spend some cash on paper products. Thus, when it comes to the conundrum of "organization," well... just gotta' rifle through piles of notebooks.

Er, I'm not, of course, recommending this system for anyone... heh heh...

I create a new folder on my desk top then create a Word document that acts as a kinda on-going story diary/conversation with myself.

This document is usually huge after a few months and I've generally got enough info to go on to start creating a bullet point based outline in a new document.

After a few more months, and I'm happy with the outline, I move on to the first draft in Final Draft.

With that done, I create a new Word doc and start the diary/dialectic again with regards to my thoughts for the second draft.

So basically, I create a kinda diary to keep all my thoughts in. Not sure how efficient this is, but it keeps me completely immersed in my story world, and it's always interesting to go back and re-read the diaries from the beginning to see how much the story has evolved.

Currently, I collect all ideas in text files in my dropbox account. I might be away from home with a stack of index cards to write ideas on, but I add them to my text files later.

This allows me to add notes from my iPad (with the app called Elements) or from my desktop computer. It also allows me to make backups of the files on another medium, as it is just a folder with text files. So if my house burns down, or if dropbox.com goes bankrupt, I will still have my notes and I will be able to work on them.

Forget to mention. I periodically Winrar the folder I'm working on and send it to myself via e-mail.

I should probably just sign up to Dropbox.

I used to be a stand-up comedian, so I had to have an organized database of jokes. I would tag jokes by topic. A joke about my problems with the latest version of Windows might be tagged as self-esteem, work, computers, technology, clumsy etc. When I had three or more jokes on a topic I would test the bit in front of an audience. Sometimes if I had two jokes on trouble with technology I might cap the bit with another joke about trouble with women, so having the right tags in place helped me find right women joke quickly. This helps me today when need jokes in a script. (I do doctor work.)

The hard part for me is knowing what to tag other elements (characters, log lines, titles, short story, genres, etc.) in a way that is useful. I often find that two half notions can combine to become a full notion. The hard part is finding the pieces that fit together the best. This is why I'm using Evernote tags until something better comes along.