As a software developer I have several pet projects. For every single project my mind constantly generates new ideas. And I’m trying to write those ideas down as notes or as TODO list items.

For some ideas I need to think more and I also need to split them into several TODOs. Most of the time I can’t implement those ideas right away. So they stay in my TODO list and waiting for their time.

When the time comes I may forget about details and reasons of my ideas. Even if the TODO item is pretty clear and I can implement it without doubt. I can forget the reason why I’ve added this idea to the list.

Here is the simple example for my HomeBugh project.

This is the projects for the house holding finances and user can have several accounts (eg. Cash, Bank #1, Bank #2). Once user don’t need anymore some of these accounts he can freely archive them. Archived accounts are not visible on the page.

So I had a TODO item:

• Show inactive accounts on accounts page

That’s cool. Pretty clear what should I do. The problem is I’ve completely forgot the reason why exactly I wanted this item to be done.

There is that I’ve learnt from that. While your ideas still fresh in your head try to describe them as much as possible. Because in most cases you will forget it after one month or even in several months. Description on the other hand can help you remember details of your idea.