I had to laugh out loud because I have the exact same files (IDEAS and TODO, both uppercase) sitting in each of my projects as well as my homedir. On a more serious note, I can relate to a lot of the points the article makes about accumulating idea debt. I'm not sure yet whether it is holding me back, since I now have this huge list of things I might want to do, or whether it's giving me the opportunity to make a note of something and move on with daily business for the time being.
Similar here... I had one large (master) TODO file and one large IDEAS file and I would move tasks from TODO file on my daily TODO list. The IDEAS file grown to more then 50 pages and I rarely read it... :-)
Nowdays I moved to paper so NSA can not read my ideas and tasks anymore. For TODOs I use one paper sheet per project/subject and carry all these 10-12 sheets in a folder. Then I move the tasks on my daily TODO list in Moleskine... For IDEAS: I draw/sketch/write them on paper and store them in archive folder (just in case I need it)... :-)
> For IDEAS: I draw/sketch/write them on paper and store them in archive folder (just in case I need it)
I don't think that paper is a good medium for that. Often I'm not sure if I had written about this or a similar idea yet, so full text search is very handy here. Also, I'm sometimes changing ideas, which is also not so good on paper (unless you use pencil & rubber instead of a pen).
