Everyone has “to do” lists, right?

There is an entire industry devoted to making sure we have a plan for our day, our week, our life….. To be productive, we need to be checking off items to stay focused on “the plan.” Once we complete our “to do” list, we can see what we have achieved for that day and feel some sense of accomplishment.

I have a daily journal that I keep at work. When you open it, on the right hand page is the list of items I plan to complete by the end of that day. The list usually includes meetings with students, items I need to complete for my boss, emails from colleagues that require attention, requests for information about this or that, pieces of larger projects that are in progress. I have done this for more than 15 years – come by my office some time and see the stack in my overhead cabinet.

What I realized the other day is that I was missing one key entry: taking some time each day to “have ideas.”

This semester, I have been taking a MOOC (massive open online course) through Penn State called “Creativity, Innovation, and Change.” There are more than 125,000 of us who have come together to consider such questions as: Is everyone creative? Why do some people generate a lot of ideas? What does it mean to innovate? How do we use different tools to help us consider alternatives?

Last night, I watched a documentary on Steve Jobs, perhaps the most influential creative person of the last 25 years. He said something that caused me to stop the recording and grab a pen. Here is the statement: “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you.” Wow. He is saying that anyone may create something that no one has ever thought about creating.

So here’s my plan: I am now keeping an idea journal in addition to my daily work journal. In it, I am recording ideas I have for my USC 101 class, the training I am developing for advisors at the university, and anything else that I might be trying to figure out. I am jotting down everything….from signs I see on restaurant bulletin boards to words written in chalk on sidewalks in my neighborhood.  Here’s something I saw the other day. I think it’s advice from the universe about making sure I have a “to do” list that is different from those the productivity experts suggest…….

What’s on your “to do” list this week?