Zombie Ideas

Sunday February 9, 2020

What is this?

Sometimes I put ideas in my blog's GitHub Issues "for later"—but then I don't look at them any more. It's an idea graveyard. So this hits the GitHub API and randomly shows eight old ideas on every page load. (View source to see code.) Maybe I'll be inspired?

New ideas seem exciting, and urgent things get done urgently. But I do find myself sometimes looking for something to do (like finding a show to watch) rather than realizing I could work on one of these old ideas.

Some ideas got so little attention that I've even forgotten what my note for the idea means. See also spaced repetition. There's also some connection here to prioritization, to-do lists, deciding to say no to an idea, etc...

Amusingly, I'd forgotten that this very idea was #164 "random idea refresher" until it came up while I was testing this:

"some way of showing you a sample of your own ideas, things to think about, quotes, etc."

I still think this is a neat idea. For the time being, this page will replace my usual new browser tab image.