The average employee switches between different apps and websites 1,200 times per day¹. This "toggling" time consumes ~4 hours per week.

And of course work isn’t our only identity. We are also parents, partners, siblings, daughters, caregivers, friends, community members. We are “toggling” and context switching through life, bombarded by to-do lists as well as grand ideas of things we want to watch, cook, read, build, improve.

Picture this: you’re finishing a client proposal when the idea hits - you should automate your invoice reminders. 45 minutes later you’ve watched three Make.com tutorials and your proposal is still blank. And now your kid’s daycare just messaged that you need to bring in more diapers.

And that’s just an average Tuesday. (it me both in my personal and professional life.)

It’s hard to reach the finish line of one project, when you create ten more starting lines.

What I’ve Tried (That Wasn’t Working)

The problem wasn't the tools. It was that capturing ideas still required enough effort that I'd interrupt my flow for fear of losing them. And even when I jotted them down, they were in 12 different places and aggregating them became yet another task.

Capture your idea to offload the cognitive burden.

Then immediately go back to what you were doing.

Which leads us to…

I built an Android widget that sends ideas straight to a Trello list. I press a button on my home screen, dictate my idea, and send it off. Takes 5 seconds.

Every morning at 9:00am I receive the list of ideas in my Inbox. Sometimes I review for high-leverage tasks, other times I let it simmer. Occasionally I share with Claude to weigh in, based on what it knows I’m prioritizing that week.

Since implementing this system, I feel less scrambled and worried about missing (or needing to work on) every single idea. My brain can be at ease because it knows the ideas are waiting for me when I’m ready.

📋 Recipe:
Video walkthrough
Free Make.com template

⚙️ Ingredients:
HTTP Shortcuts + Make.com + Trello

👩🏻‍🍳 Cook time:
If you already have Make and Trello accounts —> 10 minutes

Your brain jumping around IS valuable. Those tangent ideas are often good. The problem is chasing them when you're supposed to be finishing something else.

Not every idea deserves immediate action. Some just need acknowledgment so your brain can move on.