Phone Ideas and Creative Inaction. Also, my song, I Wanna Date a Millennial

Can the next idea kill the current idea?

Jun 09, 2025

QUICK NOTES

A few things to tell you or remind you about…

The Flagstaff Folk Festival is less than a week away. As indicated previously, On Saturday (6/14/2025) I’m presenting at 12:30 PM and performing at 3:30 PM.

This past weekend we were in Orange County at T.H.E. Show - a high-end HiFi trade show that is owned by my friend, Emiko. She hired Deb to do the photography and me to do live sound for the workshops and a few musical performances on Saturday.

There are home stereo speakers that cost $80,000 and MORE… a piece!! My standard joke was to show them my phone and say, “I think this speakers is good enough to listen to music.”

And finally, I have a video below from my performance a couple weeks ago.

Now let’s get to the subject in my title.

HOW I STORE IDEAS

I use Notion to quickly save ideas, take notes, flesh out ideas more fully.

This morning I was reviewing some information in Notion and I realized, with some dismay, at how few of those ideas got the attention they probably deserve.

If you are unfamiliar, Notion is a multi-media rich note-taking and outlining tool. Truth is, that is a simplistic perspective. It has built-in database tools, collaboration, and overall productivity app.

I underutilize it’s robust feature set. I’m also a bit fragmented in this regard because I often use Google Docs & Drive and Google Keep in a similar capacity.

But, I’ve set up a couple Notion phone Widgets that help me quickly save ideas.

The image below is my phone’s home screen. Note: I have folders to group most apps but the two yellow arrows show you Notion widgets I’ve added to my phone.

First, how cute! My phone background is a photo of Deb and I. We had just had dinner at La Cava, an excellent Italian restaurant on Ventura Blvd.

The first Widget is just the un-labeled plus symbol. It opens a Notion note. I add a header and some notes. I often use the voice to speech available on my phone and simply speak the note.

When I save the note, it creates a new page on a specific page, titled, Phone Ideas, in my Notion set up.

The second Widget is a link to a page titled, Idea Grab Bag. In fact, the link to Phone Ideas is at the top of my Idea Grab Bag page. Below the Phone Ideas link, my Idea Grab Bag page has a messy collection of ideas, paragraphs, images, and links.

From time to time I go through those ideas and move them to more appropriate pages. On rare occasions, I delete them.

In reviewing that page today, I can tell I need to do a little idea cleanup.

The image below are some of the titles of my Phone Ideas notes. I’ve redacted one entirely and another partially. They are ideas I’ve done a bit of work on - one is a song hook and one an observation that I like.

They may make the light of day so I’m keeping them to myself.

Full disclosure: Many of the ideas listed are the byproduct of Deb and I relaxing in the evening… often after having smoked a little weed.

Upon reviewing them this morning, I like many of the ideas.

Which brings us to Creative Inaction.

CREATIVE INACTION

I have ideas a lot!

In fact, ideas are easy.

I wonder sometimes if this causes me NOT to act or see some of those ideas to fruition.

I know that I often wonder whether I can come up with a better idea - one that immediately carries me away and results in a new song, new essay, new video… etc.

And that question, “Is there a better idea coming?” can freeze me into inaction on the prior ideas.

I don’t have an answer to this… I’m just curious.

If you have ideas about this, let me know. If you’re interested in one of the ideas listed above, let me know. Perhaps that will encourage me to take it to the next step.

Plus, if you want to try an interesting app for storing and building ideas, try Notion. I’m not an affiliate - this isn’t a commercial. Just something I have found useful.

The song I mentioned above is below my signature…

Thank you again for joining me on this journey.

With Love and Gratitude,
Matthew Moran
June 9, 2025

I WANNA DATE A MILLENNIAL

Before Deb and I were a couple I’d sometimes send her pictures of women I was considering asking out. I sent her one such picture during a chat on Facebook messenger, saying, “I think I’m going to ask her out.”

Deb replied, “She’s too young for you.”

I replied, “I want to date a Millennial.”

Almost immediately, I said, “I think I can write a song about that.”

Yes.. it is frivolous but I did manage to pull a redeeming message out at the end.

Below is the video and the lyrics can be found below that.

Enjoy!

LYRICS: I Want to Date a Millennial

I wanna date a millennial
Fill up on designer tea and tofu
Endure my peers, their disapproving glances
Is it the years or the yoga pants

I wanna date some old hippie chick
Long gray hair and a painted hiking stick
Who still believes that love is all you need
And in smoking dope and nudity

I wanna date a generation Y
I'm not really sure of my reasons why
Lost somewhere between X and the end
Maybe she can encourage me to love again

I wanna date almost anyone
Who can help me enjoy some inappropriate fun
Laughing when they know it's not allowed
And won’t respond with a frown or scowl

I wanna date my younger self
Practice self love and some mental health
Help him recognize the value of each day
Take all this regret and wash it away