Hanzel and Gretel through the internet

Today I logged on to check my e-mail and ended up looking at an article on Faxes. How did I get there? I found an e-mail about a document Tony Karrer was preparing for the WorkLiteracy group on google docs. From there I went to the Work Literacy group site and read a posting about "change". As I read that I remembered a post I had written about instructional design which I thought related to the comment on change management. When I tried to find the blog about instructional change, I found two comments from Ken Allen one of which was a link to an article about faxing.

At that point, I realized that I had really gone off into an area I had not really anticipated (I was waiting for an e-mail about a doctor's appointment). This got me to thinking about how the internet allows us to explore areas we had no intention of going, but then may get us lost in the process.

As I go from idea to idea, I make connections. However, if I don't pull myself back and focus, I lose some of the great ideas I have as I go through the journey. So, here are some preliminary thoughts on how I can capture these ideas:

• Use the good old fashioned pen and pencil and scrape paper to jot down ideas as I go from site to site
• Blog about it after (this forces me to go back and bookmark sites that I thought were important)
• Decide before I start work which type of sessions this is going to be: focused or freeflow. If it is freeflow, give myself a time limit. If it is focused, jot down where I want to go when the session is free flow

I'm not sure if others have a better way in which they work or if they have tips to help them stay focused or at least find their way back.