Save it to the Morgue

p21-22  Steal Like an Artist — Austin Kleon writes:

Save Your Thefts For Later:

Carry a notebook and a pen with you wherever you go. Get used to pulling it out and jotting down your thoughts and observations. Copy your favorite passages out of books. Record overheard conversations. Doodle when you’re on the phone.

Go to whatever lengths necessary to make sure you always have paper on you. Artist David Hockney had all the inside pockets of his suit jackets tailored to fit a sketchbook. The musician Arthur Russell liked to wear shirts with two front pockets so he could fill them with scraps of score sheets.

Keep a swipe file. It’s just what is sounds like — a file to keep track of the stuff you’ve swiped from others. It can be digital or analog — it doesn’t matter what form it takes, as long as it works. you can keep a scrapbook and cut and paste things into it. or you can just take pictures of things with your camera phone.

See something worth stealing? Put it in the swipe file. Need a little inspiration? Open up the swipe file.

Newspaper reporters call this a “morgue file” — I like that name even better. Your morgue file is where you keep the dead things that you’ll later reanimate in your work.

Image courtesy of Michael Hewitt

Once I read this, the term "Morgue File" rang in my head. I google searched it out of curiosity and found Morgue File. This is a really great site that has eluded me until now. Of course then, I had to search for even more sites that would be useful in archiving all of the bits and pieces that I find as a day goes on. I have been using (or trying to get good at using) Evernote and Mindmeister. Both of these apps are free and appear so far to be very useful to me in keeping my thoughts and finds organized & searchable via tagging.

So, as far as stealing things and saving them to your "Morgue File" goes, Evernote has a "Web Clipper" plugin that enables you to simply and easily clip a page or portion of a page to your Evernote notebook. I used to use Del.icio.us to keep many bookmarks to pages of interest. Then I started using Google Bookmarks. I just recently discovered Listly, which allows you to curate and compile lists of things and webpages for social rankings as well as comment and social contribution. Also, Pinterest has become a great tool to record things that I find useful and inspirational. As far as having ONE ALMIGHTY Morgue file somewhere. I don't know if maybe one of these apps would out perform another or become a sole keeper of information. Each one has it's merits.