Fifteen minutes, once a month or at the end of a busy stretch. It keeps the archive from turning into a pile, and it brings back the ideas you have not looked at in a while.

Done when every inbox item has been read, the first five ideas under Waiting longest have been touched, moved or shelved, and one pairing is logged.

1. Read the inbox. Give each item a home with Move to, or leave it on purpose.

2. Read the first five under Waiting longest. For each, add a line, move it to another stage or shelve it. Each counts.

3. Read Notes not yet linked. It sits on the Desk tab. Link any note that now feeds an idea. Leave the rest.

4. Try one pairing. Use one of the ideas you just touched, and one from a different theme.

5. Look at Ready. Does each Ready idea have a first session of work you could name? If one has waited a long time, ask whether it belongs back in Developing.

6. Check your themes. Is a new subject showing up across several ideas? Add it as a theme in both Ideas and Notes.