Idea Cemeteries: What I Do with Good Ideas I'm Not Willing to Build Yet

Outline

Hook: I have 400+ project ideas I’ll never build. They’re not bad ideas—they’re just not my ideas to build right now. Instead of letting them rot in random notes, I maintain an “idea cemetery”—a place where good ideas rest peacefully until their time comes (or doesn’t).

Core Argument: The problem with ideas isn’t capturing them—it’s knowing what to do with the ones you won’t execute. An idea cemetery is intentional storage: organized, reviewable, guilt-free. It’s permission to let ideas go without losing them forever.

Key Sections:

Why Ideas Need Cemeteries
- The idea hoarder problem: 1000 ideas, 0 execution
- The guilt trap: “I should build this someday”
- The search problem: “I know I had an idea for this…”
- The opportunity cost: Thinking about 100 ideas prevents shipping 1
- Solution: Respectfully archive ideas with intention
What Belongs in the Cemetery
- Good ideas you won’t build: Interesting but not aligned
- Ideas for others: “Someone should make this” (not you)
- Future-you projects: Right idea, wrong time
- Learning experiments: Interesting, not commercial
- What doesn’t belong: Active projects, trivial thoughts
The Cemetery Structure (My System)
- Location: Obsidian “Ideas Archive” folder, 99 Minds “Cemetery” tag
- Template: Title, one-liner, why not now, potential resurrections
- Categories: Apps, features, businesses, experiments, “for fun”
- Metadata: Date archived, effort estimate, market size guess
- Status: Archived, Watching, Gift (give to someone else)
- Example entry format
The Burial Process
- Step 1: Acknowledge it’s a good idea
- Step 2: Write down why you’re not building it NOW
- Step 3: Define what would make you revisit it
- Step 4: Archive with full context (no guilt)
- Step 5: Forget about it (trust the system)
- Time required: 5 minutes per idea
The Quarterly Review
- Every 3 months: Scan the cemetery
- Questions: “Does this still seem interesting?” “Has context changed?”
- Outcomes: Resurrect, keep archived, or permanently delete
- Resurrection signals: Market change, new tech, personal capacity
- Example: Idea made sense 2 years later after AI tools matured
Ideas as Gifts (The “Open Source” Approach)
- Some ideas: Too good to bury, wrong for you
- Option: Share publicly, someone else might build it
- Formats: Blog post, tweet thread, GitHub discussion
- Why it works: Helps others, removes your guilt, gets feedback
- Example: Shared 10 ideas, 2 got built by others
What Not to Do
- ❌ Keep ideas in random notes across 5 apps
- ❌ Never review, never prune
- ❌ Feel guilty about archived ideas
- ❌ Archive instead of just deleting obvious bad ideas
- ❌ Treat cemetery as “someday” list (it’s an archive)
The Psychological Benefit
- Clear mental space: Ideas are safe, you don’t have to think about them
- Reduces guilt: Archiving ≠ giving up
- Enables focus: Less distraction from shiny new ideas
- Builds intuition: Patterns emerge from reviewing old ideas
- Permission to say no: Not every idea deserves execution

Examples/Stories:

Personal: Archived “music collaboration tool” idea for 3 years, finally built it when ready
Gift story: Tweeted app idea, someone built it, we’re now friends
Pruning: Deleted 100 ideas that seemed dumb in hindsight
Pattern: Noticed 20 ideas in cemetery were all “AI + X” before AI was ready
Focus: Archived 5 tempting ideas to finish current project

Takeaways:

Good ideas deserve respect, not execution pressure
Archive ideas with context: why, why not now, when to revisit
Review quarterly: Resurrect, keep, or delete
Share ideas that aren’t yours to build
The goal: Clear mind, focused work, preserved optionality

Cross-Links:

← “Why I Don’t Trust Vibes-Only Startups” (Series 2-16)
→ “From One-Off Project to Sellable SaaS” (Series 2-18)
← “How I Decide If an Idea Is an App” (Series 2-13)
→ “The 99 Minds Principle” (Series 3-26)
→ “From Overwhelm to Pipeline” (Series 3-23)