When I brainstorm, I also make sure to use only one side of the paper and leave a line of space between each idea.

Why?

It’s something I taught in writing and public speaking for years. It started when I first taught the research paper, but at that time I had my students use index cards. A couple years after, I realized that they would lose less stuff if they used their spiral notebook. This way, pieces remained together and unlost until they were ready to work with the information they had.

When you use only one side of the paper and leave a space, you can pick up your scissors and cut the ideas apart and physically manipulate them into idea groups or into a sequence without rewriting anything.