I feel ya. I always have to go through and clean up my notes immediately when I can still recall what they may have meant, or the meaning will be lost to time.

I second the recording, it seems like the surest way to save your thoughts word for word but i personallydont like speakingout loud while thinking.

You can type your notes on your phone if you’re as quick or quicker there than by hand. Autocorrect will mess up some words but those will probably be understandable through context rather than the whole sentence being unreadable.

Or try mind-mapping where you only have to write a few words and draw connections between them. This can take some time to practice, and you can figure out your own sort of shorthands for figures and imagery.

I also like bullet points, where I make sure to make key words readable and can add details that may or may not be legible, but the key words are likely to trigger the same thoughts later as when writing them down.

And always go through and clean up whatever notes or voice memos you take as soon as possible after when it’s still relevant in your mind.