There’s nothing as wasteful as doing what shouldn’t be done.
Sticky notes with hair brained ideas make perfect fodder for the paper shredder. You should feel a sense of accomplishment feeding your shredder, especially if you haven’t done what’s on a sticky note to do, that should not be done.
When staring at the sticky note, ask yourself, is this really necessary? Why did I want to do this? What will this help me accomplish? If you find you cannot think of anything immediately, shred it. It’ll come back to you if it matters. If it doesn’t matter, you’ll waste far too much time staring at the note.
Any self-aware person realizes they come up with more ideas that shouldn’t be acted upon than ideas that should. Feel accomplished in not wasting your time.
You might try applying this principle to your email inbox too.
If you can’t find it in you to shred it, put it aside in a pile that you’ll get back to in a few weeks, by that time you will care much less about it and find it much easier to feed the shredder.