Indeed! The concept of a "spark file" describes exactly what I'm doing.

> Also do you have anything written down about using org-mode for todos and ideas?

This is pretty basic Org-mode usage. My To-Do list is just nested headings, each with a TODO or DONE marker (Shift+Left, Shift+Right). My IDEAS list doesn't even have those markers, it is just nested headings and nested lists. The only "advanced thing" that I do is moving items via Mod+Up and Mod+Down. This is very handy, as that moves the whole subtree up and down. And I'm using the "Tab" key for folding and unfolding subtrees.

Org-mode offers much more than what I'm using here. I'm not yet a power-user of Org-mode. For example, the "agenda view" might simplify a lot of what I'm doing (not for IDEAS, but for TODO, meetings, etc). But I didn't find the time to dig deeper into Org-mode yet.