I find that cwoodgold gave a terrific rundown on how to handle the issue following standard GTD principles. I want to add one little thing to it.

In the book DA suggests to do a yearly "dumpster day" on which one goes through the file cabinet and throws out everything no longer needed. However one deals with that, it is important to prune the files regularly. Otherwise you end up with tons of materials you never use and more relevant to the subject of this thread: it keeps "collections" like "ideas for building dresser" fresh in the mind. It's basically part of the Review, which is the part of the GTD that keeps everything going.

Also, I noticed how cwoodgold mentioned the tickler. It's always good to think of the tickler, many many problems with GTD go away if one is on top of the tickler game.

And the Review. Tickler, Review, Someday / Maybe. Most often overlooked.