It is common that when we submit a paper to a conference we have to wait a bit until we get an acceptance notification. In my research area, it is not unusual to wait for about 3 months to get a thumbs up or a thumbs down. This can be stretched further especially if the conference deadline was extended.  During this review time, typically we work on other things, come up with alternative ideas,  and maybe take a break.  It is also common that in this waiting time we may start noticing already how the paper can get improved. Maybe, you find a more recent related work that tackles the problem in a different way or perhaps simply find arguments that strengthen your proposal. Whatever the case, you want to keep track of those.  This is as you might what to consider them when revising your article. How do I do that?

On my Mac, I simply keep track of these using Notes app. I just create a new folder under iCloud and name it as the conference article or an alias of it.  In that folder, I create a note, titled “Ideas” and simply throw in any points or stuff to take care of when updating the paper submitted earlier. Then, when the notification of acceptance is due, I simply go through the reviewer comments together with the Ideas note and update the paper accordingly. I store my notes in iCloud because I can easily manage them for example through my smartphone. It often happens that the best ideas come when we are away or while resting from a problem.

So, my point is to encourage you to get organized early on in your research and simply not to leave it to the end to update your article. There are ideas that I am sure you came across while waiting for a notification of acceptance. Best to keep tabs and have notes readily available when you need them.