Externalizing Thinking
Getting thoughts out of your head and into an external medium to enable deeper thinking.
Also known as: Thinking out loud, External thinking, Think on paper
Category: Principles
Tags: thinking, pkm, cognitive-science, writing, productivity
Explanation
Externalizing Thinking is the practice of getting thoughts, ideas, and information out of your head and into an external medium like writing, drawings, or digital notes. Human brains are mainly optimized for survival, not deep thinking. Our tiny short-term memory can only retain a few items at a time, making it impossible to think deeply about interconnected ideas and their relationships. To think deeply, we have no choice but to externalize our thinking. Writing ideas down, whether on paper or using digital tools, is an enabler for deep thinking. Once ideas are in front of our eyes - on Post-It notes, an infinite canvas, or in a note-taking tool - it becomes much easier to explore different aspects, topics, and sub-topics. This is why brainstorming sessions use whiteboards and Post-Its. The key insight: writing is not downstream of thinking - writing IS thinking. This leads naturally to Personal Knowledge Management, which is focused on creating personal knowledge bases to think in better ways and retain large quantities of knowledge.
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