Visual thinking
We need an external medium in which to see our ideas from another vantage point, and writing things down is the most effective and convenient one ever invented.
Tiago Forte • Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential
Talking or writing about the things you're interested in is a good way to generate new ideas. When you try to put ideas into words, a missing idea creates a sort of vacuum that draws it out of you. Indeed, there's a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing.
Paul Graham • How to Do Great Work
Second is to keep things moving. Watch any TV commercial, TV show, or movie. You’ll notice that about every two to three seconds what you’re seeing on the screen changes. There will be a different camera angle, a different scene, or a different image shown. And this happens repeatedly throughout the entire program. What you see is constantly moving
... See moreShama Hyder • The Zen of Social Media Marketing: An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue
Eye Think
Once our thoughts are outside our head, we can examine them, play with them, and make them better. It’s like a shortcut to realizing the full potential of the thoughts flowing through our minds.
Tiago Forte • Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential
there's something transformative about achieving a third-person perspective on the contents of your mind by externalizing them on paper. You know how it's often easy to see what someone else needs to do about their problems? Externalising your thoughts can trigger similar insights on your own behalf. And even when it doesn't, the shift in... See more
Oliver Burkeman • Three pages a day
"I had so many ideas that I simply wanted to take them out of my head and see them before me.
After that, I could see how they connected with one another and started developing an argument for my article.
I was begging for a space that could give me freedom when I needed to brainstorm and enough structure to turn those ideas into my final
writing it down on paper or on a computer where you can see it is because the brain, unlikely as it may sound, is no place for serious thinking. Any time you have serious thinking to do, the first step is to get the whole shootin’ match out of your head and set it up someplace where you can walk around it and see it from all sides. Attack, switch
... See moreJed McKenna • Spiritual Enlightenment, the Damnedest Thing: Book One of The Enlightenment Trilogy
Extended thinking book - With the use of something like sticky notes or index cards you also open yourself up to interactivity. You can literally move the ideas around on your desk or on the wall, try out different combinations, different ways of structuring and organizing those ideas as you build up a map of the concepts that you’re working with,
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