I wonder, though. I’ve found that writing things down makes them easier for me to reference, and thus I can consciously build on existing ideas/thoughts instead of rehearsing the same ones over and over again. E.g. codifying some AI timeline scenarios before doing logic upon them.
(Maybe it is a tradeoff, and people with rumination and/or focus issues, like myself, find one side of the tradeoff generally-better.)
There was another exchange on this point recently. In more detail, my preferred process is to hold off on writing things down for a bit to promote comprehension, then write them down within a few days to move on or have a better chance at partial reconstruction in the future. Not writing down at all makes forgetting to revisit in future or inability to sufficiently remember more likely. Writing down too quickly can turn an idea into a less useful caricature of itself, insufficiently familiar to settle into a natural formulation and no longer striving to do so once written down.
But why does my mind have such a strong need not to forget things, including things I consciously flag as “boring”, that it would block off entire lines of good thoughts until I listen to it?
Huh, maybe it somehow knows that saying the bad thought will unlock good trains-of-thoughts, and that’s why it pushes so hard for it…
Your mind tracks the idea so as not to forget it. This reduces the effective working memory space, which makes it harder to think.
This is one of the key insights of Getting Things Done.
Not writing an idea down also helps you naturally think about it in the background. So it’s more of a trade-off than a generally useful heuristic.
I wonder, though. I’ve found that writing things down makes them easier for me to reference, and thus I can consciously build on existing ideas/thoughts instead of rehearsing the same ones over and over again. E.g. codifying some AI timeline scenarios before doing logic upon them.
(Maybe it is a tradeoff, and people with rumination and/or focus issues, like myself, find one side of the tradeoff generally-better.)
There was another exchange on this point recently. In more detail, my preferred process is to hold off on writing things down for a bit to promote comprehension, then write them down within a few days to move on or have a better chance at partial reconstruction in the future. Not writing down at all makes forgetting to revisit in future or inability to sufficiently remember more likely. Writing down too quickly can turn an idea into a less useful caricature of itself, insufficiently familiar to settle into a natural formulation and no longer striving to do so once written down.
I may be able to try different “incubation periods” for ideas, to see which write-down times work well for me...
But why does my mind have such a strong need not to forget things, including things I consciously flag as “boring”, that it would block off entire lines of good thoughts until I listen to it?
Huh, maybe it somehow knows that saying the bad thought will unlock good trains-of-thoughts, and that’s why it pushes so hard for it…
The mind’s a hack. So maybe it’s just harnessing the same mechanism you use to suppress socially undesirable thoughts?
Rather than saying “forget about it,” it’s saying “ABSOLUTELY DO NOT SAY THIS THING.”
Saying it shows the mind there’s no bad consequences and allows it to stop focusing on avoidance.