Stop reading and watching stuff so much! or don't.

What if we start looking at every bit of information as taking up space in our brain. Would that compel us to limit the information we absorb every day? Will limiting that intake help to process our other thoughts better? Simply put – if you read and think about only the stuff relevant to you, will you get better at thinking about it?

The idea of our brain functioning better by limiting information is like imagining a computer that might function faster and smoother if its RAM is cleared.

This sounds obvious but it must be questioned because of a competing hypothesis – that the most successful ideas are collaborative in nature – those that make connections through different disciplines, instead of being sourced from in-depth knowledge of one field only. And for that to happen, either you must have decent knowledge of different disciplines or you must team up with those who have that knowledge.

We already have the concept of information taking up space in an abstract way, when for example we say ‘my mind is too full of ____ right now’. And if we have to think about it physiologically, we can imagine ideas and memories stored as connections between neurons. Each connection holding the link to one or more memories. These connections will take up space (even though our brain tends to compact and convert memories into small fragments).

From the literature on meditation and mindfulness, an idea emerges that perhaps practicing those skills makes the brain better at processing huge amounts of information. Which means even if your mind is filled up to the brim with new information everyday, being mindful and meditating will help file it away or dump it in a better way. This might be true but there still remains a role for feeding the brain relevant material only - to reduce the load that it has to process.

Also, we have limited time on our hands. And we don’t even know how much of it we have.

Perhaps the ideal way would be to limit your reading and information intake to only that which is relevant to your work and interests (limit the interests too!) and get really good at what you do. And then collaborate with people who are good with an entirely different knowledge area. I guess this is how they build mega-structures like aircraft carriers, oil refineries and do complex surgeries.

Interestingly, it is said that Bill Gates sets aside two weeks in a year solely for the purpose of reading books and articles collected (and selected) over the year. The reason he does that is to be able to form better connections between the various topics he reads. It’s easier for the brain to connect a topic that’s fresh in the memory with the one it’s reading right now rather than one which was read 6 months ago. In a way, he’s limiting his information intake while simultaneously exploring different disciplines to form new connections and ideas. Smart.

A beautiful way of looking at Time

In his introduction to the Pomodoro technique, Francesco Cirillo gives some context to how he thought about and developed the idea of the method.

He says there are two ways of thinking about time, described by Bergson and Minkowski.

One is the Abstract way. The other is to view time as a succession of Events.

The Abstract way of looking at time creates more anxiety and is counterproductive. Cirillo offers his Pomodoro technique as a solution; it is based on viewing time as a succession of events.

I'm wondering how looking at time in a particular way leads to such a big difference in how one works.

The Abstract way leads to thinking about time in a linear manner - imagine a line in dark space marked at regular intervals with seconds, minutes, hours and so on. This line extends into space in both directions - to infinity (since we don't know when time 'began' or when it will 'end'). You are standing on this line. This is your line. If you look around, the people in your life are on each of their own, similar lines.

And these lines are moving, constantly. Time is constant, elusive, you can't stop it. You are either running or walking or crawling on it, depending on what's happening at the moment (I'll let Einstein tell you why this passage of time seems so relative). Everything you do is measured against this passage of time, secondary to this movement.  This constant  measuring (conscious or unconscious), added to the comparisons made with others around you 'more successful' in managing time creates anxiety. As Cirillo says,

'We lose our élan vital, our vital contact, which enables us to accomplish things. “Two hours have gone by and I’m still not done; two days have gone by and I’m still not done.” In a moment of weakness, the purpose of the activity at hand is often no longer even clear.

What's worse, you don't know when this movement will suddenly stop. The moment to moment transition makes it look like you have an infinite amount of time left but you know at the back of your mind that you have no idea when you will suddenly drop off the line.

As opposed to this, you can measure time in events. Here too, time doesn't stop. However, you are now measuring time in terms of what is happening and what you are doing. Immediately, I can see how this approach leads to being more aware, more mindful (I have to plug my favorite word sooner or later). Perhaps that is the reason why he says this approach does not cause as much anxiety. Instead of fretting about the time passing by, you are now primarily looking at what you are doing with that time. You are actually living in the moment, to use the cliche.

[Reminds me of how a common piece of advice in schooldays was to measure how much was studied instead of how many hours were put in for studies. Of course, the latter way of thinking was also heavily encouraged by some disciplinarians. I suspect its popularity was because of how convenient and tidy it sounds - 'put in 5 hours of study daily' or 'pull an all-nighter' sounds more impressive and awesome than saying 'read and understand two chapters and answer 20 questions'.]

Cirillo has created the rest of the technique based on this concept and other ideas. Quite impressive. I like that the method isn't rocket science. It really reinforces some of the good habits we commonly learn as children and fine-tunes them, while keeping things simple. The simplicity makes it easier to inculcate it into a habit.