43 Folders

43 Folders feed subscription icon - Shiny! Drowning in email? Try Inbox Zero to learn sane tips for dealing with high-volume email. And don’t miss the free Inbox Zero video. »

Login or register

Register for free on 43 Folders to comment on articles, post to our forum, customize your visits, and much more. Current users can login now.

memory

David Brooks on his "Outsourced Brain"

The Outsourced Brain

NYT’s David Brooks on outsourcing memory, reference, and decision-making to things that theoretically do it better:

I have relinquished control over my decisions to the universal mind. I have fused with the knowledge of the cybersphere, and entered the bliss of a higher metaphysic. As John Steinbeck nearly wrote, a fella ain’t got a mind of his own, just a little piece of the big mind — one mind that belongs to everybody. Then it don’t matter, Ma. I’ll be everywhere, around in the dark. Wherever there is a network, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a TiVo machine making a sitcom recommendation based on past preferences, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a Times reader selecting articles based on the most e-mailed list, I’ll be there.

And, ironically enough, if you didn’t catch the Grapes of Wrath reference, it’s easy enough to find it. Because, if you’re like me, sometimes you also outsource your pop culture knowledge to Google, Wikipedia, and IMDB.  read more »

10 Comments

The Outsourced Brain

Interesting editorial in today's Times about how we let the machines remember all of our details for us now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/opinion/26brooks.html?partner=rssnyt&e...

The downside of the outboard brain

The fate of human memory

Clive Thompson writes on a phenomenon I think about constantly: if you really do start entrusting all your ephemeral memory work to external systems, might your wetware start to atrophy?

Apparently, yes:  read more »

28 Comments

Tip of the Tongue Strategies

Even the most diligent among us can’t always remember to pocket a pen and paper everywhere we go (or, shhh!, won’t admit that sometimes we just don’t want to), but of course that’s always when our best ideas hit us. Last night when I was walking my dog, I’m convinced I came up with the answer to global warming, but before I got home to write it down, I had a conversation with a neighbor, checked my mail, and watered the plants, so I might as well have been thinking about the lyrics to “Sussudio” for all I could remember. And try as I might, I couldn’t bring it back.  read more »

2 Comments

Mental Inbox

Hi

This is something I found to be both sacrilegious to GTD and very much a core part of its “capture everything” philosophy.

Over time, I’ve found that more and more, I need to capture something at any possibly circumstance. Now I usually carry a small pad and pen right in my pocket, but there are times when you don’t have access to that, in fact a lot of the time.  read more »

 
EXPLORE 43Folders THE GOOD STUFF

An Oblique Strategy:
Discard an axiom


STAY IN THE LOOP:

Subscribe with Google Reader

Subscribe on Netvibes

Add to Technorati Favorites

Subscribe on Pageflakes

Add RSS feed

The Podcast Feed

Inbox Zero

The original 43 Folders series looking at the skills, tools, and attitude needed to empty your email inbox — and then keep it that way. Don’t miss the free video of Merlin’s Inbox Zero presentation.

Get Started with ‘GTD’

David Allen’s popular productivity book and the system on which it’s based help turn ‘stuff’ into actions that support valuable outcomes.