A Stitch in Thinking Time

Jean Moroney of Thinking Directions writes about a common and vexing problem: How can one do in-depth thinking when one hasn't long blocks of time to work with? Her advice concerns stitching together the smaller blocks of time one does have. Here is part of her advice on how to handle the end of a session.

Don't throw that work away! Hold up your hand with a "just wait" sign and take 30 seconds to write some notes to yourself. Sum up.

What were you doing? What were you going to do next? What last idea do you want to record to explore next time? Write the answers out in full sentences so you can understand exactly what you meant when you come back later.

The 30 seconds you spend now will save 10 minutes or more when you come back today or tomorrow, by making it much easier (and less painful) to recover the mental context you interrupted.

Within the article, Moroney mentions a course she offers that features techniques that can solve this problem completely. I recommend it and will point out that there is a free course at her site that one can try to get an idea of what to expect.

-- CAV