Managing brain resources in an age of complexity.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
When I applied for my faculty job at the MIT Media Lab, I had to write a teaching statement. One of the things I proposed was to teach a class called "How to Think," which would focus on how to be creative, thoughtful, and powerful in a world where problems are extremely complex, targets are continuously moving, and our brains often seem like nodes of enormous networks that constantly reconfigure. In the process of thinking about this, I composed 10 rules, which I sometimes share with students. I've listed them here, followed by some practical advice on implementation.
1. Synthesize new ideas constantly. Never read passively. Annotate, model, think, and synthesize while you read, even when you're reading what you conceive to be introductory stuff. That way, you will always aim towards understanding things at a resolution fine enough for you to be creative.
2. Learn how to learn (rapidly). One of the most important talents for the 21st century is the ability to learn almost anything instantly, so cultivate this talent. Be able to rapidly prototype ideas. Know how your brain works. (I often need a 20-minute power nap after loading a lot into my brain, followed by half a cup of coffee. Knowing how my brain operates enables me to use it well.)
3. Work backward from your goal. Or else you may never get there. If you work forward, you may invent something profound--or you might not. If you work backward, then you have at least directed your efforts at something important to you.
4. Always have a long-term plan. Even if you change it every day. The act of making the plan alone is worth it. And even if you revise it often, you're guaranteed to be learning something.
5. Make contingency maps. Draw all the things you need to do on a big piece of paper, and find out which things depend on other things. Then, find the things that are not dependent on anything but have the most dependents, and finish them first.
6. Collaborate.
7. Make your mistakes quickly. You may mess things up on the first try, but do it fast, and then move on. Document what led to the error so that you learn what to recognize, and then move on. Get the mistakes out of the way. As Shakespeare put it, "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."
8. As you develop skills, write up best-practices protocols. That way, when you return to something you've done, you can make it routine. Instinctualize conscious control.
9. Document everything obsessively. If you don't record it, it may never have an impact on the world. Much of creativity is learning how to see things properly. Most profound scientific discoveries are surprises. But if you don't document and digest every observation and learn to trust your eyes, then you will not know when you have seen a surprise.
10. Keep it simple. If it looks like something hard to engineer, it probably is. If you can spend two days thinking of ways to make it 10 times simpler, do it. It will work better, be more reliable, and have a bigger impact on the world. And learn, if only to know what has failed before. Remember the old saying, "Six months in the lab can save an afternoon in the library."
Two practical notes. The first is in the arena of time management. I really like what I call logarithmic time planning, in which events that are close at hand are scheduled with finer resolution than events that are far off. For example, things that happen tomorrow should be scheduled down to the minute, things that happen next week should be scheduled down to the hour, and things that happen next year should be scheduled down to the day. Why do all calendar programs force you to pick the exact minute something happens when you are trying to schedule it a year out? I just use a word processor to schedule all my events, tasks, and commitments, with resolution fading away the farther I look into the future. (It would be nice, though, to have a software tool that would gently help you make the schedule higher-resolution as time passes...)
The second practical note: I find it really useful to write and draw while talking with someone, composing conversation summaries on pieces of paper or pages of notepads. I often use plenty of color annotation to highlight salient points. At the end of the conversation, I digitally photograph the piece of paper so that I capture the entire flow of the conversation and the thoughts that emerged. The person I've conversed with usually gets to keep the original piece of paper, and the digital photograph is uploaded to my computer for keyword tagging and archiving. This way I can call up all the images, sketches, ideas, references, and action items from a brief note that I took during a five-minute meeting at a coffee shop years ago--at a touch, on my laptop. With 10-megapixel cameras costing just over $100, you can easily capture a dozen full pages in a single shot, in just a second.
Cite as: Boyden, E. S. "How to Think." Ed Boyden's Blog. Technology Review. 11/13/07. (http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/boyden/21925/).
Comments
gabrielg01 on 11/13/2007 at 12:08 PM
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...and 2 minor points:
1) Both Outlook Calendar and Google Calendar allows you to enter events as happening “all day” – so they don’t “force you to pick the exact minute”.
2) for conversation summaries you could skip the camera part, and take notes directly onto a tablet computer.
hazemakil on 11/13/2007 at 5:58 PM
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And just to say I am a regular reader of your blog. It's great and please keep up the good work.
Hazem Akil, MD (Resident in Neurosurgery, Wellington. New Zealand)
jeep1104 on 11/22/2007 at 2:49 AM
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Darius on 03/04/2008 at 9:38 AM
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-------
Lets say you want to work as a pilot - that's your goal. How do you become a pilot? You get employed by an airline company. So you call an airline company, and books a meeting with the HR manager.
You: “Can you employ me as a pilot?”
HR: “No, you do not have the proper education and flight hours”.
So where can you get the proper education? You find a school, and applies, but finds out you need 2 terms of advanced math, and a letter of recommendation from a senior pilot. You take your classes of math and tries to find a senior pilot to recommend you for higher education.
SP: “You first need to clean my garage before I recommend you”, so you start by cleaning his garage. You started with your goal, and worked backwards to the first obstacle to conquer.
---------------
Am I thinking right? ;)
EMoeller on 11/22/2007 at 11:53 AM
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in which Covey recommends - "Begin with the end in mind."
In other words start from your goal and work backwards.
Also would suggest using Mind Mapping to document and build relationships. While there are some programs now that export Mind Maps to "smart phones" none allow you to use the phone for mind mapping. Too bad as this would be especially useful for documenting discussions.
Once Apple gets the iPhone opened up this would be a killer application.
Regards,
Eric (Geologist and geo-spacial thinker)
alexeysmirnov on 11/14/2007 at 2:38 AM
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http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/
flash-tech on 11/14/2007 at 3:40 AM
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spotlightideas on 12/18/2007 at 12:53 PM
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alburke on 01/22/2008 at 9:36 AM
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thomaspeugeot on 11/14/2007 at 9:42 AM
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If you decide to write down every idea as soon as they crosses your mind, you turn ideas into words. The problem with this conversion is that, whatever your writting skills, your words contain the idea itself and an additionnal semantic load carried by the word. This additional load can be a drag on agile thinking.
As a computer architect, I try to wait before formulating ideas into text. I prefer to toy with the idea in my mind until I becomme very agile with it before comminting to words. It can last a few days (or nights).
This suggestion is not contracdictory with the rule, it is a just personnal experience I wanted to bring.
Thomas, Paris, France
spotlightideas on 12/18/2007 at 12:47 PM
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I think it is very important to let ideas take a life of their own. You don't want to make judgements about them too early on. Even writing them down can involve a form of judgement.
I think it is best to make a note of an idea. The note is just an indicator or label (so that you don't forget it). But not a summary.
jeep1104 on 11/22/2007 at 2:55 AM
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alburke on 01/22/2008 at 9:05 AM
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An example:
Goal: Is there life on Mars?
First subgoal: what tests could detect such life?
Second subgoal: what instruments must I have at Mars to conduct those tests?
Third subgoal: how can I land such instruments on Mars?
Fourth subgoal: how can I get my lander with my instruments to Mars?
Fifth subgoal: how can I build a rocket that can throw that much hardware to Mars?
The first subgoal probably requires multiple second subgoals so this is really (usually) a tree of subgoals leading to the goal. In the example, some tests for life on Mars require Earth-based telescopes rather than spacecraft. Also, the goal and each subgoal might offer multiple methods of accomplishment, so there might be multiple second subgoals, alternatives which might be pursued in parallel if sufficient resources are available.
It's important not to choose a single alternative too early, but instead to grow a tree of alternatives, reluctantly pruning off only the most-obviously-impractical ones until you've worked all the branches backward to your starting state. Then you have multiple alternative paths from where you are to where you want to be, and you can choose to pursue one or more of those paths according to your estimate of their costs and chances of success.
pyjwb on 11/26/2007 at 4:45 PM
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spotlightideas on 12/18/2007 at 1:04 PM
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I work in advertising as an account planner (the person behind the 'big idea' in an advertising campaign). We welcome doubting during the ideas stage of a campaign. Doubts lead to ideas. And ideas lead to the creation and development of brands.
But at a certain point, though, you need to say enough is enough. In advertising we say this when the creative brief has to be produced. Once the creative brief is produced the account planner has to be very firm about what the 'big idea' behind the campaign is (and others, such as the copywrtier and art director, must follow his / her instructions).
Churchill was a creative thinker. And he would have spent as much time as he could developing each idea. As a creative thinker he would have been full of doubts. But by the time Churchill was sitting around the table with his generals (they waiting for his instructions) he would have put himself into a competely different mind-set. He would have decided, by then, about what to do and there would be no wavering on his final decision.
So having doubts can often be a strength not a weakness. The real issue - in my opinion - is to decide when is the time to have doubts, and when is the time to speak and act with conviction.
faridani on 12/16/2007 at 12:14 AM
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spotlightideas on 12/18/2007 at 12:41 PM
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Depending on how creative you want your thinking to be, mistakes can be good.
I work in advertising as an account planner (the people behind the 'big idea' in a campaign, and 'mistakes', or 'incorrect' thinking, or 'anti-logical' thinking - or 'disruptive thinking' ... - can be the key to creating and developing great ideas.
pgeary on 01/03/2008 at 4:04 AM
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There are a number of ways to think. It is often true that the resolution and speed of resolution is dictated by the approach.
Methods I use for problem solving:
Linear Logic: The usual approach. This is the stuff of classic logic if A = B, B=C, then A=C. Think diagrams, decision trees, probability trees, tables, and lots of notes.
Bench Work: Isolate the problem and observe: A systematic approach of reducing and controlling variability to identify the resolution variable or variables.
Trial and Prayer: Try things that might work and pray they do. The prayer doesn't actually solve the problem but helps retain hope that if the first attempt didn't work, either it will provide new knowledge that can be applied or that the next attempt using a modified or different approach will work. It is often expedient to try the simple (cheapest) things first and increase in complexity.
Creative: It's not linear, not logical, not constrained by what has been learned will work in a scenario, but is more of relating abstract, seemingly unrelated thoughts. This method can result in both the most spectacular failures and the biggest gains.
Redefine the problem: This is often the most useful when all else fails. When a resolution to the problem cannot be found, it may become necessary to make sure the right problem is being addressed.
Other ideas:
Go for a walk.
Go to bed and keep a notepad handy.
Tell a sympathetic ear – someone who knows nothing about the problem
Tell a learned ear. – Someone else’s experience can be of vast benefit.
Assume your approach is wrong and ask yourself why.
Question everything. Every assumption you make puts a restriction on your thought process.
Timebox: Give yourself a deadline.
It may best not to get caught up in one approach. Try a few, but remember you can't just attempt to solve the problem - you must actually solve the problem.
DorianBenkoil on 02/09/2008 at 10:20 PM
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hoewingr on 02/21/2008 at 1:33 AM
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StuRat on 02/21/2008 at 10:22 AM
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moah on 03/26/2008 at 6:14 PM
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egl on 03/27/2008 at 7:03 PM
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hazemakil on 04/11/2008 at 5:24 AM
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Can I just ask you what's the point of running a blog if you are not going to contribute to it on regular basis? Shall I presume that you are too busy posting and I should stop checking your blog every now and then?
Could you please be clear about this?
dferro on 05/07/2008 at 4:21 PM
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