Collection

Key Insight

Collection

● Collection is actually just a complicated way to say - writing down. We collect all of our thoughts and write them down, on paper or digitally.

● This is an extremely important principle that is mentioned in almost every productivity book, and is an extremely important prerequisite for entering flow. I have even created a dedicated section just for it.

● The human brain did not evolve to memorize huge amounts of information, but is optimized for processing information in real time, so we should never memorize anything, but rely on external memory tools.

● All promises, agreements, tasks, meetings and ideas go immediately to paper (or keyboard) and the ultimate goal is that everything is always written down.

● Why? Thoughts that we do not write down, but our brain somehow deems important, keep returning to us, and significantly hinder our work. If we get into the habit of writing down even aggressive thoughts immediately we will notice they appear less and less. The brain starts to trust the notes, and interruptions at work become rarer and rarer, and the brain dedicates itself 100% to processing flow.

● Sometimes we will need to take a break for an hour or two while we write everything down, but be sure that when you return to doing what you did before there will be no more interruptions.

● This is especially true if we have some emotional problem with a partner/family/friends. Write down what is the problem, your view of the situation, try to anticipate their perspective, devise a solution and what you want to communicate at the next interaction. Write all of this down and you’ll feel a huge relief.

● Morning journaling (keeping a diary) serves exactly this purpose, to capture as many thoughts as possible on paper proactively so that we can free the brain for effective work.

● The collection principle can also be applied on the opposite side. Instead of putting thoughts on paper we can reduce the total amount of thoughts? How? By reducing the information intake into the brain. News, newspapers, newsletters, ads, series, movies, advertisements... all this fills our brain with information that is fairly irrelevant, but certainly occupies space in the brain, so it’s advisable to reduce all useless information to 0.