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I first learned about the concept of distributed cognition when I was an undergrad studying linguistics, but I didn’t know what it was called until I studied it again in grad school. For an absolutely impenetrable “explanation,” read this.
For our non-academic purposes, let’s consider distributed cognition a way to extend our individual ability to keep stuff in mind. We might ask our spouse to help us remember to take our vitamins each morning – this is a way of extending our own memory to be aided by the memory of another person.
In today’s podcast, I wax on about lists. Making lists is, to me, the ultimate (and delightfully simple) distribution of my cognition. Without making lists, I am a constant victim of my routine failure to remember to do all kinds of things, from the trivial to the very important. Putting these things down into a list means I can rely on the list instead of on my flaky memory – I take each item out of my brain and put it onto paper (or into an app, or whatever).
When it comes to our creative projects and fantasies, getting stuff out of our heads can be just as useful as it is for us to get anything else out of our heads. When we use the tools we have to distribute all the myriad things that are constantly swimming around in our minds, we help ourselves to think more clearly, and to fit more things into our days – because we stop losing things to our fallible memories.
Have a listen, then hit reply and tell me about the creative lists you keep!
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