Of Thoughts Useless and Thoughts Useful, Maybe

The installation of an external brain / variation on the GTD system – AKA Project KaijuBrain – continues.

Since acclimating myself to Allen's work (again – I had used it about ten years ago and let it, along with pretty much everything else at that time, fall by the wayside) and implementing a more functional system of thought/idea capture based on his ideas, an intriguing change in thought-pattern becoming apparent: the nearly-automatic recognition of the difference between a useless thought and a useful one.

Wish I could give you a clear explanation of this, but I can't. Can only liken it to going antique shopping and being asked if I need any help finding anything. My response is always the same: No, thanks – I'll know what I'm looking for when I see it.

Maybe: if it's worth capturing, it's not useless. Might not necessarily be useful, but it's not useless... but that ignores ...

Doesn't matter – whatever the system or the device, the results are clear – and enjoyable: the feeling of anxiety over lost thoughts, over having no place to keep the ones I do manage to capture, has abated; I'm noticing a greater flow of ideas – for these pieces, for The Work, for the other projects around my life –, as though a logjam has been at least somewhat cleared; and a remarkable decline in feeling overwhelmed and hopeless. (Though Imposter Syndrome never goes away.)

Listening: ALL MIRRORS, by Angel Olsen.