How to Think More Effectively: A guide to greater productivity, insight and creativity

by The School of Life

Humanity is vastly better at engineering than philosophy: our planes are a good deal more impressive than our notions of what we should travel for; our abilities to communicate definitively outstrip our ideas of how to understand one another.

We are almost allergic to the large first-order enquiries: what are we ultimately trying to do here? What would best serve our happiness? Why should we bother? How is this aligned with real value?

we should strive to ensure that at least 20% of our efforts is henceforth devoted to reflecting on the deeper ‘why’ questions before we allow ourselves to ‘relax’ into the more familiar and more routine work of execution.

The mind is an intermittent instrument whose ideas come out in dribs and drabs. It is capable of a few inspired moves, then falls silent and needs to rest and to lie fallow for bewilderingly long periods. We cannot think for two hours at a stretch, let alone an entire day. The mind can’t neatly follow office hours.

Our world places a high premium on good ideas but spends tragically little time planning how best to line up our minds to generate them.