In a recent blog post I pointed to the idea that your brain has a sort of implied query language, and there are more and less efficient ways to ask it questions:

I think an important abstraction here is that when you ask your brain a question, it’s often not enough to ask it something that specifies logically what you want – you also have to give it some clues as to where to look for the answer. I call this shaping the query.

This is a roundup of principles I’ve found helpful for using my brain effectively - committing things to memory, finding ideas, and thinking about things. Continue reading →