Ed Boyden of MIT on “how to think”

by Yule Heibel on November 13, 2007

Some brilliant ideas here:  Technology Review: Blogs: Ed Boyden’s blog: How to ThinkI think that I better print this out and read it very carefully.  And then repeat.  Often.


 

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

melanie November 14, 2007 at 1:10 am

One of my PhD students hit upon the mapping idea a few years back and I’ve been using it ever since (admittedly only on and off because it really forces you to take the time to THINK and time is the scarce resource in my job!)

I use a free download program called C Map.

yulelog November 15, 2007 at 6:07 pm

I’ve used mind-mapping, too, and feel the same way (that it takes time to create the maps, which is scarce). What I like about Boyden’s mapping process is the “contingency” aspect (“5. Make contingency maps. Draw all the things you need to do on a big piece of paper, and find out which things depend on other things. Then, find the things that are not dependent on anything but have the most dependents, and finish them first.”). That has the potential to clear log-jams!

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