creativity

Creative Off-line Problem-Solving with Cognitive Task Lists

Creative work requires considerable perseverance and productive obsession. This in turn calls for a certain kind of mind. Not everyone is mentally inclined to think deeply and extensively. Without adequate self-regulation, brain power can be wasted by unproductive “perturbance”. That is when insistent motivators hijack one’s thinking, leading to repetitive thought —emotion, rumination, worry, obsession, perseveration, etc.

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Tea, Zen, Creativity and Taking Mental Notes with the Method of Loci

Sexual selection is the professional, at sifting between genes.
Geoffrey Miller, The Mating Mind

Have you ever had this awkward experience at a conference cocktail party: a rosy new acquaintance asks you about the morning’s keynote, which you attended with no capture device but yourself? So you couldn’t recall anything about the lecture to convey to your interested, appealing conversant.

This post discusses the problem of taking mental notes. As more than an example, I will use a lecture on Zen and Creativity that my date and I recently attended on July 30. Continue reading Tea, Zen, Creativity and Taking Mental Notes with the Method of Loci

How Dictation Benefits Cognitive Productivity

Whereas, in the past, the fruits of your ambulant mind dangled precariously on the dendritic branches of your memory organ, they can now be digitally harvested and processed. You can dictate while taking a stroll, running errands, jogging, working out, commuting, waiting for an event, or meditatively pacing in and around your home office. You can digitally capture your voice using a special-purpose recorder, a smartphone, or a computer. Nuance’s Dragon Dictate™ (Mac) and Dragon NaturallySpeaking™ (Windows) both do a great job of converting speech to text.
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