Associative Thinking and Flow ....

I earlier promised a followup to using the Brain and its amazing paradigm that enables associative thinking for a more natural flow or thought processing ... ie the naming as The Brain for the software package (it is pricey, but there are download demos and a free edition) explore the website as there are fascinating examples and the actual navigation of the site really gives you a glimpse into the power.

Here are a couple of shots of my brain that I have set up in about a month of hard use ... you create the ideas and link it to as much or as little of the rest of your brain, the more associations the better so you can see how one thought leads to another and the path to one can come from many sources. This is associative recall that a linear package does not have, I have used it now extensively in meeting situations to call up bits and pieces that I needed almost instantly. The first shot is of a lightly expanded look at interlinked ideas, folders, docs, appts ...etc ... looks complicated, but actually it is this chaotic look at knowledge that makes sense ... all of your significant thoughts have come from so many sources and them from the same, it is this picture that mirrors associations of thoughts that we actually use.

The second shot is of the folder that I had in the lower left corner of my brain "plex" as it is called. I clicked on the work folder which is actually my main work folder on my computer, the program instantly created the sub folders for me, which is the regular folder structure in the work system, you can click on any and the list of files comes up that you can then click and work on ... this really quick and intuitive, but only a glimpse of the power ...

One last example, I went into meetings to present a proposal ... before going, I linked the people who were to be in attendance, the background papers, etc ... while in the meeting, a question arose and I simply pulled the main item up in the plex and the associated thoughts took me right to the information that I needed ... like anything else that is valuable, it is your insights and work that leads to the value of a tool like this ... I urge you to play with this application and explore situations where it may be of value to you ... constructed properly, it becomes a second brain that will not forget thoughts or items, devoid of senior moments, unlike my standard issue that has a tendency to lapse into them more frequently now ... ;-)