Tools for thought

Ways to externalise our thinking, make more or less concrete concepts of our abstraction, we are able to free up cognitive capacity to think about more difficult problems.

This also needs to happen together. We need to build tools and methods together and we need to collaborate using these tools and methods.

Tools for thought – ways to organise, develop and externalise thinking.

Has been around for ages. People used to use index cards where they wrote down pieces of information or research they were working on.

Index cards are by nature non-linear, but could be arranged in a linear way to create a manuscript for a book.

See Tools, provoking emergence

Now sometimes referring to note-taking tools with bidirectional linking abilites.

New software that structure your notes as a graph are very helpful for exploring your knowledge in new ways.

‘For me, tools for thought is about seeing computers as having untapped potential for helping humans be more thoughtful, creative, and fulfilled in their intellectual pursuits.’ @_adamwiggins_ on twitter

‘Tools for thought overlaps heavily with HCI (human-computer interaction) academia, independent research, and open source. But also has its commercial component in products like @NotionHQ, @figmadesign, @RoamResearch, @mymind, @MakeSpaceTeam,@rem_note (and my own @MuseAppHQ).’

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See In order of time, chronologically, Working with manuscripts and authors – hypermanuscripts, List of tools for thought