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Everyone Wants Flow, But No One Wants To Close Their 10,000 Open Tabs In Case They Might Need That Thing Later
How To Build A Tab Closing System For Your Brain & Finally Find Flow
You’ll never find creative flow if you keep 10,000 tabs open in your brain 🧠
We’ve all experienced it. We sit down with the intention to write and as soon as we start typing those first few words some other idea comes up. Oh, I need to remember to buy milk, or did I get back to that person on Twitter?
Every thought like an open tab in the browser of your brain.
Your Working Memory Is For Working, Not Parking Stuff
Our brains are able to hold a fair amount of information, but our working memory is actually quite limited. Just like tabs on a computer, open tabs in our brain take up space in our working memory. They affect our performance, slow us down, break our flow and lead to overwhelm.
Good News! There is a way to close the tabs and get your flow back. There’s a phenomenon called the Zeigarnik Affect which says that things will occupy our working memory until we either do them or write them down. Basically, our brains need the assurance that it’s not going to lose that piece of…
