Building Extensions for the Mind
When I was in Primary School the most popular kid maintained a lyric scrap book.
He filled a blank exercise book with newspaper cuttings of lyrics to songs by his favorite artists. When he couldn’t cut out the lyrics or have access to the newspaper, he copied out the words to his most cherished songs by hand. Flipping through his scrap book was like taking a tour of the local and international music stage.
Accompanying the lyrics were enviable photos of 50 Cent, E-Sir, Nameless, B2K, Usher: striking celebrity poses in over-sized white tees, low-rise jeans, and shining jewelry.
During termly talent shows, while the rest of us struggled to practice or come up, with performance ideas, he stole the spotlight like a natural. School staff enjoyed his renditions, teachers applauded his energy, and every student wanted to be him.
His performances were inspiring and his joy infectious. How he pulled off these feats with unrivaled consistency each time baffled us.
It was frustrating but instructive.
Acceleration of Change
Learning is an experience of the world through our senses.
As the pandemic continues to mutate world over, learners are faced with a rapid shape-shifting of the knowledge landscape. In Future Shock American futurist, Alvin Toffler, coins the phrase “accelerative thrust” to describe the information overwhelm of our times: “The acceleration of change, however, radically alters the balance between novel and familiar situations. Rising rates of change thus compel us not merely to cope with a faster flow, but with more and more situations to which previous personal experience does not apply.”
The facts of today will be obsolete tomorrow.
In the face of “less time for extended, peaceful attention to one problem or situation at a time,” educators can guide learners towards resilience and performance confidence by helping them build mind-extensions. Or what Tiago Forte calls a “second brain.”
With the aid of technology, students and creators are able to outsource crucial brain resources while also freeing up the mind to comb through the incessant flow of situations that make up modern life. But there’s a price to be paid: in time and painstaking organization.
Learning in Sprints
To make the most of their productive hours, creators can adopt the mind of a sprinter.
Top sprinters operate in alternating modes of intense learning and practice, performance then evaluation and learning. Times of intense learning and practice are moments of deep analysis with a focus on the essentials of the game. In these sessions, sprinters spend hours mastering body movement, coordination of different muscle groups and breath control.
When not actively practicing, time is spent watching and analyzing recordings of own performances, of competitors and star athletes. These periods of evaluation help the athlete understand and adjust approaches to technique.
Top creators borrow from this model of analysis-creation-evaluation-repeat. Musicians spend a reasonable amount of their time listening to scores, attempting to recreate the licks of their idols and studying music theory to have a grasp of the mechanics of music; writers read, take notes, reflect and summarize their own understanding of books and articles; keen artists study color theory, sketching and geometry; while vloggers and film makers rely on behind-the-scenes-takes to capture document their creative process. These analytical modes prepare them for surges of creative performance.
Using Google’s Keep Notes helps me categorize and summarize my best writing ideas, links to great articles, and screenshots of great passages from books. You can use labels, images, checklists, color, and collaborators to codify your ideas. With a powerful “search” feature browsing and accessing your own notes becomes a snappy affair.
Mental Extensions and Successful Performance
The stress of daily learning coupled with the multiple roles we have to fulfill can expose us to feelings of inadequacy and overwhelm.
The world isn’t stopping for us. Its ever-growing complexity demands more of the modern mind’s resources and attention.
Like the student who used his lyric scrap book to augment his mind we can create our own ways of categorizing, storing and analyzing the endless sea of information and experiences we are exposed to.
With access to the internet, decent cameras, quality voice recorders and note-taking applications we have in many hands the power to curate and share our best ideas as we create a common future that we all can be proud of.
This way, learning shifts from passive consumption to a more active, critical and engaging activity.
PS:
I suggest some Music Therapy just in case you’re finding life increasingly overwhelming. It’s not therapy but this album attempts to paint the idea of a “crazy life.”
Here’s my prescription for a “life out of balance”: a daily dose of “Koyaanisqatsi” by Phillip Glass.
I can’t promise that it will calm your present confusion.
If you enjoyed this article do leave a comment and like below. I love hearing how you learn new skills, how you create stuff, and how you solve problems.
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This is a nice one
Well written, as usual. It is true, in this day and age, the continual bombardment of new information can get overwhelming. One has to be very intentional about slowing things down for a while for some reflection. Otherwise we run the risk of becoming very shallow individuals, mere soundboards for all that comes rushing at us.