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CHAPTER
9
COLLECTING DOTS
CLUSTERING
Unresolved
problems aren’t the only things that sit at the front of our minds. All of the
other dots we’ve accumulated matter just as much, if not more. This knowledge is what
helps us become more creative in scatterfocus mode: the more valuable the dots we
collect, the more we have to connect.
In practice, the dots we consume and connect are so important because our focus is
always filtered through what we already know.
Gazing at the ocean, a biologist might
ponder all the creatures that lurk beneath its surface, an artist might consider the colors
she’d use to paint it, a sailor might take note of the condition of the wind and the waves,
while a writer might try to think about the words he’d use to describe it.
People become experts on particular subjects by accumulating and connecting
enough dots related to them, in the form of experiences, knowledge, and best practices.
Our brains are naturally programmed to cluster related dots. As a simple example, think
back to when you first learned to write. You likely began by learning the letters of the
alphabet
—how they were shaped, what they sounded like, and so on. These were the
first dots you accumulated on the topic:
d, s, c, h, s . . .
At this point your brain started connecting these dots, clustering them into
alphabetical order, distinguishing the consonants from the vowels,
and learning how to
pronounce different syllables:
doe, sa, ha, sh . . .
You then began clustering these dots further to form words. To process the new
ideas more deeply, you likely connected them to various pictures, as
well as to objects
in the world around you:
dog, sat, cup, seven, had, shatter . . .
After this point, you began clustering words and concepts together into phrases,
sentences, and paragraphs:
The dog sat on the shattered cup and had to get seven stitches.
As
you read this book, your knowledge of phrases, sentences, and paragraphs is so
embedded in your mind that the act of reading has become implicit: you no longer have
to think about it.
Reading is a compelling example of the power of collecting and connecting dots. By
learning something new, you transfer dots from your external
environment to your
memory so you can link them and make use of them later. From the moment you’re
born to the day you die, your brain is always engaged in this process.
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As we cluster more and more dots about a given topic, we naturally develop
expertise, which in turn helps us better manage our attentional space. Curiously, the
more
we know about a subject, the less attentional space that information consumes.
Recall that our attentional space can hold around four chunks of information at once.
The more dots we’re able to cluster, the more efficiently we’re able to use that space, as
we can accommodate and process a lot more pieces of information when they’re linked
together. We read more efficiently by processing words and sentences than by
processing individual letters. An expert pianist can process all the elements of a piece of
music
—the melody, harmony, tempo, and so on—better than someone who has been
playing for
only a few weeks, which means she can make more efficient use of her
attentional space, and maybe even daydream while she plays.
We do the same by collecting more dots related to our own work and investing in
building relevant knowledge and skills. This lets us make more efficient use of our
attentional space, whether we’re using that accumulated information to hyperfocus on a
task or piecing together new ideas in scatterfocus mode. We can work with more
expertise and creativity because we’ve already done the due diligence to cluster this
information together.
*
Working with more information at our disposal also helps us make more
intuitive
decisions, because we’re able to subconsciously summon preexisting knowledge in our
memories. This information prompts us to respond appropriately in a situation, even if
we’re not consciously aware that we’re doing so. For example, during a conversation we
can intuit that a member of our team is upset and that there’s something she’s not
te
lling us. We know this to be the case because we’ve experienced the same situation
in the past and, on some level, remember the signs that indicated that she was
unsettled. This is how intuition works: it’s the process of acting on information we
remember
but don’t consciously retrieve.
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