Reflection (or the value of extending the amount of time between stimulus and response)

The speed at which events happen and knowledge develops keeps on accelerating. The backlog of things we want to read, watch, discuss, etc. keeps on getting longer.

The time we can dedicate to slowing down and engaging in deep reflection is decreasing because there is this anxiety to deal with something right away and move on to the next thing.

There is a 'getting things done syndrome': it does not matter much the true meaning of what you are doing as long as you are doing lots of stuff and you do them really fast and efficiently. In the absence of a plan, some people prefer to stay busy and have a delusion of progress rather than pause for a second and face the panic of not having a plan.

Fast thinking only leads to shallow thoughts. This can be seen in any creative discipline. It is very rare to arrive to any breakthrough point by just dedicating little time and little thought to a problem. If the problem actually required so little effort and thinking most likely someone else has already solved it. There are no shortcuts to brilliance and unique insight. You have to work on it. See what Picasso said: "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working"

There is now a major trend on 'slow thinking'. There is a perceived need to do less thinking and do it better: think about less things/topics and go deeper in order to master a few topics. And there is also a need to spend more time thinking about the meaning and relevance of the inputs we get before we move on to the next thing.

Behaviors that will make you a more shallow thinker:

• multitasking; cognitive switching costs prevent you from focusing.
• brainless executing: going down the list to do without questioning whether they are meaningful or not for you.
• no discrimination of topics. No planning. Also called the 'useless generalist': a little bit about everything and a whole lot about nothing.

Behaviors that will make you a deeper thinker:

• one task at a time. a deliberate attempt at putting all your senses in one single thing.
• balancing the thinking/doing equation. appending reflection time between doing activities.
• planning and deciding topic areas. Make a conscious decision about which ones you can commit to for the long term and which ones you will ignore.