Why the Hype for Tools for Thought may be Justified

There isn’t any activity that won’t benefit from deliberate practice enhanced by technology — including thinking.

Caught Between a Pandemic and Too Much Time To Think

There was a meme at the beginning of the pandemic about Isaac Newton. It told that he developed calculus, the laws of gravity and physics, and theories on optics during lockdown. Meanwhile, most of us were watching Netflix. Funny as that was, it’s clear that Sir Isaac Newton was not the only one in lockdown back then, yet one of the very few that came back from it with such a noteworthy outcome. This got me thinking about what would it take for any of us to create meaningful work considering the means we had available.

Thanks to the internet and a host of digital companies, we had vastly more information available than Isaac Newton ever did. This is also the case when comparing ourselves with most thinkers throughout history. Some of them didn’t even get to work with ink or paper, much less with a computer or a smartphone. It isn’t information or technology that we need to produce significant works of knowledge — with or without a pandemic.

Aristotle said that thinking is our highest feature as humans. Yet at the onset of the pandemic it was clear that unless we do something about it, our thinking would forever stay complacent watching Netflix. Sure, we may be dumber thanks to Hollywood, but do we have a choice in the matter? And if we’ve become dumber due to technology, Could we turn the tables on technology when it comes to thinking?

Systems for Structuring Thought

A few months into the pandemic, I explored apps to improve how I consumed information. It all began without much thought (no pun intended), but initially, I wanted to streamline my reading. I wanted to add intention to capturing ideas, quotes, or insights, and hopefully use them as prompts for future content, writing, or learning. The first app that I started using, and to this day the most valuable was Readwise. This is a great option for creating a common book, after giving up on Robert Greenes’s analogous system using index cards, as described by Ryan Holiday here. This app resurfaced a decade of highlights from Kindle, among other sources, such as Medium, Twitter, or Instapaper. This was fun.

However, interacting with knowledge, remembering old books, or reviewing highlights daily is one thing. Improving and developing your thinking — as a way to create meaningful work, for instance — is quite another. As I pondered on this, I came across the book How To Take Smart Notes, by Sönke Ahrens. Shortly after, I got a Roam Research subscription. Soon enough, I found myself navigating the “Tools for Thought” space on Twitter. There are different definitions of this topic, and while it sounds pretty self-descriptive to me, the concept seems to have its roots in a work published in 2000 by that name: Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology. However, for the sake of this post and to keep it simple, let’s just say that Tools for Thought are digital apps with the potential to assist and enhance your thinking — mostly by recording what you think using a keyboard.

Tools for Thought: Digital Apps designed to record, assist, and enhance your thinking.

There may not be an easy way to measure the impact of a digital app on how you think. However, once you start using one, it’s easy to see how often you use it. And perhaps your thinking is the same as before, but now you have a record of it. Your thinking becomes visible and accessible. Having a window to your thinking will likely nudge you to revisit, reinforce, or review what goes inside your head. This usually happens without much of our awareness. Suddenly, thoughts become things — or more precisely, written words on a screen.

The pandemic coincided with the launch of different apps or the rise in popularity of some of them. It’s futile to provide a list, yet it’s informative to comment on some of the core features of the most prominent Tools for Thought. They overlap with traditional “Note-Taking Apps,” but the differences in Tools for Thought created a niche of its own. In my opinion, it’s those differences that have an impact on our thinking, that go beyond new features alone.

Conventional Text-Based Apps vs. Tools for Thought

The core difference between traditional Note-Taking Apps and Tools for Thought comes from how you enter new information and how it’s stored. Traditionally, you create folders in which to store what you enter. You then have a hierarchical structure between folders or categories. This is how traditional computers were designed, and how apps like Evernote still do — as well as most word processors, like Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Ulysses, or Scrivener. In the case of most Tools for Thought, though, we don’t need to decide where to store each new note, ditching both the folders and the hierarchical structure.

Instead, you have an entry point for your database, and one entry can be linked to any other entry. In general, new notes either stand on their own or are linked to their creation date. Instead of hierarchical folders with notes within them, you get sovereign notes that create a self-organizing network of thoughts. This is how apps like Roam Research, Obsidian, Hypernotes, Logseq, Notion, Scrintal, and a few others are designed (if you’re lost on how they work, don’t worry, that isn’t the point of this post, just a necessary commentary).

By removing the friction of structuring the folders in which to write beforehand, as well as changing how all notes are contained within thematic silos, writing becomes much more of a free flow activity. Think of it as having an endless notebook, in which you can write without any constraint or inhibition. Instead of having your notes trapped in a page or a folder, they’re now part of a larger collection of thoughts, that is not only accessible and easily retrievable at any time, but also interconnected.

Once you put a few hours into writing inside a Tool for Thought, it’s hard not to notice connections between notes and appreciate the potential to track your thinking. Traditional apps don’t prevent this process, yet newer Tools for Thought make it easier, more visible, and organic.

A Fad Full of Hype, but Also Full of Possibilities

Like any fad, the one around Tools for Thought brings along misconceptions, open questions, and its share of haters — leaving its trail of hype. Depending on the fad, the situation, or the topic, the hype may signal empty noise, but often enough it also reflects potential. In my opinion, the latter is the case for Tools for Thought. Yet the way to turn that potential or any new possibilities into something tangible, won’t happen on its own. Real effort, with real thinking, is required.

The world doesn’t need more solutions, systems, or proposals based on the same thinking that has brought us here. Nor options based on outrage, emotion, or willpower alone like those brought up daily by the media. The world needs better solutions, systems, and proposals based on upgraded thinking. Improving thinking is an individual responsibility. And among the alternatives to improve that individual thinking, we now have a menu of Tools for Thought. In many ways, adopting one of these tools, and engaging regularly with it, can be deliberate practice to improve, develop, and even master our thinking.

Deliberate Practice: Activity designed […] for the sole purpose of effectively improving specific aspects of an individual’s performance (K. Anders Ericsson, et al 1993)

Our thinking “performance” may be subjective and imprecise, but there’s no denying that if we bring intention and collect observations from the process, we’ll see an effect. And this is why the hype for Tools for Thought may be justified. They will not improve our thinking by themselves. They’re not magic, as effort and actual thinking are still the driving force for improvement. Technology can only assist that process, not make it happen.

Deliberate practice for thinking, enhanced by technology could arguably have significant effects in areas like self-awareness, focus, reducing bias, refining reasoning, developing ideas, or finding gaps in our knowledge. Using a Tool for Thought can provide a central hub for our thinking, in which our recorded thoughts enable repeated exposure and spontaneous generation of ideas. As we see the diversity of our thoughts, we can connect them, and appreciate how a new understanding emerges.

All of the above can easily drive the true synthesis of ideas, not isolated analysis, or reductionism of concepts. Tools for Thought can become a thinking aid, which hopefully can also drive and translate into new solutions, proposals, and projects in the real world. But it all starts with thinking. Thus, the importance of having the proper tools for it.