The most prominent trait of a typical knowledge worker in 2020 could be represented by:

Propensity to Consume > Propensity to Create

We consume information from various data streams at an unprecedented level, while our brain had not evolved commensurately to keep track of this overwhelming stimulus. So are we really consuming the web or is it consuming us?

I have come across this attractive idea of documenting what you read into neatly arranged mental buckets (that can have tangible analogs like Notion, Evernote, etc) and then maybe you could magically pull out the relevant information at the right time.

However here is a problem, even if you sort information into categories, there is no guarantee that you have assimilated it as well and will be able to reproduce at the right time. That’s why we need to look beyond the naive idea of optimising just the process of information encoding. Maybe there is a missing link here!

The answer is as obvious as it is unappealing, Retrieval!

Since we like to measure the efficiency of assimilation by the amount of recollection (at the right time of course) shouldn’t we try to do this exercise of retrieval more often? Neuroscience had already established this premise quite firmly into the scientific circles but for you, it simply implies that you need to create robust prototypes of the scattered neural packets that you consume. Just create something, and don’t worry about the scale.

For me, it meant to migrate my old blog from here to a revamped location. It was an arduous task as for things like this, there are no external nudges that could drive you to do it.

But somehow the need was felt, a plan was chalked out and some 84 commits were made over the duration of 40 hours. I will write more about the process and the reasons for doing it in future blog posts, since today I promised myself to be brief (Don’t try to squat your PR just after quarantine ends).

Hence, I now finish the first version of my blog (or website, I am undecided!). It is far from perfect, but I believe it is more important to start somewhere and then improvise along the way. I have tried keeping it less intrusive and more content focussed. I deeply appreciate the early reviewers who gave invaluable feedback and Renyuan for his amazing design concept.

I hope you derive as much pleasure in going through it, as I envisioned. Meanwhile, I look forward for your comments and suggestions.

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