Rules of Thinking, The

RULE 36

Don’t overload your RAM

Following on from the last Rule, it’s hard to exaggerate how much brain space is taken up with everyday planning, logistics, mental to-do lists. As well as those jobs or projects that you’re consciously aware need a lot of planning (and that you’ll now be writing down in detail after reading the last Rule¹¹), there’s the rest of life in general.

However avid a list-maker you are, there’ll always be things you won’t write down. For example, you need to think through which order to go around the shops: you want to drop off the dry cleaning first so you don’t have to lug it around, and you want to do the food shopping last because there’s stuff you need to get back to the freezer quickly. But the post office will ...