You should think more. You should think less. You should be constantly thinking. You should never think at all. It’s not that simple yo. Maybe the author of t

You should think more. You should think less. You should be constantly thinking. You should never think at all. It’s not that simple yo. Maybe the author of this article has a particular person and a particular task in mind when he says you should think less but, if you take him literally (as if he is saying all people should think less, all the time), he is definitely wrong. We didn’t evolve awkwardly large brains because they look nice or because god likes women to die giving birth. Here’s are my two most important points: how much you should think depends on task at hand and whether you should modify the amount you think depends on your current habits. Any person who tells you how much to think and hasn’t considered these points is talking to the clouds. Examples: Yesterday I was transferring computer components between two different cases. While trying to install the optical drive, without thinking I kept putting the mounting brackets on the wrong way. Once I was sufficiently frustrated I actually thought about what I was doing. I realized that there were 8 possible ways to mount the brackets; only one way was correct; and then, after about 20 seconds of thinking, I learned the correct way and why it was correct. Had I used those 20 seconds of thinking at the start I could have saved myself 20 minutes of fumbling around. Moral of the story: thinking is good? Second example. When I come home from the store I have to unpack my shopping into an inadequately sized fridge. When this problem was novel to me I used to pontificate about the best packing configuration and create a detailed plan. When unpacking I would find some things wouldn’t fit and others would have too much space so the plan needed to be revised. I would also worry about how difficult it was to retrieve things from the fridge once I’d packed them so I could find myself standing in front of the fridge for quite some time trying to make the best possible decisions. Needless to say, I don’t do this any more. Instead I just start packing the shopping away and I just try things until its all packed and I don’t worry too much. I suppose I’m still thinking as I’m doing it but I’m also in a state of flow. Moral of the story: thinking is bad? I think the point here has less to do with thinking and everything to do with control. We are naturally wired to find situations where we are out of control stressful and so we conclude that more control is always better when actually getting control of some things is more work than it’s worth. Perhaps this is a lesson programmers need to learn more than other people. I used to program for a living and now I work with people a lot more than computers. I’m still having difficulty getting used to the fact that some of the people I work with aren’t that bright, or don’t care about doing a good job, or are used to always getting their own way. If you try to control that, you go insane. As a corollary, maybe if you limit your attempts to control to a reasonable degree and you are able to keep your thinking focused, you should think as much as possible. Please criticize what I’ve said here.