The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 220 - Goldfish

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hi, Pete.

Pete: So I had this experience the other day where I was trying to map out an upcoming workshop, and I was stuck on one particular thing. And the question that arose for me was, "Am I a goldfish?" And I think I need you...I need you to help me answer it. Am I a goldfish?

Jen: Yes, let us determine what species you actually are. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Are you a goldfish? What?

Pete: Because goldfish, you know, historically have very bad short-term memories, and long-term memories, I guess.

Jen: Ah, yes.

Pete: ...memories, in general. And I was trying to map out this workshop that I had coming up for, you know, an executive team at a big company. And I was like looking forward to it. I was excited about it. And I had this moment of like, "I'm sure I've talked about or mentioned or we've done an episode on this particular topic before." But I couldn't remember where, I couldn't remember when, I couldn't remember what episode, I couldn't remember the story that I would have told that would have articulated that particular thing. And I was kind of just like staring out the window with like a, you know, like a blank expression on my face. And I was sort of like, "Am I a goldfish? Why can't I remember such things that I know I've talked about at some point?" So, that's where it came from.

Jen: Ah, that really cracked me up. I thought, at first, you were going to go in a different direction. You know that...is it a meme? Is it a story? Is it a viral talk of some sort where someone shows two fish swimming? And then, I don't know if it's...is it another fish that comes along and says, "How's the water," and they go, "What's water?"

Pete: Yes. My favorite YouTube video of all time, which is actually a cut from a commencement speech that David Foster Wallace gave. It's been transcribed into a book. I actually have the book. I'm going to put it in the Box O' Goodies, because it's so good. But yes, that's like a whole separate episode.

Jen: A separate episode: Goldfish 2.0. Coming up in future weeks.

Pete: Yeah, that's more profound than this. This is like, basically, "How do I remember stuff, Jen? Why can't I remember stuff?" So, I thought maybe it would be helpful for us to...because I have practices in place that I definitely try and use to help me improve my, I guess, my memory, is what we're talking about. And I have no doubt that you have a bunch of ideas on how might we, as people who consume a lot of things, as people who record a lot of episodes, write a lot of blogs, how do we help ourselves remember the good stuff so that we can use it?

Jen: Yeah. Okay. I immediately want to call into this conversation the brilliant book by Annie Murphy Paul called The Extended Mind. It is so good. It's so enlightening. And honestly, it's a relief to read it because the book is very full of all different angles about what I'm going to say...but the basic premise is that we are fools if we believe that our mind is contained within our skull. Instead, our mind, yes, is part of our brain. But our body is also our mind. And then, we extend beyond our human form with whiteboarding, and journals, and there are so many different ways we can extend our mind and sort of like give ourselves a break. You're not going to remember everything you want to remember. So using tools, using different methods or systems for extending your mind can make you someone who can actually access the things that you want to remember because you wrote them down somewhere.

Pete: Yeah. Okay, I like this. I like this. It's like, take the pressure off it having to all be stored in your cranium. And instead, what are the tools, the signals, the semiotics, the like physical objects, the notepads that you can use to help extend your mind? Yeah, okay. I'm following. I'm following. There's a concept I've heard of...I hope I get this right. I'll put a resource to it in the Box O' Goodies. I'll do some research. I think it's called The Second Brain, and it strikes me as a similar idea. Basically, I think there's courses on how to create a second brain. The concept is basically, how do you create a place to store things so that you can recount them and recall them if and when you need them? Like, you know, a resource of all the books you've ever read, and you can kind of search it for transcripts or search it for words, or whatever.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: So it's like this concept of a second brain, same thing. Hmm.

Jen: Yes, because our mind is not a storage facility. It's a processing facility, but it's really not a storage place.

Pete: Yeah. It's wild, because I'm realizing in this moment, the thing that I did, that I ended up doing is I went on to our website, thelongandtheshortpodcast.com.

Jen: Uh-huh.

Pete: And I searched in the search bar-

Jen: Right.

Pete: -for this topic that I was thinking about...I can't even remember what it was, ironically...and it popped right up. And I was like, "Oh, there's the episode," and I went back and I listened to the episode. And in the episode, you and I shared some stories, and I was like, "Oh yeah, I completely forgot about that story in my cranium. But my extended mind here on thelongandtheshortpodcast.com had remembered it for me." So, that's like that in action.

Jen: That is such a great example. That search feature (that you added, by the way, to the website) is part of your extended mind. And P.S., the part of the book that really blew my extended mind is when she talks about how we use our body and physical gesture as an extension of our mind. When we're trying to remember something, we will physicalize the word before we actually come up with the word. Because we know what it is, so our body's like trying to get it out.

Pete: Wild.

Jen: This book is a must read. If you are a geek like we are, get yourself a copy of The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: So the other thing that I feel like might be worth us acknowledging is that you and I both, Pete, when we are reading books or listening to podcasts and we hear something or see something we want to remember, we have some sort of a system in place for noting that. I know for myself, in written form, the reason I like to own my books when it comes to nonfiction...I take fiction out of the library, but I buy my nonfiction books...is because I like to write in them. I like to take notes. And I actually have a system for what different underline versus square versus circle versus star versus margin notes, like what that all means to me. So, I can go back and pick up a book that I've read before and sort of decipher what I intended to remember. And when it comes to listening, I use a to-do app called Things. And I have two different macro lists in this app. One is actionable items. And the other is things that you can't take action on, but just things you want to remember. So that, you know, in that second section, I have subcategories like interesting things I've heard on podcasts, or ideas for our podcast, or a show that someone told me to see and I don't want to forget the name of it, or restaurants to try, or things like that. So, I have a place to store things that I've heard. And then, I have a system for annotating things that I'm reading. What about you?

Pete: Yeah, I have so many thoughts. I feel like this is going to be a very practical tactical episode, which I quite like. So the app that I use (that I love) is Notion.

Jen: Mmm. Mmm-hmm.

Pete: Which, I have many different lists and sections that I've broken it into. But one of them is, I have like just a list of the books that I've read. And then, I have just like random notes that are...for me, I split them by category of interests. So I have like leadership, and I have like podcasts, and I have books, and I have, I don't know, tech and I have startups. Like, I have a bunch that I just...they're very loose in terms of their organization, but they are structured in the sense that there is a place to put stuff. So, I use that. But probably the thing I do most, actually, from a podcast perspective if I start there, is I text myself. So when I hear something on a podcast and I'm like, "Oh my god, I want to remember that," in order for me to be listening to a podcast, I usually have to have my phone nearby, so I just text myself. And then, it pops up to the top of my, you know, text inbox. And I tend to go into my text inbox quite a lot during the day, so it's like a constant way of checking and reminding myself of that thing. So, I use that. It's funny, as you were describing your process with books, I realized one of the reasons I actually love real books as opposed to, say, a Kindle...like, I love my Kindle for the purposes of travel. And something I'm realizing, literally in this moment, is, I have a harder time recounting things that I've read from books in a Kindle than I do from things that I read from a book book. And I actually think this goes to what you were just talking about with the extended mind, which is, I can recall the color of the book cover and the feel and the weight and the size and the smell of a particular book, and that makes me remember more what was in the book.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: So, I do dog ears as I'm reading a book, you know, fold the page in half. And then, what I try and do is, I go back and I revisit all the dog ears, and I write it into a separate notebook. I have a notebook that's basically just got book summary notes.

Jen: Mmm.

Pete: And that is helpful. But I actually think, more to the point, the tactile nature of the book, the smell, the color, the weight is helping me remember. That's fascinating. I'd never thought about that before.

Jen: I don't know if your mind works this way, but when I am looking for something I've read, I even know which side of the page it's on.

Pete: Oh, wild. Yeah, me too. Me too. I usually know, "Okay, I know where this book is in my house."

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: "And I know," I do, yeah, "I know there was like a little subheading just above it. I can picture it." Yeah.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: That's crazy.

Jen: Isn't it?

Pete: Crazy.

Jen: Isn't that wild?

Pete: Hmm.

Jen: Okay, and I just want to say to our listeners, I would love to hear from you about what your systems are. In particular, around podcasts. I would really love to hear what people do. Because sometimes you're in a situation where you're driving or something and you can't text, so I'm curious to know what other people do.

Pete: The other thing I've done in the past is, I would screenshot.

Jen: Oh, that's smart.

Pete: Because it has the time of where you are.

Jen: The timestamp, yes. Oh, that's a good one. Okay, I want to also talk about...we're talking about things that you want to remember. And sometimes, there are things you have to remember. This comes up a lot in my work, because I work with actors, and so they are memorizing material constantly. And like, a running joke in the acting community is, if you ever do a show that has a talkback where the actors come out on stage after and answer questions from the audience, someone in the audience, after watching you pour your blood and guts onto the stage and like ripping your heart open, is going to raise their hand and say, "How do you memorize all those lines?"

Pete: Yes, it's so true. I'm a muggle, and I feel like that's one of the things you look at with awe of people who are able to. Yeah, so funny. Ah, that's hilarious.

Jen: So, there are also great systems and practices and techniques for memorization. And just, as a person who watches so many people memorizing all the time, there is no one way. And the best way to find out what your way is, is to experiment with many ways.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: When I was teaching at NYU, my students there were really struggling with this because they had so many different kinds of things to memorize: a Shakespeare soliloquy for one class, a song for another class, a Chekhov scene for another class. And they were really stressed out about it, so I put together for them a bunch of resources (kind of like a Box O Goodies) around memorization techniques. And maybe I will drop all those into a Google Doc and share the link in our Box O' Goodies, so people can take a look. But it's not like...yes, I'm sure there are some people who are born with a memorization gift, but most of us have to work for it.

Pete: Totally. There's a documentary...I can't recall the name of...about a journalist who wants to learn more about the world of memorization. And he enters the world, gets a coach, and like a year later, he wins the World Memorization Championship or something.

Jen: Yes. I've heard this story, but I didn't know there was a documentary about it. Ooh, I would love to watch that.

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a skill. Basically, the discovery is, it's a skill that anyone can cultivate. "I was just a random journalist, and now I'm the World Memory Champion." Yeah, we'll see if we can do that up. Gosh, I like the sound of the Box O' Goodies within the Box O' Goodies, by the way, that's like a real inception kind of moment. In terms of like, I don't even know if this is helpful, but like very tactical things that I've done in the past when I had to memorize certain talks, which there was less flexibility around being fluid with the script...because usually I like remember stories and then I tell stories, so it sounds a little different every time. But when I had to memorize a couple of speeches in the past, and when I was at school, actually...I think I got this from my mom. I think it was her idea, when I was at school. We used to stick things in the shower, inside a plastic sleeve so it didn't get wet. And because you would inevitably have a shower every day, you'd spend five minutes staring straight ahead at this thing. And I found if I do it every time I had a shower then I definitely did it once a day, and it became something that I remembered a lot easier.

Jen: Oh my gosh, I wish you had told me that when Cate was learning her multiplication tables.

Pete: Thanks, Momma Shep.

Jen: Oh, that's such a great idea. This is reminding me, ironically, of a book called Make It Stick. Which, was actually recommended to me by my daughter. She saw the cover and was like, "I think my mom would like this book." And so, she told me to get it, and I did, and she was right. And it's basically a book about the science of how we learn and how we hold on to the things that we've learned, so we have less goldfish moments and more like, "Oh, I consumed that in a way that made it sticky for me, that it's still in there somewhere."

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. It's helpful to hear all of these tools and techniques, and to remind myself of the things that I use. Because what it also articulates is, it's so human to forget stuff. You know?

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: So, to consume...yes. To develop ways of remembering...yes. And, to give yourself a break when when you forget things. Because there's a reason that we need to practice them as skills, there's a reason we need to have techniques, there's a reason we need to extend our mind. Because, like you mentioned earlier, as humans, we're not necessarily hardwired to remember everything.

Jen: Well, Pete, I guess this is the perfect time, then, to circle back to the very top of this episode. I'd like to ask you a question, Peter Shepherd. Are you a goldfish?

Pete: No. No, I'm not a goldfish. I think I'm a human.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.