Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.
—David Allen, GTD for Teens
The more I hold in my head, the more my head flips around between thoughts, the less focused I am, the less productive I am.
Just write the thought down, bring it to a (temporary) closure, and focus on the task at hand.
I’ve already been doing it for a while. David just helped me understand how and why it works.
Also, a big help was a tactic from another book—either Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, or Make Time by Jake Knapp and JZ. The tactic is simple:
When I want to look up something of interest, instead of doing it right away, I jot it down in a place—a scratch note in Keep for me. This takes the thought out of my head, and it stops be from taking a diversion into as possible time sink as interesting as it may be).
This tactic has been invaluable to me over the left few months.
Here’s a snapshot of the current scratch note:
