Write down your thoughts? (Gladwell)

September 18th, 2007  |  Published in Psychology, Quotes, Writing

When you write down your thoughts, your chances of having the flash of insight you need in order to come up with a solution are significantly impaired – just as describing the face of your waitress made you unable to pick her out of a police lineup…. With a logic problem, asking people to explain themselves doesn’t impair their ability to come up with the answers. In some cases, in fact, it may help. But problems that require a flash of insight operate by different rules.

–Malcolm Gladwell, Blink (2005), p. 121

Like what you see? Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Leave a Response