A few weeks ago, I got to interview one of my Internet heroes, Derek Sivers, for the Focused podcast.
It was an incredible conversation (one of my favorites!) that covered everything from personal agency to idea ownership to saying no.
We discussed a few of the big ideas from his new book, Useful Not True. But one comment he made in particular has been turning over and over in my brain since he said it:
No new inputs.
No New Instructions for the Computer
Derek Sivers is my kind of nerd.
He’s an advocate for plain text, doesn’t like Facebook, and is a huge fan of journaling.
He’s also a computer programmer with a unique perspective on information gathering. And he has a few things to teach us about personal knowledge management (PKM).
In our conversation, Derek shared a little bit of his thinking behind an essay in his newest book, titled No New Instructions for the Computer:
“Every time I take in more input, it changes the algorithm, which can’t then do its work. I just need to stop all new inputs and say, that’s enough, I’m gonna use what I’ve got and focus entirely on the output now without any interruptions.”
In other words, there comes a time when you need to put the phone down and do something with what you already have.
Output is More Important Than Input
A common mistake people make is that they collect more and more information without doing anything with it.
I call this The Digital Magpie Trap.
Why?
While magpies are often considered to be very intelligent birds, they tend to collect shiny objects that have no relevance and stick them in their nests.
Aspiring sensemakers end up doing the same thing. They grab whatever shiny new object catches their attention and stick it in their note-taking app. They're constantly collecting things because they believe the answer is out there somewhere, and they just need to find it.
But at some point, we have to shift our thinking. The truth is, we likely already have everything we require - we just need to do something with it.
We need to stop collecting and start creating.
Create, Don’t Consume
We gather more information because we’re unsure. We don’t understand something, so we look outside for the answers.
However, a curious phenomenon occurs: the more information we consume, the less confident we become.
It's not about having information, it's about doing something with it.
The way we discover the clarity we’re after is through creating.
There’s a saying that goes, “Thoughts disentangle themselves through lips and pencil tips.”
I would add: “and also clicky keyboards.”
The act of writing helps us process our thoughts and enables us to discover what we truly know. When we create instead of consume, we’re forced to organize our existing knowledge into coherent patterns.
This is where the real magic happens.
So the next time you feel the urge to collect more information, stop. Close your browser tabs. Put away the books.
No new inputs. Do something! Start creating with what you already have.
