When it comes to your information diet, you are what you eat (consume).
If you’re constantly feeding on trashy social media posts designed to keep you engaged with the platform at all costs, you’re going to naturally feel angry and exhausted.
Fortunately, it works the other way too. In fact, you can increase your mind’s “upper limit” by curating the kind of content you consistently consume.
This phenomenon is known as the theory of maximum taste. In this post, I’m going to show you how you can use it to increase the quality of the information you consume (which in turn improves the quality of your ideas and helps you get more practical value out of your PKM system).
The Theory of Maximum Taste
The theory of maximum taste is the idea that each person’s mind is defined by its upper limit, that is, the best of what it habitually consumes and is capable of consuming.
This idea comes from David Brooks in an article for The Atlantic in the form of a printed commencement speech never given during the pandemic year of 2020:
My worry is that, especially now that you’re out of college, you won’t put enough really excellent stuff into your brain. I’m talking about what you might call the “theory of maximum taste.” This theory is based on the idea that exposure to genius has the power to expand your consciousness. If you spend a lot of time with genius, your mind will end up bigger and broader than if you spend your time only with run-of-the-mill stuff.
The theory of maximum taste says that each person’s mind is defined by its upper limit—the best that it habitually consumes and is capable of consuming.A few years ago, I was teaching students at a highly competitive college.
Simultaneously, I was leading seminars for 30- and 40-somethings, many of whom had gone to that same college. I assigned the same essay to both groups, an essay on Tolstoy by the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin. The college students found it easy to read; it’s not that hard of an essay to grasp. The 30- and 40-somethings really struggled. Their reading comprehension ability had declined in the decades since college, and so had their ability to play with ideas. The upper limit of their mind was lower than it used to be.
I've noticed this trend myself. I think it’s kind of natural, given our digital culture and the amount of information that is available to us. We tend to take the path of least resistance and consume the knowledge equivalent of fast food far too often.
I also think this is a big problem.
Fortunately, it’s a problem with a pretty simple solution: curate your information sources.
Not All Information is Created Equal
I kind of inadvertently started embracing the theory of maximum taste when I started reading non-fiction books more regularly.
I enjoyed writing about productivity and knew I wanted to create more consistently. So, I bet that reading more productivity books would make the act of creating easier for me.
🚨 Spoiler Alert: that’s exactly what happened.
The more books I read, the more dots I collected. Since creativity is a formula and the act of creating is simply connecting dots in new and interesting ways, this gave me more (and better) dots to work with.
In the book Hyperfocus, author Chris Bailey makes the point that not all dots are created equal. He shares a chart with a line that shows the inverse relationship between Usefulness and Entertainment Value:
While I generally agree with the point Chris is making here, there’s another point we need to consider that ties back to the theory of maximum taste:
Your preferences (your taste) can change.
Changing Your Preferences
Here’s the key point: you can learn to love the things that are good for you.
When I first started going to the gym, I hated it. It was hard, and it hurt. But I did it consistently, and I learned to love the feeling after I finished my workout.
Now, I feel off if I don‘t get to the gym.
The same thing happened when I started reading nonfiction books, but I’ll be honest: the first nonfiction book I read was really tough to get through.
It was Getting Things Done by David Allen, and while I thought it probably had the answers I was seeking to help me get a better grasp on everything I needed to do, it was still a slog for me to get through.
But over time, I’ve learned to love reading non-fiction books. In other words, my taste has changed.
This happened in conjunction with my upper limit increasing in accordance with the theory of maximum taste, creating a virtuous cycle.
If you want to change your preferences and increase your upper limit, here’s how to start:
- Build a reading habit. Even if it’s only 5-10 minutes per day, the momentum will start to build.
- Pick books that solve a problem you’re currently facing. This will add motivation and increase the likelihood that you can actually apply something from what you’re reading.
- If someone you look up to recommends a book, buy it right away. You’ll start to build a collection of useful things to read, and you’ll always have a pre-vetted book ready to go.
- Build an Antilibrary. There’s value in having books in your physical environment that you haven’t read yet. Add books that you believe will add value, even if you don’t read them right away.
Books aren’t the only medium that the theory of maximum taste applies to. You can curate your information sources for just about any medium — podcasts, YouTube videos, RSS, and newsletters.
And if you do, you'll expand your upper limit and find it a lot easier to be creative.
