To see how much information you have in yourself, write all of them out of your brain.

  • Ready your favorite stationery
  • Start 5-minutes timer
  • Write anything that came to your mind

Since I usually write on 50 mm × 38 mm pieces of paper (fusen), I use the word “piece” as a unit of information since here. For the KJ method described later, to use pieces of paper is useful.

However, if you do not have suitable stationery, you should use your most familiar way to write. Write all out now, rather than procrastinating to buy stationery. You can use a notebook or an electronic device.

The concept to write all the information in the brain first before organizing them is similar to the GTD introduced in (2.1.2) Getting Things Done: Collect all first. In GTD, what to write is not limited to tasks, but you write out everything that caught you. (*1)

In the “to write all out” method in this section, it is not limited to the sentences which you actually write in the report. You write out all the information that seems to be related to the topic. Suppose a thought came to your mind, and it does not seem to be related to the topic. Write anything that came to your mind. You may find the relation after.

Note 1: In other words, the first step of GTD is to apply “to write all out” method to the task-management.

Keywords: measure

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