284. Curiosity Management

<p>Do you ever feel like you don’t have the time and energy to learn about everything you want to know? Is it hard to stay focused on reading one book, when there’s ten others you want to read? You need curiosity management.</p> <p>Curiosity management is the management of your thirst to know things. In a world with unlimited access to information, and finite time and energy, it’s impossible to read every book, watch every documentary, or take every online course.</p> <h3>Unmanaged curiosity leads to “curiosity pressure”</h3> <p>This leads to a feeling of “curiosity pressure.” Curiosity pressure is the feeling you’ll never learn all the things you want to learn.</p> <p>When you’re under time pressure – curiosity pressure’s close cousin – and feel you don’t have enough time to do everything, your anxiety makes it hard to do one thing. When you’re under curiosity pressure and feel you can’t learn everything, your anxiety makes it hard to learn one thing.</p> <p>A good curiosity-management system matches your level of curiosity with an appropriate level of engagement with the topic, given your available time and energy.</p> <h3>The downward spiral of poor retention, & feelings of inadequacy</h3> <p>A day in the life of a curious mind looks like this:</p> <ul> <li>Think of thing you want to learn about, such as the chemical processes behind making soap.</li> <li>Instantly go to Wikipedia.</li> <li>Follow every link and every footnote.</li> <li>Regain consciousness four hours later, with one-hundred tabs open, and no recollection of what you’ve consumed. Inexplicably, one of the tabs is about the Lorena Bobbitt scandal.</li> <li>Feel bad that you got nothing done, and didn’t learn much either.</li> </ul> <h4>Surplus curiosity</h4> <p>When you don’t satisfy your curiosity, despite doing the activities of investigation – such as reading or watching videos – you’re overcome with “surplus curiosity.” Surplus curiosity is a feeling you should always be investigating more topics.</p> <p>The anxiety and inadequacy you feel f