(2025-02-26) Zeigler The Tiny Experiments Of Time Binders Anne-Laure le Cunff Meets Chris Mayer

Matt Zeigler: The Tiny Experiments Of Time Binders: Anne-Laure Le Cunff Meets Chris Mayer On JUST PRESS RECORD. I've been dying to release this conversation between Anne-Laure Le Cunff and Chris Mayer for Just Press Record. I strongly suspected an ex-Googler turned learn-in-public neuroscientist would have a thought or two about speaking with a multi-disciplinary investor who’s got a language philosophy soft spot. But, what I didn’t expect was just how switched-on these two professional curiosity cultivators were going to get by each other’s work.

In both of their cases, it’s not just what they know—it’s how they organize what they don't yet know. It’s all about inspiration collecting. Anne-Laure's got her "curiosity inbox" and Chris has got a journaling practice.

When was the last time you had a conversation with who you were six months ago about what you’ve been working on and why? Anne-Laure does this weekly through her "plus-minus-next" framework, creating a paper trail of her evolving mind. Chris time-stamps his thoughts, basing his process on the lessons of “general semantics”, making it impossible to lie to himself about what he once believed.

They call their approaches by different names, but they’re strikingly similar. Not to mention, they both are focused on harnessing serendipities (serendipity), i.e. the stuff they can’t even imagine planning for. I started referring to them as "sandboxes" in my notes. I was trying to capture this image of a place where half-formed ideas can be played with before being more formally invited to a "construction site." (incubator, digital garden)

In an age obsessed with optimization, there's something refreshingly human about these approaches. Neither guest advocates for a rigid system. Instead, they've developed flexible frameworks that accommodate the messy, non-linear nature of human thinking, without stretching their brains to the breaking point.

See also (2025-02-28) Zeigler Tiny Experiments That Turn Burning Out Into Burning Up