Saturday, November 26, 2022

I do not make an external to-do list.



I haven't been able to write anything in this space for a week now, due to a hectic schedule involving lectures and travel.


Meanwhile, I was feeling that there was always something in my mind, mostly unconscious, suggesting and urging to write an entry in the qualia journal. This is a phenomenon probably familiar to you all, and I find it quite interesting in terms of brain functions involved.

When you haven't met someone for sometime, there would often a "reminder" in your head, alerting and nudging you to make a contact to that person in question. When there is an overdue homework, you would be often unconsciously reminded of it. Sometimes, things would emerge out of the blue, presenting a case that it needs to be done immediately. It would be interesting to speculate how this is done in the brain circuits, possibly involving the lateral prefrontal cortex

 (LPFC), but it is also quite fascinating to acknowledge that such a cognitive process exists at all. 


I do not make an external to-do list. I have a habit of holding a mental image of what needs to be done in the short, medium, and long terms, and try to do something from that list whenever there are a few spare minutes, hopefully reducing the stack. 


Now that I have written something brief here (this entry), there are other items I need to attend to, and I would try to do so at my next available leisure.


1 comment:

(ma)gog said...

I'm glad to know how you feel about your qualia journal. I truly enjoy reading your entries although I cannot always catch up writing comments here. This week has been hectic for me like yours and as I have to work on Saturdays as well, I'm quite exhausted right now... But I am happy to have found you've written your journal today. It's been more than ten years since I started following your blog, and for me this is the safe base that I can always come back to and that gives me a warm sense of connection which means so much to me. I know that there's no betrayal here. Please forgive me for being too emotional...it's just because of a few glasses of my favorite red wine. That's my every weekend's treat to myself!