I don’t keep track of random ideas anymore. I trust fully that I won’t run out of ideas. Writing down every idea you have is a symptom of anxiety in my book, or to be more precise, a lack of trust in yourself.

I eliminate whatever is unnecessary to make progress with my work and keep just one README.md on the progress I’m making. If an idea is critical to whatever it is I happen to be working on I write it down on a piece of paper, to be consumed quickly by the README.

It’s freeing and it’s made me considerably happier at work.

What most people, including researchers, don’t get is that depression causes distorted thinking. Black and white thinking is merely a symptom of the disorder. CBT’s approach to depression is wildly inaccurate and damaging. If you can change how you feel by changing your perspective you are NOT suffering from clinical depression. You are at worst morose, lethargic, and unmotivated. Depression includes those, but is much more; it calls itself apathy, but is actually a survival mechanism unlike any other. Think of bipolar disorder. Their range goes from -20 to 30 in terms of emotional intensity instead of 0 - 10 for normal people. Except our nervous system can’t really handle that kind of intensity, so every manic episode MUST be followed by a depressive episode, otherwise they would die. Or think of post-partum depression, a state in which a mother’s body has been pushed to the extreme (8 on the pain scale, easily). The body returns to a depressed state to survive until it has recovered. Distorted thought patterns, lack of motivation, and sense of lethargy are merely symptoms of this state.

While interesting ideas, is there any evidence for any of your claims? In the meantime CBT has been shown in clinical trials to be as effective as drugs although not necessarily as fast acting. CBT has also been shown to last longer.