The premise of this workshop: thinking is a skill, and like most skills, it can be practiced and improved with the right tools. We spent two hours exploring what that looks like in practice.
Format
Unlike the reading group, this was hands-on. We broke into groups of four for most exercises, with brief periods of sharing back to the full room.
Topics We Covered
Writing as Thinking
We started with a 15-minute free-write exercise: explain a complex idea to someone unfamiliar with it. The goal wasn't the output — it was noticing where you got stuck. Where you couldn't explain something clearly is usually where you don't fully understand it.
Several people reported being surprised by how quickly gaps in their own understanding became apparent.
Spaced Repetition
Quick overview of the evidence for spaced repetition as a learning tool, then a practical demonstration. A few people in the room already use Anki religiously; they answered questions from the others.
Interesting conversation about what to put in your card deck — most people overbuild cards for factual recall and underbuild for conceptual understanding.
AI as Interlocutor
The longest section. We each picked a topic we'd been thinking about and had a 10-minute conversation with an LLM, then discussed what was and wasn't useful.
The most effective technique reported: telling the model to push back on your reasoning rather than just respond to it. "Steelman the opposing view" and "what's wrong with this argument" were particularly useful prompts.
What We Didn't Get To
We didn't get to graph-based thinking tools (Obsidian, Logseq) or the question of when tools become crutches. Those are on the list for a future session.
Next Session
We're planning a follow-up focused specifically on writing — probably in March. Sign up for the mailing list to hear about it.