Welcome back to the 1st Law Newsletter - Friday Edition.

In this email:

• The natural limit of simultaneous thoughts

• How to speak better

• The nature of wants and desires

Why you should be a (temporary) forgetter

Do you ever feel like you can't think straight? Like you have too many thoughts at once? Well, most of us probably do at certain times. However, it's not surprise and I will explain why.

In 1956, George A. Miller wrote a paper for the Psychological Review titled "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" that explained how people can only remember 7±2 (5 - 9) thoughts/ ideas at once. 7 ideas at once is not a lot. For example, I imagine most people have these ones going at all times: work, family, friends, significant other (bf/gf), eating, hobby, an upcoming event. That's 7 already... No wonder you don't have the capacity to ponder your life purpose or the secrets of the universe - your brain is already full!

What can we do about this? I feel like the simplest and most holistic answer is to practice being mindful with your precious attention and strive to improve your focus. Be a forgetter (temporarily). For example, do not multitask. When you switch tasks, really switch tasks and forget about the previous one. Focus completely on your new task. When you are working, work with concentration and intent, not with a YouTube video going on in the background. When you are cooking, focus on cooking and forget about the work you need to do when you are done. If you are with your friends, let go of the problems that may be waiting for you when you return to work and allow yourself to truly relax.

Distraction is the killer of creativity and productivity. You must guard your mind and curate your thoughts.

Improving your Lexicon

How to you decide what works to use when you speak? Do you find yourself repeating the same words to describe many things? Have you noticed how you adopt slang from friends and use it yourself after hearing it a few times? All these questions can be answered by exploring the concept of the lexicon.

A lexicon is the complete set meaningful units in a language (the dictionary is the complete lexicon). Your personal lexicon consists of words that you use. The surface lexicon is frequently used words, while the deep lexicon is the seldom used words. For all of us who aim to be more eloquent and captivating speakers, we need to increase the breadth of our lexicon and more frequently using words form the deeper layers of our lexicon.

How do we do this? A few methods:

1. Expand your surface lexicon by bringing up words from your deep lexicon. Use repetition (repeat some good words you know), read the dictionary and highlight new words when reading books to come back to them later.

2. Give yourself time to think before speaking to allow more complex words to rise to the surface. Speak slower and add pauses to your speech.

3. Prune your filler words (try not to say um or like) and practice keeping your mouth closed until you are truly ready to speak.

Practical ways to practice: read books out loud and practice your pronunciation and enunciation or record yourself speaking and listen back and critique yourself. You can also practice reading famous speeches.

Quote I Want To Share

I always find myself looking forward to something... the next big event in my life, or until I obtain a certain object... Sometimes I catch myself and instead practice just looking forward to tomorrow and another day of life, or my next breath.

Thanks for reading!

Lucas