Cognitive Ecology

I’ve been working remote fully since 2017. And, even before that, I was working at home in between days at the office. My most productive days were working at home. There were no shoulder-taps or interruptions. Just me and focused work.

When I worked in an open office, I would wake up at 4 AM and get to the office by 5 AM just so I could get 3-4 hours of focused work in before anyone got in. And I would stop early in the afternoon. I loved this schedule. But alas, I’m in a new phase of life with kids and other responsibilities and yada yada yada.

As much as I love working remote, there are still downsides. I miss sitting in a room in front of a whiteboard, deeply thinking, discussing, and working through hard problems with smart people. I miss the organic collisions that stimulated new perspectives when someone showed up at your desk or invited you to look at something they’re working on. Nobody withheld questions or ideas; they were always floating in the air. This contributed to an atmosphere ripe for interruption, but, at the same time, conducive to the serendipity creative work thrives on. All things live in tension.

So what does this mean for creative work today in an increasingly remote, increasingly fast-paced, and isolated environment?

You have your Claude or ChatGPT or other fill-in-the-blank AI chatbot holding the context for all your thinking. Your teammates have the same thing. Ideas circulate, but weighted to the opinions of everyone’s AI assistant. I can’t tell you how many “here’s what Claude said” conversations I’ve been a part of. A piece of my soul dies every time it happens. One person shares information from a chat with Claude, promptly rebutted by another person’s Claude. It only ends when the critical-thinking human evaluates the information and makes a rational decision about it.

Someone has to translate the information.

I urge you to be that person. The future belongs to those who learn to think slowly and deeply in systems designed for speed and immediate outputs. Don’t surrender your cognition to machines; enhance it. Build a hybrid intelligence that permits you to focus more on what you are good at and enjoy.

Engage with the creative process.

I was talking to my Head of Design in our weekly 1-on-1 recently. We had this exact conversation after we discussed changes in the product. He was working on new concepts for an area of the product that’s in need of a fresh look. We were deciding on the conceptual direction to take the design as we experiment with the long-term future state of the product. I had an idea for a new way to think about the experience. It expanded the possibilities as we engaged in a lively discussion.

But when we considered next steps, it felt like a mistake to bring together a larger group because the divergent thinking would quickly reach a consensus. Or worse, the discussion would move to a “design by committee” format where a Frankenstein-ed version of the feature would emerge. Either way, you rush something that needs time to develop and reach its natural end state.

Independent vs. Collaborative

This is a contrast between independent thinking and collaborative discussion.

One isn’t better than the other. They each have their place in the process. Sometimes you need to go deep and think alone. Sometimes you need a group of divergent perspectives mixed in a collaborative and lively debate to find novel insights and solutions. The contrast between the two, in and of itself, is what adds value because your thinking is challenged in different ways.

When you’re by yourself, you have to reconcile what you know with what you don’t know. You form your own personal mental model and meet reality with it.

When you think in a group, personalities and relationship dynamics affect how ideas are shared. There needs to be psychological safety for productive debate to occur.

In both instances, the contrast of environment is where the value lives.

When I was talking to the Head of Design about exploring the concept further, we came up with the idea of asking stakeholders open-ended questions about the product area we are working on redesigning. We interview them 1-on-1 or 2-on-1 to capture their perspective without risking the consensus too early in a group discussion. If you want something easier than a meeting, you can even send them a quick question prompt over chat or email.

For example, you could ask them:

If you could completely change { feature } what would you do?

Or some flavor of this style of question.

This is just an experiment right now, but the contrast between individual and collaborative is the important contrast to understand.

In Cognitive Disciplines, I argued:

As AI collapses execution into a repetitive motion, the human collaboration becomes more valuable than ever.

What I’m expressing here is the value of protecting divergence—of making sure you don’t converge and force a consensus before the idea is ready. That’s what happens when AI and prompting results in quick decisions that solve the wrong problem.

Analog vs. Digital

Thinking and reaching a consensus is influenced not just by whether you’re thinking alone or together. It’s also affected by the surfaces you engage with.

I like to do some things analog and some things digital. I always have a notebook next to me for sketching ideas and jotting down notes. But I also love infinite canvases in digital tools like Figma or Whimsical or Obsidian. I’m a very visual person. That’s how I learn. I have to turn the information into some sort of visual and narrative that helps me internalize the mental model. But I often work through a single idea in both surfaces as a way to contrast and stimulate my thinking.

Paper gives you edges. A canvas removes them.

Paper adds friction. Digital is effortless.

In Edge Environments, I argued:

You can infuse novelty into your routines to stoke curiosity, creativity, and fresh energy that lights the fire of inspiration.

What I’m expressing here is protecting divergence through the use of distinct mediums so you stay with the problem longer and don’t surrender to consensus too quickly.

Human vs. Artificial

Another clear example is the use of AI and the use of your human intelligence.

In Thinking Current, I argued:

The future belongs to people who preserve their ability to think slowly inside systems designed for speed.

What I’m expressing here is not short-circuiting the thinking required to develop ideas over time before reaching a consensus.

Submitting a prompt to an LLM is part of the issue. It’s so easy. You type something and you get something plausible back. But what you read influences your thinking in ways you may not realize. It’s like the saying that you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. We are greatly influenced by the information we engage with regularly. It’s important to engage with what matters and to be mindful of the timing. Use AI, but as a tool to expand your thinking, not limit it.

The Philosophy

Every environment exerts influence on your thinking. When one environment dominates, independent thinkers can be pulled toward the same conclusions before genuine divergence occurs. Cognitive diversity depends on preserving contrast long enough for distinct perspectives to form.

The Principle

Protect difference before you integrate it.

The Practice

1. Choose the contrast. Identify environments that exert meaningfully different forces on the work.
2. Separate the environments. Give each mode enough space to influence thinking without blending it with the others.
3. Develop distinct perspectives. Let ideas mature independently before introducing consensus pressure.
4. Compare the differences. Surface tensions, contradictions, and novel directions that emerged because the environments stayed distinct.
5. Integrate selectively. Synthesize only after meaningful divergence exists, preserving the strongest differences instead of averaging them away.