Chapter 6

Going Meta

"I think it is an extremely valuable thing, to train our mind to stand apart and examine its own program." – Stephen R. Covey

"In a time of rapid change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." – Eric Hoffer

"Meta" means above, so I use the phrase "going meta" to describe the process of rising above. There are two main ways of applying this distinction to knowledge work:

• Traversing the structure of information, facilitated by tools such as Mind Maps.
• Traversing the structure of your thoughts in order to optimize key mental processes.

The emphasis in this chapter is on training your mind to stand apart and examine its own "program." Specifically, this chapter is about fine tuning the mental software you use to learn and interact with information.