In the 2016 film Passengers, Chris Pratt found himself alone on a spaceship that had spent years in space. The only company he had was a robot bartender that looked and talked like a human. As a viewer, it was easy to forget that the bartender was just a machine. The robot’s words seemed like they had been written by a human screenwriter.
This idea of talking through a problem to organize your thoughts is not new. In 1806, Heinrich von Kleist advised a friend, Otto August Rühle von Lilienstern, to talk through his meditation issues. Kleist was interested in “the gradual development of thoughts while speaking.” He found that talking to his clueless sister about a problem forced him to organize his thoughts.
In 2023, the author had a programming project called AssetStorm. He talked to a colleague about how the software could save changes to texts in the database. Though his colleague agreed with him, he was too busy to help. The author decided not to let anyone help him. He realized that he could gain more knowledge by working on the project alone.
Talking through a problem can help you organize your thoughts. Even if the person you’re talking to doesn’t understand the problem, the act of speaking can force you to clarify your thoughts. The author found that working on his programming project alone allowed him to gain more knowledge.
