The problem is that the world is chaotic. You cannot organize everything. Therefore, before you begin working, create a small space of the purest order there is: nothing. This is commonly called a “work surface.”

You use a work surface to temporarily place things while you’re working on them. If something is on your work surface, it needs action. When the work is done, you put items in storage, like a closet or folder.

Managing noisy AI outputs is much easier when you bring small chunks, like sections of an outline, onto a work surface.

In a frantically paced world, the literal and figurative space to think long thoughts requires curation and constraint.

Research shows that multitasking hurts. I get the same feeling when colleagues share AI-generated outlines, diagrams, and prototypes that are dense with information-noise, like I need to multitask just to process the thing.

There is a joint in woodworking called the dovetail. It requires no glue. No screws. Just two pieces of wood cut with such precision that they lock together through geometry alone - tight, strong, beautiful. A master joiner can cut one by hand in minutes. An apprentice might spend a whole afternoon and still produce something that rocks.

The dovetail cannot be faked. You either cut it true or you don’t.

I think about the dovetail a lot when I watch AI generate interfaces. The outputs are often beautiful - smooth, considered, plausible. But they lack the dovetail quality.