Skip to content

PLANSFLOW / BLOGRESEARCH · MEMORY · AI

Notes on
thinking well.

What the research actually says about memory, context, and working alongside a model — and what it means for how a workspace should be built.

Explore the notes

IN FOCUS01 / VISUAL THINKING

Visual thinking26 Sep 2026Research note

Seeing the shape of a problem.

Laying a problem out in space is not decoration — it puts related things side by side and makes the gaps visible.

FIG. 01Scattered sources gathered into two related groups, one with a visible gap, leading to a single next step.

The notebook

07 NOTES / AN OPEN EXPLORATION

FIG. 02A schematic of stronger recall at the beginning and end of a context window. Not measured data.

Context4 Aug 2026Research note

Lost in the middle

Hand a model twenty documents and ask it a question.

FIG. 03Four locations connected by a memorable route.

Memory21 Jul 2026Research note

The oldest interface for memory

The method of loci — placing things you want to remember at points along a route you already know — is more than two thousand years old, and it is still what competitive memorisers use.

FIG. 04Received text and a line made by hand: two ways of engaging with information.

Practice9 Jul 2026Research note

What you write, you keep

Psychologists named the generation effect in 1978: people remember material they produced themselves far better than the same material handed to them already finished.

FIG. 05The same six items move from a sequence into a spatial arrangement.

Canvas25 Jun 2026Research note

Moving things to think

Watching expert Tetris players in 1994, researchers noticed they rotated pieces on screen far more than placing them required.

FIG. 06Two examples provide a concrete reference for an output.

Craft11 Jun 2026Research note

Show, don’t specify

Describing the output you want in careful prose is usually worse than showing two examples of it.

FIG. 07A constraint shifts from drafting toward context and verification.

Models28 May 2026Research note

The bottleneck moves

Every advance in model capability relocates the hard part rather than removing it.

More to come. We publish when there is something worth reading.

Back to top ↑

FROM READING TO MAKING

Start with one sentence.

Describe what you’re starting, and give it a place to grow.