The Nexus Method: How to make the most of what you learn

When your head is full of information, how can you actually make use of it?

Unsplash / Aedrian Salazar / Kevin Wang

I would like to coin a word: lethomanthia. Lethomanthia is that feeling of forgetting something as you are learning it. I get lethomanthia a lot when I listen to a long and intensely educational podcast. I get it two pages into most nonfiction books. It’s that feeling of, “Wow, what a cool fact. I have no chance of remembering or repeating it.”

I wish that I weren’t such an accomplished lethomanthiac. It would be great if I could take everything I’ve heard and learned in the past year and put it to some concise use. Well, it turns out I’m in luck.

In this week’s Mini Philosophy interview, I spoke with Iain McGilchrist. As a psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and philosopher, McGilchrist is one of the most famous and erudite polymaths writing today, so if there’s anyone who knows how to sort an encyclopaedic catalogue of knowledge into something useful, it’s him. And over our conversation, McGilchrist offered a strategy that we can all learn from. It’s something I’ve come to call the Nexus Method.

The Nexus Method

There is a huge depth and richness to McGilchrist’s books. The chapters oscillate from subject to subject, and where you find them in the bookshop depends largely on the arbitrary whims of the manager. McGilchrist knows so much about so much that you wonder: How can he use that information? When you spend years in research, on top of decades of learning, how can you hope to craft something precise and directed?

So, he invented a method.

“I wrote down 70 words that were nexus — the center of a nexus of ideas,” he says. “I cut up pieces of paper and put one nexus word on each. I would look at what I was writing and try to cluster my notes under those 70 headings. Then I moved them around on the drawing-room floor to try and find a way of relating them.”

The Nexus Method involves four steps:

• First, isolate a selection of themes you want to explore. McGilchrist had 70, but most people will probably have considerably fewer. Write these themes on cards and give each its own space.

• Second, research. Read books, listen to lectures, or watch video tutorials.

• Third, take note of all the interesting ideas you think might be relevant, label them with one or more nexus words, and slot them alongside the best fit.

• Fourth, sit back and examine what you have. Wait for the patterns to emerge.

McGilchrist describes the end result as a kind of chaotic tangle. “It looks a bit like the Krebs cycle,” he jokes, but that’s the point. As you look down at the tangle, you start to see the connections and commonalities. It’s only when you connect ideas to nexus points that you see the threads joining them. For example, it might be that an idea could be equally at home in two nexuses — and those would make for great transition points or explanations. Or it might be that one idea is jarringly out on its own, with only a tenuous link to one fringe nexus. Perhaps it’s an idea to dump.

The psychology of the nexus

The Nexus Method is a great way to sort a jumbled mind, and it works because of two well-documented psychological phenomena.

First, externalizing ideas as cards on the table is classic “cognitive offloading.” When we put our thoughts out into the world as flashcards, Post-its, journal entries, or ChatGPT conversations, we reduce our mental load. Our working memory takes a break. Our prospective memory (remembering to remember) can relax. This, in turn, allows our other faculties to kick in — namely, problem-solving, pattern recognition, and categorization.

Second, laying out the ideas as nexus points utilizes our brain’s remarkable talent for “cognitive maps.” Whether you are conscious of the fact or not, your hippocampus creates mental blueprints for how things relate to each other. You know what road comes next on your commute. You know where your favorite ketchup is in the sauces aisle. You know that World War II comes after World War I on a timeline in your head.

When we lay out ideas on the ground in this nexus arrangement, we make the hippocampus’ job easier. We are mirroring something our brain already likes to do. Not only does this make it feel less effortful to find connections, but it also helps us see connections we wouldn’t have otherwise.

3 ways to apply the nexus method

So far, we’ve seen the theory and the science behind the Nexus Method, but how can we apply it to our own lives? Here are three ways we might go about using it:

Project management. Let’s say you need or want to start something big — a new campaign, a new podcast, a new event. Start by listing every major element, like budget, design, materials, schedule, and people, and then give each its own card. As ideas come (from you or a team), file them under the right nexus. You’ll end up with a system-wide view of the whole thing — and a clear sense of which parts are essential and which might need further justification.

Choosing between two major decisions. Let’s say you are presented with an opportunity like a new job or moving to a new city. Create twin maps, one per option, and create nexus hubs for each: Money, Time, People, Learning, Meaning, Health, Place. Drop facts and feelings under each (“best mate lives nearby,” “walkable park nearby,” or “better cost of living”). When you step back, weight appears in clusters rather than in a standard pro–con fog. Transition cards reveal narratives that help you decide. Job B turns Learning into Meaning, which feeds into Health, and so on.

Writing a book. Okay, fair enough, this is somewhat more niche. But given that finally writing that book is the archetypal one-day retirement dream for a lot of people, McGilchrist’s advice is especially pertinent. I used to work with a novelist, and he once showed me his plotting diagrams. They looked like some drunken spider’s experimental period, with lines and dots everywhere. Instead, it would have been better for my friend to follow the Nexus Method — neater, easier, and far more productive.

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Jonny is the creator of the Mini Philosophy social network. He’s an internationally bestselling author of three books and the resident philosopher at Big Think. He's known all over the world for making philosophy accessible, relatable, and fun.

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