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I am in the middle of reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and it has so many ideas in it that I seem to be writing them all down. At the same time I am going over the very last revision of my novel and it got me thinking about memory and how we as humans think about thinking.

A great example is the mere exposure effect and the illusions of our memories. What clicked with me again while reading this is how our memories can be manipulated without us even being aware of it. Here are two passages from All That Keeps Us that touch on this idea.

ABIGAIL:

Maybe that’s why I kept going. Maybe not. In all likelihood she had never even said anything about a dog. That’s just what I thought she’d of said if I hadnt already stopped listening. Or maybe she said worse. Memory is the most corruptible thing in our nature. The most volatile and the easiest to violate.

CLOVIS:

The past will always be elusive. Even in photographs what we know of the past will be distorted. The events that happen before or after a photograph is taken are never recorded. The smell of perfume or the feel of the sun on the skin. Such things defy capture and so the world and its manifestations remain uncapturable for mankind.

If you are interested in Thinking Fast and Slow a quick place to preview the ideas can be found here at Derek Sivers site.

The book is absolutely worth a read to better understand how our minds work. And how they dont.

I have many ideas that pop into my head and I can’t let go of them until I get them down in some fixed form or another.
I had this one last week.

And I know that I will do nothing with it, and maybe there is already something out there just like it ( If there is please let me know), but if not and you happen to be a developer then maybe this will spark something for you. Or just feel free to steal the idea outright and create something great.

What I am thinking of is a meal planning system that is agnostic to any one brand or way of eating.

It could be a website or an app or both and you would be able to create an entire meal plan based on who you are and what you like. So if you are vegetarian or paleo or whatever you can tailor the plan to your way of eating.

Then you could have modules or plugins or in app purchases that give you content from one of the brands you are into and they would fill in all of the details for you. This could be from places like Food Network ( I think they have something along these lines but I am thinking more comprehensive) or from blogs (like Pioneer Woman or Tim Ferris) or from recipes that your grandmother passed down to you from her grandmother. Maybe with pictures of both your MiMi and your MiMa.

It would also have a filter so that you could put in all of the foods that you like or that you don’t like or foods that your kids will or won’t eat.( Broccoli or liver or whatever you or your small ones see fit to put on the yucky list) Then it could give you basic menu choices based on these options and from there you could create your meal plan.

It should foster discovery like Pinterest and create lists of ingredients and send them to something like Evernote. or something that you already use to sync up your life.

And then you would have your shopping list.

That might describe it pretty well. A meal planning system that combines the look and discovery of Pinterest with the functionality of Evernote.

And of course when the pantry and refrigerator of the future are here they will tell you what you have an what you need and it will interface with this program.

All in all I think you get the idea. So go on and take it.