“I didn’t play all Tetris all those years for nothing.” It’s something I’ve said to my customers at my shop when they marvel at how I manage to completely fill their shopping bags and yet still keep them reasonably light. You’ll notice that I’m looking at the items on the belt, scribbles of algebra floating around my head just like in the meme, working out what can go where before I even pick it up. It keeps me entertained and makes the shift go by quicker.
But it’s just how I’ve trained my brain to think when I have to do a task (or in some cases, write a novel) that has numerous moving parts. It’s one of my favorite things to do, actually — thinking a few steps ahead, looking at what I’ve been given and how I can make it work a few steps further on. And in terms of writing, it really comes in handy when I have to think through an idea and debate how it might affect the story or the characters in the future. That, in turn, helps me plan out more of the plot direction. It’s how I worked out the Bridgetown Trilogy with its several plot threads and expanded cast!
But yeah, sometimes it just works really well for me in Real Life, whether it’s planning out an errand or a project, or simply bagging things for my customers.
