Context Switching

The Goo is about helping you mentally juggle "things". Context switching is what happens when your phone rings while you're working on something else. Suddenly you drop all the mental balls you were juggling. This is a fairly big context switch. However smaller context switches happen all the time: a new email arrives (what do they want?), detach a file (what format is it?), where should I put it?, this folder? that folder? Opps. Virus warning? Close. Close. Close. Where was I? Each time you make a switch your mental buffer fills up. Too many switches and you start to become overloaded, frustrated and begin to drop the ball.

Sometimes you know exactly what you want to achieve but lots of little context switches get in the way. I need to print that file? Where is it? What format is it again? Is the printer on? Hang on there's another email. What was I doing again? Wouldn't it be good if you didn't have to change context? You could jump to the next thing and jump back quickly and easily. To achieve this "The Goo" helps you manage "Things" by automatically associating them. You can traverse the associations between "Things" quickly and then easily jump back to your starting context. The Goo maintains a manageable buffer of associated things that acts as a sliding window of "Things" you're dealing with. The Goo is a lens that focuses on the associations between things in your natural workflow.