The Tiny Experiments Of Time Binders: Anne-Laure Le Cunff Meets Chris Mayer On JUST PRESS RECORD

I've been dying to release this conversation between Anne-Laure Le Cunff and Chris Mayer for Just Press Record. I strongly suspected an ex-Googler turned learn-in-public neuroscientist would have a thought or two about speaking with a multi-disciplinary investor who’s got a language philosophy soft spot. But, what I didn’t expect was just how switched-on these two professional curiosity cultivators were going to get by each other’s work.

In both of their cases, it’s not just what they know—it’s how they organize what they don't yet know. It’s all about inspiration collecting. Anne-Laure's got her "curiosity inbox" and Chris has got a journaling practice that isn’t just a list of productivity hacks, they're both relationship tools for befriending your future (smarter) self.

Think about it: When was the last time you had a conversation with who you were six months ago about what you’ve been working on and why? Anne-Laure does this weekly through her "plus-minus-next" framework, creating a paper trail of her evolving mind. Chris time-stamps his thoughts, basing his process on the lessons of “general semantics”, making it impossible to lie to himself about what he once believed.

"Remember how concerned you were about X a month ago? You can barely remember it now. The same will happen with what you're worried about today." - Chris Mayer

There's something deeply comforting about this perspective. Our most pressing anxieties and burning curiosities—those things that consume us completely in the moment—eventually fade. Not because they weren't important, but because our minds are constantly shape-shifting, drawn to new attractors like moths to different flames.

They call their approaches by different names, but they’re strikingly similar. Not to mention, they both are focused on harnessing serendipities, i.e. the stuff they can’t even imagine planning for. I started referring to them as "sandboxes" in my notes. I was trying to capture this image of a place where half-formed ideas can be played with before being more formally invited to a "construction site." Anne-Laure and Chris understand that creativity isn't just about production—it's about creating spaces where connections can collide.

Anne-Laure used the language of physics to explain "curiosity attractors" - the ideas that keep pulling you back no matter how much you try to focus elsewhere. The universe seems to conspire with them (oh, I know this feeling), presenting the same concept through different people, books, and random encounters until you finally surrender to its gravitational pull. And Chris knew exactly what she was talking about. He told stories about book and investment ideas, and how they often just magically appear, provided he takes the time to go out and play first.

But the most profound insight might be their shared understanding of burnout. Not as something you need to push through, but as a signal that you're stubbornly trying to force what should flow. "Just stop and do something new" isn't just good advice, it's an acknowledgment that our creative energy isn't linear but cyclical. I had never considered it that way before.

In an age obsessed with optimization, there's something refreshingly human about these approaches. Neither guest advocates for a rigid system. Instead, they've developed flexible frameworks that accommodate the messy, non-linear nature of human thinking, without stretching their brains to the breaking point.

It’s why I had to get them together.

You’ll be with me by the end of this one asking: What's in your curiosity inbox? What ideas keep showing up in your life like persistent visitors, knocking until you finally open the door? And what would happen if, instead of pushing harder when you hit resistance, you simply turned and walked in a new direction?

The tiny experiments of time-binders, indeed.

Check out the full talk below, and don’t miss Anne-Laure’s BRILLIANT new book, Tiny Experiments, or Chris’ classic, Dear Fellow Time Binder: Letters on General Semantics, both out now!