23 October
It often happens that one needs to clarify what one thinks, and do it quickly. Essay exams provoke that sort of mental panic, but there are lots of other more real-life settings in which it's useful to have some pretty systematic way to get your mental ducks into rows.  Here's one way to approach, a recipe for taming free association:
 

Decide what SINGLE word is at the heart of the problem (that means throwing out a lot of detail, and getting down to some definition of a single concept).  A real-life example-of-the-moment for me is

...a subject I'm dealing with in various librarian connections.

Now make it TWO words, by deciding on a modifier that makes the concern more focused:

And now think about that and try to restate its essence in three words, but with no necessity to use either of the two words:

Note that I could have constructed any number of three-word phrases.  This one seemed to fit the lines of thought I happened to be pursuing this morning as I thought about this.

And now construct a four word condensation of essence, again not requiring that any word be repeated or not, but (ideally) exposing another facet of the subject:

Try to make each word count, and minimize the useless ('the', 'an').

And now five words:

And six:

And seven:

Now analyze the accretion.  In this case it seems to have become a prescription for fluency, rather than a description of its characteristics. Doing this helped me to clarify what I think, what I identify as important... and when I did the same thing a couple of days ago (on a now-lost piece of paper) I had a different series.

Like a lot of tools, this one becomes more useful with practise.