Why I built İrticalen

The problem is not a lack of information. It’s the feed.

When we pick up the phone we don’t choose something; we enter a stream. Fifteen-second videos, headlines, notifications. Each one erases the one before. By the end of the day we have seen hundreds of things and thought about none of them.

People call it “brain rot”; Oxford named it Word of the Year in 2024. It is not a medical diagnosis, just a feeling everyone recognises: attention in pieces, being unable to stay with one subject, to finish a page, losing the thread halfway through your own sentence.

The sneaky part is that consuming makes us feel informed. We watched three videos about it, after all. But when we try to explain it, nothing comes out, because watching and thinking are not the same activity.

Speaking is the exam for thinking

The fastest way to find out whether you understand something is to try explaining it out loud. If the idea that looked clear in your head falls apart on the way out, it was never clear.

Speaking without preparation is that exam at its barest. No notes, no search engine, no “let me check”. Just you, a topic and the seconds passing. For that one minute your brain has to do what the feed never asks of it: stay on one subject, pick an idea, put it in order and finish it.

Turkish has an old word for this: “irticalen”, to speak extemporaneously. Few of us stand at a lectern today, but the same skill is needed in a meeting, in an interview, at a dinner table, or when telling a friend what is actually wrong.

Why only one minute?

Because big promises don’t last. Everyone who says “I’ll read for an hour every day” quits in week two. One minute leaves no excuse: while the tea brews, while the lift arrives, while the laptop boots.

One minute is also an honest length. Once you start talking you discover how long it is. On a first try most people go quiet around second twenty. That is not embarrassing; it is a measurement. A week later you reach forty.

What this site is not

Not a course, not an AI coach, not an app that scores you. It does not record your voice, ask for an account, send notifications or show ads. It would be odd for something that tries to give your attention back to compete for it.

You open it, draw a topic, speak, close it. That is all. The code is open; anyone can read it or suggest topics.

How to use it

There are no rules, but this is the routine that works for me:

1. Speak out loud. Thinking it through silently does not count. Your ear has to hear your own sentence; only then do the gaps show.
2. Don’t swap a topic you dislike. Life does not let you pick topics either. The moment you think “I have nothing to say about this” is the moment the training starts.
3. When you stall, go back to three steps. What is it? An example. What do I think? They are on the screen. Explain, show, give your take: together they build a one-minute skeleton for any subject.
4. Try Researched mode once a week. Read for ten minutes, then explain. Fitting what you read into one minute is the best summarising exercise there is.
5. One round every day. Repetition works, long sessions don’t. A minute a day means having thought about thirty different subjects in a month.

Frequently asked