Ask HN: Do you use any tools to assist you with thinking?

For thinking out code? My answer might not be what you are asking, but...

A whiteboard, a text editor that supports bulleted lists, and my legs.

If I have a general idea of what components are needed, I write them in the list, drilling down with nested lists on details of each until I have thought through what I need to code.

If I don't have it thought out enough to know what the larger building blocks are, I sketch on the whiteboard to help figure them out.

If it is such a new idea that I just need to let it percolate in my head, I go for a walk and just let my mind wander around the topic.

Writing my thougts out loud is what works best. I open a notepad, start with my goal or thesis and explore the different roads. Some roads are closed, i go back deleting them but summing up the reason of the choice. In the end this process narrows down the best roads, and reading it helps with reasoning and meta-reasoning even more.

P.s. i am a big fan of concept and mind maps but the narrative mode outperformed them in my experience.

A lot of pen and paper, or whiteboarding. And, on the laptop, I do find mindmaps very useful in the first exploratory phase of a project — and I love MindMeister for that!