The Fred Flintstone Method

Your search strategy is backwards. Here’s a better one.

Colleague: “Do you remember what we quoted customer X? I’ve searched everywhere.”

Me: “Search for ‘Fred Feuerstein’.”

Colleague: “…what?”

Me: “Just do it.”

First hit. The document.

What Just Happened?

That quote had an example name in it. Fred Feuerstein—Fred Flintstone in German. That word appeared exactly ONCE in our entire system.

Most people search for obvious keywords:

• Customer name → 200 results
• Product name → 150 results
• Date → scroll forever

I search for the weird thing. The Eselsbrücke—the “donkey bridge,” what Germans call a memory hook. Something distinctive enough to be unique.

I Just Did This Again

Lost a Claude Code session. Six months of history. Couldn’t find it.

Then I remembered: I used the word “scrubbing” in that session. A word I rarely use in German work contexts.

Search “scrubbing” → First hit. The session.

3 seconds to find a needle in a 6-month haystack.

The Pattern

When Writing Documents

Drop distinctive words deliberately:

• Unusual example names — Fred Flintstone, not John Smith
• Code-switched terms — German words in English docs (or vice versa)
• Rare metaphors — Something you’d remember
• Distinctive quotes — Actual things people said

These become your future Suchbegriffe—search terms that cut through the noise.

When Searching

Don’t search what’s obvious. Search what’s unique.

• That weird example you used
• The German word in the English doc
• The metaphor that stuck
• Even the typo you made

Your documents already have these anchors. You’re just not searching for them.

Why This Works

Traditional search is democratic. Every word gets equal weight. “Customer API design 2024” matches thousands of documents.

The Fred Flintstone Method is aristocratic. You’re looking for the one word that rules this particular document. The word nobody else would use in the same context.

Try It Now

Think of a document you’ve been searching for.

What’s the weird thing you remember about it? Not the topic—the unusual detail.

Search that instead.

Beyond Documents: Conversation Anchors

Same pattern, different context: LLM sessions.

I was editing a long document with Claude. It kept changing things I hadn’t asked about—formatting here, word choices there, “improvements” everywhere.

Me: “If you change things we’re not discussing, ich ziehe dir die Ohren lang.”

That’s German for “I’ll pull your ears”—what you’d say to a misbehaving kid.

An hour later, the AI started drifting again.

Me: “Remember your ears.”

Claude: Got it—and I’ll watch my ears 🙉

It knew exactly what I meant. And apparently found it funny.

The phrase was so unique in our conversation that it became an instant anchor. No need to re-explain. Three words activated the full context.

Why This Works with AI

LLMs have attention budgets. In a long conversation, earlier context competes with recent context. But distinctive phrases cut through:

• Emotional language sticks — “I’ll pull your ears” is more memorable than “please don’t do that”
• Absurd is good — The weirder, the more unique
• Short recall works — “Your ears” activates the full context

This is the same principle as searching for “Fred Feuerstein” instead of “customer quote.” Unique beats common.

Practical Applications

Set the anchor once, recall with two words.

Going Deeper

This connects to a broader principle: context engineering—architecting what information the model receives, when, and how.

If you’re interested in the full system (attention budgets, challenge points, conductor pattern), see AI Engineering: Context, Iteration, Reliability.

Call it the Fred Flintstone Method. Or don’t. Just stop scrolling through 200 results—and stop re-explaining things to your AI.