Book Takeaway Part One: The Organized Mind

I enjoy reading nonfiction books that educate and uplift me and open my eyes to things I didn’t know before. While I do read and enjoy fiction, I naturally gravitate to nonfiction, which is a discovery about myself I didn’t fully recognized until lately. I’ll own it.

Last night I finished The Organized Mind: Thinking straight in the Age of Information Overload by Daniel J. Levitin. What a powerful and informative read, especially for parents and teachers! Levitin brilliantly weaves the latest in brain research and science with how to organize ourselves, our homes, our workplace, our computers and social networks, our medical diagnoses, etc. in a world where information overwhelms us from every direction. It’s not a how-to book, though there are some practical takeaways. It’s more of a glimpse into how our brain works so that we can harness it in ways that make our lives easier and more rewarding. 
​
This post is not comprehensive, and I am no way affiliated with the book nor its author, but I’ll attempt to capture a few chords that struck me.

Cognitive Overload is Real

Our brain can only handle so much information and decision-making, so choose well. Every day we are confronted with dozens of decisions, most of which are insignificant or unimportant in our path to lasting happiness and satisfaction. We ought to be better at satisficing, which is being ok with "good enough" rather than “the best.” We don’t need the absolute best takeout or dry cleaners or product (in 1976, supermarkets stocked 9,000 unique items; today it’s 40,000, yet we only need 150 of those items), we need one that is good enough for our needs. Find it and move on. Save our brain energy and power for those things that are our highest priority. If we spend it all on so many trivial decisions we will experience neural fatigue on the decisions that really matter. It’s really as though our brains are wired to make a certain number of decisions in a day (the brain doesn’t prioritize decisions) and once we reach that limit, we can’t make any more (Levitin, 4-6)

Multitasking has a Cost

Our brains are wired to focus on one thing at a time, and each time we flit from one thing to another, there is a neurobiological switching cost and it is high. Once on a task, our brains function best if we stick at it (Levitin, 16)

Knowledge: Useful or Distracting?

"We humans are hardwired to enjoy knowledge," (Levitin, 32) but this hunger for knowledge can distract us (tabloids, trivia, mindless social media scrolling) or it can enhance our lives in our quest for understanding. We need to do better at sorting if we want to be better organized, efficient, and productive (Levitin, 33). For example, we can prioritize our time and our tasks so that what we are focusing on is the most important thing to be focusing on at that moment, rather than worry that we're forgetting about or missing out on something else. Anything we can do to organize our external world (e.g. always put the car keys and phones in the same place) is one less thing our brains need to keep track of (Levitin, 34-35).

Mind-Wandering Mode is where our Brain likes to Be

Daydreaming, or mind-wandering, is a natural state of the brain, its default mode, its resting state. This is when you’re on an airplane, or sitting on the bench at a park, or on a walk, where you’re brain wanders from one topic to another, not focusing on anything in particular. This state fosters great creativity and often solutions to problems that previously seemed unsolvable. This mode is in direct contrast to our “stay-on-task” or “get things done” mode, called the central executive mode. When one’s active, the other is not (Levitin, 38-39). For example, we use the central executive mode for writing reports, interacting with people, solving problems in our head, navigating, planning, or even in music or art. In mind-wandering mode, our thoughts are turned inwardly to our goals, desires, feelings, and relationships (Levitin, 41). Most of this switching takes place in the background, though it comes at a cognitive cost. 

Memory: It's all in there somewhere

Our brains are amazing, "just the tool for the information age" (Levitin, 63). Our brain is a brilliant categorizer and everything we've ever learned is in there somewhere. The trick as far as organization goes, is to off-load as many systems to reduce clutter inside the brain. Calendars, apps, contacts, or even paper and pen can help with this "clearing of the mind" (Levitin, 67-68). For example, if we have something in our head on our to-do list, our brain will rehearse that over and over so we don't forget it. Once we write something down or otherwise keep track of it, our brain can divert that neural energy to something else of higher priority (Levitin, 69). "Categorizing and externalizing our memory enables us to balance the yin of our wandering thoughts with the yang of our focused execution" (Levitin, 74).

And that, friends, is enough to chew on for now.
​Next up...Organizing our Homes and Social World (including online connectivity)

Reference
Levitin, Daniel J. 2014. The organized mind: Thinking straight in the age of information overload.  New York, NY: Plume.