The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload by Dr. Daniel J. Levitin

Did you know that checking your email multiple times a day drains your brain of power and ability to make proper decisions? In fact, just knowing you have an email waiting for you lowers your IQ by 10 points. In this fascinating book full of scientific facts on the neural networks and processing in the brain, Dr. Levitin, a neuroscientist at the University of Toronto, explains how we can each organize our lives to better handle the multitude of information we encounter every day. He delves into how the brain works and why we have memory lapses and failures of organization. This book offers solutions to all of us to be more efficient in our home and working lives. He also discusses business organizations and how they can optimally function.

Dr. Levitin explains the neural network that powers our memory. He introduces 5 traits of all humans: extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to new experience and conscientiousness, and conscientiousness is the one most associated with success. Conscientiousness measures how much self-control, perseverance, industry and desire for order a person has. The ability to be organized becomes more and more important as we have more and more information to process. Conscientiousness was also written about in Paul Tough’s book How Children Succeed which was reviewed earlier in this book section.

In today’s culture, we are blessed with an abundance of choices in the marketplace and in lifestyle decisions. Is it a blessing or a curse? Levitin explains that our brains are hardwired to only be able to process a certain amount of information effectively. The statistics on the number of choice and the number of decisions we make each day are staggering. The average supermarket now stocks 40,000 products, up from 9,000 in 1976. The average person has the equivalent of half a million books stored on their computer. Our brains can process the information but it drains each neuron of energy when the brain has too many decisions to make. The author writes, “Every status update you read on Facebook, every tweet or text message you get from a friend, is competing for resources in our brain with important things like whether to put your savings in stocks or bonds, where you left your passport, or how best to reconcile with a close friend you just had an argument with.” In other words, we need to limit our time making small, unimportant decisions like checking email in order for our brain to make good decisions about highly important decisions. 

Levitin spends a whole chapter dissecting HSP (highly successful people) and how they work: they delegate to others so they don’t need to store every minutiae of information in their brain. Their schedule and details of their day are handled by others, so they can concentrate on the important issues at hand and pay attention to whomever they are meeting with at that moment. A 3×5 index card system works well for tasks and being efficient. As you go about your day, write lists on 3×5 cards to externalize your memory. This relieves brain of stress and clears it of extraneous information, so that we can focus on something else. He recommends sorting the cards into categories. One system is written about in David Allen’s book Getting Things Done where 4 categories are used: 1)Do it; 2)Delegate it; 3)Defer it; 4)Drop it.

Part 2 of the book gives us advice on how to best organize home, our social world and our time. Use the physical environment to remind you and to offload your brain from having to remember too many details! If you are afraid you won’t remember an umbrella, put it in front of the door you go out of in the morning the night before. Place your keys, smartphone and wallet in the same place every day. The brain categorizes items well, so Levitin recommends sorting drawers, shelves and cabinets by category and limiting to no more than 4 categories in one drawer. Recognize there is power in the “junk drawer”: where to put everything that doesn’t have a place.

Multitasking is bad for the brain- it reduces your efficiency worse than smoking pot (!) Making too many little decisions about email, texting, and social media can drain your brain of energy to make very important life decisions about relationships, career and finances. 10-12 pieces of information are ideal. Above that and there is cognitive overload and decision fatigue; too much information can be as bad as too little information. As Levitin puts it, “Paralysis by overanalysis.” The author goes on to give pearls on organizing files, making reminders on important meetings, events, and people’s birthdays.

Schedule meetings so you have 10 minute in between to write down impressions on the meetings that occur so as to accurately capture the time. Plan for the future. Backup your technology in case it fails. The most success businesses always have a plan B and what to do when things go wrong. Levitin writes a very important chapter on medical decision making where he explains how to take medical data and use statistical methods in order to understand medical treatment options. If you only read one chapter in this book, make it Chapter 6: Organizing Information for the Hardest Decisions. He has an addendum in the back of the book to explain how to calculate statistical data on a particular health care question.

The last part of the book: What to Teach Our Children summarizes many of the previous points and explains what is important to pass on to the next generation. He uses Wikipedia as an example of a source of information that anyone, from a novice to an expert, can contribute. Therefore it is difficult to authenticate the accuracy of information in the articles. We need to teach our children to question what they read before they accept it as fact. He again reiterates the value of categorizing, this time extolling the virtues of teaching children to organize their world. They can sort their stuffed animals, categorize pots and pans. This trait of conscientiousness will serve them well in the brave new world of overwhelming information. He points out that children have underdeveloped prefrontal cortices of the brain which lend them to procrastination and immediate gratification. This also makes them more susceptible to addictions of all sorts: video games, drugs, alcohol, and smoking. Because of the overwhelming amounts of information posted on the Internet today, children must be taught to authenticate, validate, and evaluate that information to think critically and to learn. One the most important concepts the author puts forth is that being organized allows the mind to be free to brainstorm and to be creative in solving important problems.