Just Finished Reading: The Organized Mind – Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload by Daniel Levitin (FP: 2014)

This was not the book I was expecting it to be. I thought it was more about how our IT systems and especially Social Media was overwhelming people in its relentless flood of tweets and pokes. It was somewhat about that but mostly it was about two aspects of the information environment we’re presently swimming in. The main focus of the work was from the neurological side – using the latest research into the human brain to both show its limitations (after all it evolved to keep us alive on the African veldt not on Social media) as well as the best way to organise things taking into account how the brain actually works (and not just how we’d like it to work). It appears that our ‘wetware’ bandwidth is pretty low by technical standards and that explains why we have problems dealing with too many things at the same time – somewhere between 2 and 5 we can just about cope with (and 2 is far better than 5). It was good to see the author repeatedly say that multitasking is a myth. I’ve long held that opinion so I’m pleased that it’s backed up by science. Multitasking is far more like spinning plates. We can keep a number of them spinning but in order to do so we need to rush from plate to plate and give them a nudge. It’s only a matter of time before the energy needed to keep moving between plates exhausts us and all of the plates come crashing to the ground. Naturally we can keep 2 plates revolving a lot longer than 5 or 10. That’s the reality of multitasking – it’s actually time-slicing and each switch of attention costs mental energy. That’s one of the oft repeated pieces of advice in this more than reasonable book: Pay attention to the lowest possible number of things at any one time in order to get things done. Categorise, Prioritise and Act.

The other recurring theme throughout the book is based on the limitations of the data retrieval functions of the brain. It’s entirely possible, as several theories attest, that you remember everything you pay attention to. The problem is getting an accurate and, more important, actionable memory back out on command. That’s not easy. What you can do though is externalise the memory in another form – notes to yourself, diary entries, prompts from your phone or other electronic system or, if you have the money and need such things, a personal assistant to orgainse your life for you so you don’t have to remember a thing except what you’re working on right now. Naturally some of these things are incredibly mundane and I did find myself rolling my eyes a little as the author recommended techniques for organising e-mail on your PC (something I HAVE to do at work if I don’t want to drown under the weight of them as they come in) and paper in filing cabinets. Ever a fan of categorising things the author recommends keeping things in piles as long as you know which pile holds what. This utilises the innate ability of the brain to locate things in physical (or virtual) space. Keeping something in the same place – like keeping your house keys close to your front door – ensures that you know where things are when you need them.

I did have a few issues with the tone of the book rather than (much of) it’s content. The brain/neurology bits where interesting but I did find the author repeated himself a LOT which was rather irritating. Another thing that grated was the fact that over 95% and probably close to 99% of the institutions, scientists and ‘highly successful people (HSPs) were American. This might be invisible to American readers but I think non-Americans might find it odd that it appears that, from the perspective of this book nowhere outside the US either exists or has had any impact or influence on anything he says. But with those caveats in mind overall this wasn’t a bad book at all. I was probably more than a little disappointed that it wasn’t the book I expected so this probably tainted my general opinion of it. I did think it was a bit prescriptive despite the fact that the author often said that individual styles are important in adopting the right information organisation strategy but with a bit of reading between the lines you can pick up on the essence of things rather than the actual list of Do’s and Don’ts. Both reasonable and reasonably helpful especially if you’re having real problems organising aspects of your life and need some pointers.