Monday, March 30, 2015
Book Review: The Organized Mind
I don't even really remember how I came across the book The Organized Mind. I'm pretty sure I saw it in a bookstore and then ordered it off Amazon, but not totally sure anymore. Bottom line, I ordered it and then it served as decoration on my bookshelf for some time. I did finally kick it off after a very productive reading January, and it took most of the way through February to get it done.
Not that it wasn't a good read. It has been fascinating because I am also taking a class from Coursera on Emotional Intelligence and there is a significant amount of overlap between the neuroscientific principles presented in both books. Who know I would learn so much info about neurochemistry in 2015.
This book was an incredibly easy read for such a complicated topic. I had read another review that said it was hard to get through- but I didn't have that experience. I did, however, just read The Idiot by Dostoyevsky so I could be biased.
Here is the official Creative Space rating:
Readability: A
Creates Consistent Interest: B
Applicability: B
Design: C
Differentiation: A
The design rating is a C- but at the end of the day, this wasn't intended to be a "pretty" marketing book, so who cares if it isn't pretty. The content was great.
Creative Space Takeaways:
1. Decision Making and Sleep: So this book hit home about two days after I started reading it. A little back story... I am on a diet. I also sometimes have trouble sleeping. The Organized Mind discusses all of the cognitive issues that go along with lack of sleep. So I have a hard night sleeping because I am on diet and I am hungry. The next morning I am driving to work and pass by Bojangles, home of the best chicken biscuit on the planet. I am having this mental discussion with myself that goes a little bit like this: "Kristen, your cerebral cortex isn't functioning at its best due to lack of sleep and it is affecting your ability to control yourself. STAY AWAY FROM THE BOJANGLES. I passed it by. It is one thing to get a biscuit because you have a craving- it is another thing to just shove it in your mouth because your brain is tired.
2. "Neuroscientists have discovered that unproductivity and loss of drive can result from decision overload. Although most of us have no trouble ranking the importance of decisions if asked to do so, our brains don't automatically do this." Bottom line- this is why it takes so long for me to clean the kitchen. I can't prioritize my tasks unless I think it though- it is lumped into a category called "clean the kitchen." So, I wander around the kitchen, picking up a piece of trash, walking to the trashcan to throw it away, noticing the laundry needs to be switched, then the dog needs to be fed. Put away two dishes, my son asks for a glass of milk. Etc. Etc.
3. "Every status update you read on Facebook, every tweet or text message you get from a friend, is competing for resources in your brain with important things like whether to put your saving in stocks or bonds, where you left your passport, or how best to reconcile with a close friend you just had an argument." My work life is one hot mess of interruptions. I am sure there are tons of advantages to open workspaces, but one of them is not being able to work without a ton of questions, snippets of conversations from co-workers, phone calls, etc. And don't even get me started on the constant e-mail alerts. The Organized Mind states that a multi-tasking brain is about as good at doing its job as a drunk brain. Or a sleepy brain. Let me have some wine with the Blackberry Instant Messenger.
4. "Memory is fiction. It may present itself to us as fact, but it is highly susceptible to distortion. Memory is not just a replaying, but a rewriting." I just got done reading the book Patterns of Childhood, which was a fictional reflection of a girl remembering growing up in Nazi Germany as a German. The purpose of the book was to emphasize the importance of memory in preventing things from happening again, an interestingly the point was also made in that book. In short, write it down. Eyewitness testimony is crap. You fill in the blanks for things you can't actually remember and your brain tricks you into thinking it is real.
5. The importance of triage. A lot of The Organized Mind emphasized the way that really important people with a lot of moving parts to their lives function. First, these folks have a process to have information enter their sphere and a process for how that information gets sorted into "take care of now" "take care of later" and "delegate or delete". Second, they don't fill up every waking second of their time. The schedule time to get the important things done. Musicians schedule time to write. Executives cut the meetings so that they can focus on what THEY think is the most important way to spend their day.
6. An organized home really does help keep your brain working. If you aren't having to focus on where your keys are, because they are always in the tray by the door, you can focus on your diet, remembering to pick up the drycleaning, etc. Another great read on this topic that I actually found to be more helpful was The Art of Tidying Up.
7. Flow States. "Flow occurs when you are not explicitly thinking about what you are doing; rather, your brain is in a special mode of activity in which procedures and operations are performed automatically without your having to exert conscious control." There are times when I can get into the flow state when I am writing and there are times that I can't. The key though is that when I have been writing consistently, it is easier. When there are fewer distractions, it is also easier.
8. Previous to reading this book, I was a huge believer in Ambien. However, studies apparently show that people who take it only sleep on average eleven minutes longer. Further, they influence the way that your brain consolidates memories at night reducing cognitive function. BTW, if you read this, prepare yourself for several nights of sleeplessness because they do pack one hell of a placebo effect.
9. In the chapter on "Organizing the Business World" there is a section regarding trademarks of good leadership. It inspired me to take a class on Coursera on Leadership and Emotional Intelligence. It is such a fascinating topic. As a marketing person, you know that people are strongly influenced by emotion, but we tend to forget that that is also the case in management.
10. Final takeaway- my brain is doing stuff I don't know about and don't think about to get me through the day. The least I can do is figure out what cognitive shortcuts I can cook up to make its job easier. Or I can just check my phone another thousand times and never let it focus on what it needs to. It is all up to me.
Not that it wasn't a good read. It has been fascinating because I am also taking a class from Coursera on Emotional Intelligence and there is a significant amount of overlap between the neuroscientific principles presented in both books. Who know I would learn so much info about neurochemistry in 2015.This book was an incredibly easy read for such a complicated topic. I had read another review that said it was hard to get through- but I didn't have that experience. I did, however, just read The Idiot by Dostoyevsky so I could be biased.
Here is the official Creative Space rating:
Readability: A
Creates Consistent Interest: B
Applicability: B
Design: C
Differentiation: A
The design rating is a C- but at the end of the day, this wasn't intended to be a "pretty" marketing book, so who cares if it isn't pretty. The content was great.
Creative Space Takeaways:
1. Decision Making and Sleep: So this book hit home about two days after I started reading it. A little back story... I am on a diet. I also sometimes have trouble sleeping. The Organized Mind discusses all of the cognitive issues that go along with lack of sleep. So I have a hard night sleeping because I am on diet and I am hungry. The next morning I am driving to work and pass by Bojangles, home of the best chicken biscuit on the planet. I am having this mental discussion with myself that goes a little bit like this: "Kristen, your cerebral cortex isn't functioning at its best due to lack of sleep and it is affecting your ability to control yourself. STAY AWAY FROM THE BOJANGLES. I passed it by. It is one thing to get a biscuit because you have a craving- it is another thing to just shove it in your mouth because your brain is tired.
2. "Neuroscientists have discovered that unproductivity and loss of drive can result from decision overload. Although most of us have no trouble ranking the importance of decisions if asked to do so, our brains don't automatically do this." Bottom line- this is why it takes so long for me to clean the kitchen. I can't prioritize my tasks unless I think it though- it is lumped into a category called "clean the kitchen." So, I wander around the kitchen, picking up a piece of trash, walking to the trashcan to throw it away, noticing the laundry needs to be switched, then the dog needs to be fed. Put away two dishes, my son asks for a glass of milk. Etc. Etc.
3. "Every status update you read on Facebook, every tweet or text message you get from a friend, is competing for resources in your brain with important things like whether to put your saving in stocks or bonds, where you left your passport, or how best to reconcile with a close friend you just had an argument." My work life is one hot mess of interruptions. I am sure there are tons of advantages to open workspaces, but one of them is not being able to work without a ton of questions, snippets of conversations from co-workers, phone calls, etc. And don't even get me started on the constant e-mail alerts. The Organized Mind states that a multi-tasking brain is about as good at doing its job as a drunk brain. Or a sleepy brain. Let me have some wine with the Blackberry Instant Messenger.
4. "Memory is fiction. It may present itself to us as fact, but it is highly susceptible to distortion. Memory is not just a replaying, but a rewriting." I just got done reading the book Patterns of Childhood, which was a fictional reflection of a girl remembering growing up in Nazi Germany as a German. The purpose of the book was to emphasize the importance of memory in preventing things from happening again, an interestingly the point was also made in that book. In short, write it down. Eyewitness testimony is crap. You fill in the blanks for things you can't actually remember and your brain tricks you into thinking it is real.
5. The importance of triage. A lot of The Organized Mind emphasized the way that really important people with a lot of moving parts to their lives function. First, these folks have a process to have information enter their sphere and a process for how that information gets sorted into "take care of now" "take care of later" and "delegate or delete". Second, they don't fill up every waking second of their time. The schedule time to get the important things done. Musicians schedule time to write. Executives cut the meetings so that they can focus on what THEY think is the most important way to spend their day.
6. An organized home really does help keep your brain working. If you aren't having to focus on where your keys are, because they are always in the tray by the door, you can focus on your diet, remembering to pick up the drycleaning, etc. Another great read on this topic that I actually found to be more helpful was The Art of Tidying Up.
7. Flow States. "Flow occurs when you are not explicitly thinking about what you are doing; rather, your brain is in a special mode of activity in which procedures and operations are performed automatically without your having to exert conscious control." There are times when I can get into the flow state when I am writing and there are times that I can't. The key though is that when I have been writing consistently, it is easier. When there are fewer distractions, it is also easier.
8. Previous to reading this book, I was a huge believer in Ambien. However, studies apparently show that people who take it only sleep on average eleven minutes longer. Further, they influence the way that your brain consolidates memories at night reducing cognitive function. BTW, if you read this, prepare yourself for several nights of sleeplessness because they do pack one hell of a placebo effect.
9. In the chapter on "Organizing the Business World" there is a section regarding trademarks of good leadership. It inspired me to take a class on Coursera on Leadership and Emotional Intelligence. It is such a fascinating topic. As a marketing person, you know that people are strongly influenced by emotion, but we tend to forget that that is also the case in management.
10. Final takeaway- my brain is doing stuff I don't know about and don't think about to get me through the day. The least I can do is figure out what cognitive shortcuts I can cook up to make its job easier. Or I can just check my phone another thousand times and never let it focus on what it needs to. It is all up to me.
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