Book SummaryThe Organized Mind, by Daniel J. Levitin

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Organized Mind

How can we live less stressfully in the modern world, where we have more demands on our attention than ever before? In The Organized Mind, author and neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin suggests that the key lies in sorting and externally storing your thoughts and organizing the things around you, which means writing down your thoughts and arranging your physical environment so your brain has less information to manage. Levitin argues that doing so allows you to use your brain power more efficiently and make better decisions.

Levitin...

The Organized Mind Summary Our Big Problem: The Modern World Is Overwhelming

In this section, we’ll describe how the modern world overwhelms us and why this hampers our ability to make decisions.

Levitin explains that our brain can only process a limited amount of information at once. However, the modern world constantly exposes us to more information than our brains are capable of processing. There are three reasons for this. First, due to globalization, we’re exposed to more news than ever before. Second, technology grows so quickly that we’re forced to regularly learn new information to keep up. Third, technology has allowed companies to offload tasks to their customers. For example, many restaurants ask that customers—not waiters—tap in their orders on their phones.

(Shortform note: Many people are exposed to massive amounts of information due to social media. Younger generations get most of their news from social media, which allows them [access to...

The Organized Mind Summary Why Our Current Approaches Don’t Work

Now that you know how the modern world hampers your ability to make good decisions, how can you improve your decision-making skills? You must first understand what you’re currently doing. In this section, we’ll discuss how the neurobiological realities of attention and memory mean that two common approaches to handling information don’t work.

How Attention Works

Levitin explains that we have two modes of attention: Our brains operate either in the “central executive” (CE) mode or the “mind-wandering” (MW) mode. CE mode is what you’re using to read this guide; it takes over when you’re trying to focus on a particular task. If you’re not in CE mode, your brain naturally reverts to MW mode: You're not focused on anything in particular and are instead letting your thoughts flit among various topics.

Levitin explains that your brain chooses your mode of attention using two mechanisms: the “attentional filter” and the “attentional switch.” Your attentional filter is a group of neurons that constantly assesses your environment and guards against unimportant information. But sometimes, your brain does decide that something is immediately relevant: In particular, it...

The Organized Mind Summary What to Do Instead: Sort and Store Outside Your Brain

Since multitasking is impossible and storing information in your head is problematic, how should you deal with our modern influx of information? Levitin suggests the answer lies in conserving your mental resources so you have more brain power and energy to deal with the decisions that matter. You can do so via categorization, or sorting, and externalization, or storing information outside your brain by writing it down.

Other Ways Externalizing Information Can Help You

Like Levitin, Building a Second Brain author Tiago Forte asserts that the best way to deal with our modern influx of information is to externalize it. However, Forte argues that you should do so not to avoid decision fatigue, but because externalizing information improves your ability to do knowledge work—creating, interpreting, and applying information—which he contends is your most valuable asset in today’s society.

Your ability to do knowledge work hinges on how creative and...

The Organized Mind Summary How to Organize Your Thinking

Now that you understand the importance of sorting and externalizing information, how do you actually do it? In this section, we’ll first discuss how to sort and externalize your thoughts so that they don’t distract you. Then, we’ll discuss how to sort and externalize your information in specific circumstances, such as when making difficult medical decisions. Finally, we’ll review a potential pitfall of externalizing information—and how to ensure it doesn’t lead you to make bad decisions.

How to Externalize and Sort Distracting Thoughts

As mentioned previously, our brains naturally want to wander—which often leads us to think of random but important thoughts at inopportune times. Sometimes, these thoughts distract you from a more important task; other times, they merely arise when you can’t do anything about them. For example, you might remember that you need to call the dentist on the weekend when the dentist’s office is closed.

To deal with intrusive thoughts, Levitin recommends using a notecard system to externalize and sort your thoughts to ensure you get to them eventually. To do so, carry a pack of 3 x 5 notecards. Every time you think of something unrelated to...

The Organized Mind Summary How to Organize Your Things

In the previous section, we discussed how to externalize and sort information to make various mental processes easier. Similarly, Levitin suggests that you use the power of externalization and sorting to track your things—and thus free up more mental energy to focus on other tasks and make better decisions. In this section, we’ll first discuss how your brain keeps track of your stuff. Then, we’ll discuss how to work with your biology to better organize your things—and how to plan against potential issues.

Levitin suggests that, when thinking about how to keep track of your stuff, there is a neurological trait—in addition to your brain’s tendency to sort—that you should keep in mind: You are great at remembering where things are. This is because you have an entire brain region devoted to doing so: your hippocampus, which evolved to remember where important things (like the nearest source of fresh water) were in a pre-map era.

(Shortform note: In Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer argues that your brain is also good at remembering images due to ancient evolutionary...

The Organized Mind Summary How to Organize Your Relationships

We’ve now discussed how to externalize and sort your things, but how can you use the power of externalization to improve your relationships? In this section, we’ll explore why modern relationships can overwhelm us and how to externalize them to make them better and improve your decisions.

Levitin suggests that we struggle to keep track of and maintain fulfilling relationships with the people who matter because we know so many people. In past eras, we spent time with a limited number of people—and when our connections changed, they did so slowly and because they were no longer relevant to our lives. But in the modern world, we know way more people: Many of us live in cities where we encounter far more people than our ancestors did. We regularly change jobs and move, so our connections change at far greater speeds, which only increases the number of people we have to keep track of at any given moment. And thanks to social media, we’re able to keep track of people with whom we might otherwise have fallen out of touch.

(Shortform note: It’s possible that [we're cognitively incapable of maintaining the many and ever-changing relationships we...

Shortform Exercise: Implement Levitin’s Strategies Effectively

Levitin suggests that you organize your physical and digital things, your thoughts, and your relationships so that you can use your brain power more efficiently and make better decisions. We’ll help you decide which of these areas to tackle first so that you maximize the reduction in overwhelm that you feel.

What do you feel most overwhelmed by right now? For example, if you’ve recently moved, you may feel overwhelmed by the number of boxes to unpack or the number of services you still need to register for.