4 WAYS TO RETRAIN YOUR BRAIN TO HANDLE INFORMATION
OVERLOAD
ARE
YOU CONSTANTLY FORGETTING WHERE YOU PLACED YOUR KEYS? DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR
MIND SHUTS DOWN IN THE AFTERNOON? HERE'S WHY.
We live in an age of information overload. While many
of us find ourselves inundated with vast amounts of data daily, our fast-paced
society also requires us to make more rapid decisions.
Psychologist and behavioral neuroscientist Daniel Levitin,
author of the upcoming book The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in
the Age of Information Overload, says information overload creates daily
challenges for our brains, causing us to feel mentally exhausted before the
day's end.
“Our brains are equipped to deal with the world the
way it was many thousands of years ago when we were hunter-gatherers,"
says Levitin. "Back then the amount of information that was coming at us
was much less and it came at us much more slowly.”
The pace at which we’re exposed to information today
is overwhelming to our brains, which haven’t adapted fast enough to easily
separate relevant data from the irrelevant at the speed we’re asking it to. As
a result, our brains become easily fatigued, and we become more forgetful. By
using principles of neuroscience, Levitin says
we can regain control over our brains by organizing information in a way that
optimizes our brain’s capacity.
Rather than carrying around in your head a to-do list
of 20 or 30 items, put them on paper. Getting information out of your head and
into the external world helps you to see it objectively so you can make
decisions about what you will tackle, and in which order.
When information is only stored in your head, the
brain has a hard time focusing on everything, and uses up too much of its energy trying to
recall what’s on your list. Writing down your list manually also helps to
encode the information into your brain through the use of muscle memory.
“Each time you make a decision, it uses some
neuro-resources,” says Levitin. The problem is these neuro-resources are used
up whether you’re making an insignificant decision such
as which pen to use out of a drawer of pens, or something important such as
whether to sign a multimillion-dollar deal.
“If you spend your day making a bunch of little
decisions and it comes time to make a big important one, you’re neurologically
depleted,” says Levitin, who calls this phenomenon decision fatigue. Scheduling
your important decision-making tasks at the beginning of the day maximizes your
brain’s resources, and can help you make better decisions.
Being organized in your physical environment lessens
the burden on your brain. Have a designated place for commonly misplaced items
such as keys, glasses, and cellphones. Allow your physical environment to serve
as reminders, alleviating the pressure on your brain to recall things.
Levitin cites an example of forgetting to take your
umbrella. “You hear the weather report that it’s going to rain tomorrow so you
make a mental note to take your umbrella, but when you wake up in the morning,
there’s a 100 other things on your mind,” he says. Hanging the umbrella on the
doorknob when you hear the weather report reduces the clutter in your brain the
next morning--and you’re less likely to get wet.
How many times in a day do you find yourself checking
email while talking to a client on the phone, or answering text messages while
in a meeting? You may tell yourself you’re multitasking, but Levitin says
multitasking is a misnomer.
“What we’re actually doing is rapidly shifting our
attention from one thing to another,” he says. This fast-paced attention seesaw
depletes the brain’s glucose supply. Glucose is the fuel that the brain’s
neurons need to communicate with one another.
Using up the brain’s glucose supply by task switching
means the brain will reach a level of fatigue much sooner in the day than if we
concentrate on one item at a time with sustained attention. If that doesn’t
convince you, Levitin says rapidly switching tasks also lowers your IQ by 10
points.
BY LISA
EVANS
http://www.fastcompany.com/3033845/the-future-of-work/4-ways-to-retrain-your-brain-to-handle-information-overload?partner=newsletter
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