Some are bigger than others, and some use it more than most. Yes, I am of course talking about the brain… I’m sure many of us write thoughts down on paper so we don’t forget them and if you are serious about your productivity you may even have tried mind sweeps and discovered lots of things you would otherwise forget about. But why is it so beneficial? If I’m out and remember something I will save it to my mobile phone or scribble it on a scrap piece of paper. It annoys my wife but if she wants me to do something I will add it to my to-do list so I don’t forget it (and so she doesn’t have to constantly remind me).
On the surface I do all this so I don’t forget about it, but this isn’t the only reason the brain doesn’t function well, certainly when it comes to managing your life and workload. I think there is a big correlation between the stress levels of people and the amount of stuff they keep in their head. The brain can’t handle too much at once. Below are four reasons I’ve pinpointed why you should not rely on your brain so much and instead get into the habit of writing stuff down. Let me know if you’ve ever experienced any of these points!
- It’s always on
If there is something to do, your brain will keep nagging at you to act on it. The messy home is a common example of where this applies. Every time you walk in and see the laundry all over the floor and dirty dishes in the sink, your brain will log them as things to do. The more incompletes there are, the more stuff your brain has to track and the more it will nag at you to do something about it, leading to that overbearing feeling of anxiety I call the fuzzy-head syndrome. When you can’t see clearly what needs doing, you can’t do very much at all. - It doesn’t factor in time
Stuff in your head that needs doing now and stuff that needs doing in a month’s time will all make the same mental noise. That’s such a waste of energy and focus. This is why calendars are so popular. They do what the brain can’t, freeing your mind up from having to track these future dates and appointments that it would otherwise keep dwelling on. - It is led by emotion
Thoughts that have high emotional impact will always dictate your attention. They will bang and shout over anything else that would otherwise take precedence. It’s an instinctual thing. The brain is designed to satisfy emotional demands and basic living requirements above anything else. That’s invaluable when you are a caveman with a basic lifestyle and simple demands but it’s not so good for a complex person in the 21st century bombarded by emotional quick-fixes. - New thoughts take precedence
As well as emotional demands, the most recent thoughts will also take precedence. That is until the next thing comes along and it gets pushed back into the boiling pot of other thoughts. This is why it is so easy to forget about something after minutes after thinking of it. The consequence of this is that people adopt a well-intentioned but ineffective habit of dropping what they might already be doing to deal with new things that enter your radar. For example, you might be in the middle of doing a big report and you stop to quickly send an email, causing you to lose track of where you are. This is reactive. If you simply write down a reminder, you can choose to do it when it suits you.
March 3, 2009 at 02:35AM
Without writing stuff out number four on your list gets me. I’m fine if there are just a few things to do but if there are several and then I get distracted, it’s difficult to get back to where I was. It’s usually not until much later (sometimes days) that I remember what else I was supposed to do.
Writing stuff out on a daily task list, a general to-do list or a yearly maintenance list certainly helps me keep track of things. And now that I’m home with two kids, distractions are an hourly occurrence so I would certainly be lost without them!
March 3, 2009 at 09:32PM
Writing everything down is certainly useful. It allows you to pick and choose what you want to do more logically. Without it, you’ll choose stuff that makes the most mental noise. Hardly efficient.
March 3, 2009 at 10:36PM
I enjoyed this post. I think egolessness is the key to peace and enjoyment in life.
March 4, 2009 at 02:08AM
I often find that sometimes emotion can get the best of you. That’s one of the riskiest parts of it and one that you should really be careful with, because emotions can make you do things you would probably regret.