“The Organized Mind” by Daniel J Levitin

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Memory has a retrieval problem, not a storage problem
Our brains organize things but not prioritize them
Highly successful people have systems in place to relieve their mind of random distractions
The brain is always looks for difference
- Attentional filtering excludes the common
Imagining something helps us hone our senses to find the thing
We can use order (for example, a physical boundary) to predetermine security and safeness
We have “rehearsal loops” to keep things that we need to remember, remembered
- Writing things down releases that effort
Languages evolved to categorize things
Applying a category is more important than the category names
It is difficult to make decisions with a lack is information
Women’s cortisol levels jump when confronted with clutter
Improve organization to make the time you spend more meaningful
We can gather things to make ourselves more efficient later
There is a literal comfort in belonging
Online marriages tend to end in fewer divorces
We see individuals in the “in group” as being distinctive and people of the “out group” as being all the same
We notice correlations but not lack there of
The optimal number of pieces of information is 5, we generally do okay until 10
“A man with one watch always knows what time it is. A man with two never knows.”

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