With awareness that reading is important and time is limited, we thought to give a book summary in five days. This means you will be reading a self empowerment and development book with us every week. We hope this endeavor awards you with the intended value.
My reason to do this is that I have found a wealth of knowledge in books. The knowledge that propelled me to live an increased quality of life which I want to share. Understanding is the key to solving every problem.
Fortunately, it is contained in books. You call something a problem because it is ahead of your understanding. Now imagine yourself approaching almost every situation with judiciousness acquired from reading. What could stop you? Read ahead of your challenges so that they become success stepping stones.
We’ll kick start with a summary of a read by David Rock from the three beginning chapters of his book – Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long.
Act 1: Problems and Decisions
Scene 1: The Morning Email Overwhelm
Emails can sometimes be received in a large quantity that would make other daily work activities suffer. As a result, it is advised that prioritising is prioritized. In prioritising, activities should be placed in order of their demand for the use of the precious prefrontal cortex.
The prefrontal cortex solves problems and makes decisions. This process uses up a lot of energy. To save it, one should order activities according to complexity. For instance, do creative writing before attending meetings and doing other routine tasks.
Visualising can also reduce energy for processing information. In the event that energy has been used up, it can be replenished by a cola or glucose powder. The brain can further be boosted by mixing up activities that use different parts of the brain. This mixing up can be equated to exercising your arms, abs and legs interchangeably in the gym. It is a lot more better than only lifting weights for two hours.
On your way to work, think of ways you are going to do your tasks for the day or week. Be careful to note down any brilliant ideas. When you get to the office write four activities for the day in order of significance. Then think of how you will mix them up the entire day while maximising output. Make sure you have something glucose rich to eat or drink every morning.
Scene 2: A Project That Hurts to Think About
Procrastination. It so happens that you are allocated a task to do and do not wait until it is too late. This leads you to making a lot of mistakes in an effort to beat the deadline until you end up embarrassing yourself in front of your boss or client.
Some of you know those high pressure moments. You know you had the time. You know you did not use it. You feel like stopping everything and screaming. It hurts to think about your mess. Its best to think early while you have plenty mental energy. Additionally, use visuals, simplify and chunk information.
Simplifying is the act of reducing complex ideas to just a few concepts. It enables smooth manipulation of such concepts in your mind and that of other people. Let’s say you were told to rethink your life priorities. Even as a hypothetical situation, it hurts to think about it. Now how about if we create chunks such as health, family and work? It gets easier. That is chunking.
Still not clear? Write a random ten digit number and try to memorize it. It is difficult. Take two numbers at a time. It is easy. Still chunking. The less you hold in your mind the better. Decide by comparing two items at a time. The optimal number of ideas to hold in mind should be four or less.
Scene 3: Juggling Five Things at Once
You must be confused. The less you hold in your mind the better. It’s better than dangling five things at once. How contradictory! However, it is possible to do it. In fact some of you do.
Let us talk about driving a manual. You clutch when shifting gears and sometimes applying brakes. You excel observing oncoming traffic, reducing volume on the radio, switching lights if its at night and indicating when turning. All this, while talking to the passenger. Should I add texting and making calls?
The trick is simple. You can juggle five things at once like a clown provided you learn one activity at a time until it is embedded in your long-term memory (no longer using the limited prefrontal cortex energy) and becomes routine.
Before doing it, we have several limitations to consider. The prefrontal cortex takes a lot of energy to function. It can hold a handful of ideas at a time (four). It can focus on one thing at a time. It is worth admitting than one can do several mental tasks simultaneously at the expense of accuracy and performance.
Harold Prashler, scientifically displayed that when people do two cognitive tasks at once, their cognitive capacity can drop from that of a Harvard MBA to that of an eight year old. The phenomenon is called dual-task interference.
Now to the interesting one. A study done at the University of London uncovered that constant emailing and texting reduces mental capacity by an average of ten points on an IQ test. Conversely, it is not that amusing that these common productivity tools can make one as dumb as a stoner. The effect is similar to missing a night’s sleep.
The main mental processes for getting work done are understanding, deciding, recalling, memorising, and inhibiting. Business people sometimes claim that multitasking is fine. In reality, you are actually switching attention between being on a call and replying to an email.
The basal ganglia are central to how the brain stores routine functions, how it embeds them. It recognizes, stores, and repeats patterns in your environment. Its fundamental operating principle is like the “if-then” function in software coding.
One study showed that three repetitions of a routine is enough to begin the process of what is termed long-term potentiation or hard-wiring, as called by the author. The basal ganglia are also quiet eaters since they pick up patterns without conscious awareness.
Conclusion
Efficiency is what we are after. To accomplish it, prioritize in the best possible order when mixing up how you use attention to boot. If you have to multitask, combine active thinking tasks only with automatic, embedded routines.
Tomorrow, we learn about Saying No to Distractions and more.