Summary

How to organize your life to spend more time on the rewarding rather than mundane things (externalize as much as possible, set routines, remove the unnecessary)

Key Takeaways

Be adamant about finding ways to externalize your brain as much as possible. This leads you to forget less, be less stressed and gives your brain the space and capacity to focus on truly difficult problems which you enjoy

Brain organization is amazing but not always optimal

Organized mind leads to good, effortless decision-making

Happy people don't have more, happy people want what they already have

Decision overload leads to being less productive and loss of motivation

Attention is the most essential mental resource for any organism

Layers of people let leaders let go and gain a zen like focus since they don't have to worry about their schedule, etc.

Attentional filter best picks up on change and importance

Switching attention comes with a very high cost. Limit multi-tasking!

Don't need to limit information, just need consistent and efficient ways to organize it all

We are hardwired to impose structure on the world

Active sorting, what you need to do right now, is vital for organization, efficiency and productivity

Fundamental principle of being organized is to shift to-do list, information, whatever you can into an external source

Consciousness lies on a continuum

Sustained attention relies on noradrenaline and acetylcholine

Develop zen-like focus by giving all your attention to one thing at a time

Memory not just a replaying of a past experience but a rewriting of past experiences

Best remember what is unique, leaves an emotional imprint

Must be able to zoom in and out (detail vs. whole picture, what Elon Musk is incredible at)

Categorize - gross/fine, functional equivalence, things similar in particular situations

Writing things down conserves mental energy by not having to worry about it

If it takes less than 2 minutes, do it immediately

Home and work environments are an extension of your brain - make it easy, calm and organized

Have things used often visible, hide otherwise (helps you relax, avoid distributions) 24. Create a junk drawer for things which cannot be organized 25. Create different work spaces for different kinds of work 26. Batch emails, create a special account which only a few people have 27. Child like sense of wonder leads to very strong memories 28. New acquaintances - write down why and how you met, their expertise, who introduced you, other context 29. Can leverage other people's expertise and use them as your external brain 30. On average, people are Terrible at detecting lying and if people like us 31. Being transparent enables social ties and makes it easier for people to forgive us 32. Indirect speech - quantity, quality, manner and relation 33. People have a very hard time ignoring information which is later shown to be false 34. Daydreaming helps recalibrate/restore the brain (multitasking does not) 35. For any large task, break into small, actionable chunks 36. Chunking is much more productive and having a clear start/stop time helps you form solid memories 37. Experts know what to pay attention to and ignore much better than novices 38. Sleep - unitization, assimilation, abstraction

Memory consolidation occurs within the first two hours of NREM and last 90 minutes of REM (alcohol disturbs both of these cycles)

Jet lag hack - before traveling east, get into sunlight early in the day and before traveling west, avoid sunlight early and expose yourself to bright light in the evening

Must disconnect sense of self-worth from outcome of a task

Successful people paradoxically fail much more than "failures" but their reaction to failure is much different as they consider it a learning experiences

Creativity comes from integration of executive and daydreaming mode

Arrange life for flow moments - reduce change, be comfortable, avoid distractions, easy environment, etc.

If make it big, have assistants take care of everything so you can focus 100% on the task at hand

People typically ignore base rates when making decisions

Bayes rate - take base rate and relevant information into account before making a decision

Decisions must be made with long-term view, use probabilities and expected value over the long-term

Don't fall for denominator neglect (ignoring the scale, magnitude of safe car rides whenever we hear of a horrendous crash)

Effective leaders

Adaptable, responsible, high in empathy, able to see problems from all side

Have high social intelligence and flexible, deep analytic intelligence

Quickly understands opposing views, how people came to hold them, how to resolve conflicts in ways that are perceived to be mutually satisfying and beneficial

Adept at bringing people together who appear to have conflicting goals

Uses empathy to allow people or organizations to save face in negotiations

Often great storytellers

Build cohesive teams through mutual trust

Create shared understanding

Provide a clear and concise set of expectations and goals

Allow workers at all levels to exercise disciplined initiative

Accept prudent risks

Function best when under constraint but allowed to be creative within this constraint

Internal locus of control vital for self and employees

Employee morale and performance improves when understand how their work fits into the big pictures

Best filing system requires least searching time, transparent to anyone, easily described, external brain

Tickler files/reminders for deadlines, must know how long the task will take to complete

10 parameters max for optimal decisions, 5 is optimal though

Take 10 minutes post meeting to summarize, write down action steps, etc.

With information overload, must teach children to be critical, independent, clear and complete thinkers

Not so important to know a fact as to know where to find/how to verify

The more sense/dimensions you can involve, the better your recall will be

In the pursuit of learning, slower is often better

The greatest scientists tend to be artists as well

Appendix - how to create your own 4 fold (Bayesian) decision making table for medical decisions or anything else

What I got out of it

Really interesting book. Externalize your brain, get into flow by being 100% on the task at hand, junk drawer, chunk, weave other senses/emotions into whatever you want to better remember