Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life Read Free Page A

about the supposedly dire effects of technology on our brain. In a USA TODAY story on the issue, one researcher concluded gloomily that “people are multi-tasking probably beyond our cognitive limits.”
    A DISTRACTED FACT OF LIFE?
    Some say there’s little that can be done about all of this. The pace of life is increasing and the distractions multiplying. Get used to it. You’re powerless. To which we say, baloney! While we may not be able to slow down technological change or the speed with which life unfolds around us—and in some cases, why would we want to?—we very definitely can find a way to better manage ourselves, in order to not only deal with change and complexity but also thrive amidst it. This book is designed to show you how.
    Remember: for every driver driven to distraction and for every stressed-out person who has lost an assignment, a job or a vital piece of information because he or she was disorganized and distracted, there are people on the opposite end of the spectrum. These are individuals who know how to use their brain’s abilities to organize their lives, to stay focused on the tasks at hand and to enjoy greater productivity—and pleasure!—at work and at home.
    Some of them you probably know: athletes such as Derek Jeter or Tom Brady, famous for their ability to block out distraction and focus on the little white ball or the white line on the field ahead, public servants such as General David Petraeus, making life-and-death decisions in the midst of a foreign country exploding in religious civil war; Steve Jobs, a visionary who manages one of the world’s largest and most influential corporations; Hillary Clinton, patiently mastering the minutiae and intricacies of a seemingly intractable conflict as she engages Palestinians and Israelis at the bargaining table. And the ranks of the super-organized are not limited to government, big business or the pressure cooker of professional sports: how about J.K. Rowling, whose disciplined imagination enabled her to create the Harry Potter world? (Imagine how organized she had tobe to keep track of, much less create, the Hogwarts faculty and their complex histories.)
    There are numerous examples of famous people whose achievements lie, at least to some degree, in their ability to stay calm, focused and organized, especially in the midst of crisis. There are many other very successful people whose names might not make headlines but who have, through both innate and learned skills, managed to harness their cognitive powers in a way that makes them extraordinarily productive, both on the job and at home.
    Let’s meet two of them.
    ORGANIZED MINDS AT WORK AND PLAY
    By 8:30 am most mornings, Rob Shmerling has already exercised for an hour, has caught up on world and national news, and is well into responding to his e-mails.
    For two hours, he exchanges messages with colleagues and scours various websites for the latest medical news. Dr. Shmerling is a physician and the clinical chief of the division of rheumatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
    It’s a big administrative job at one of the country’s leading hospitals—but it’s not all that he does. Shmerling, fifty-four, also writes and does research—he has authored a total of forty-one journal articles, book chapters or reviews, as well as numerous web stories for nonexpert audiences. He also teaches and mentors medical students and residents. He is a husband and a father of two daughters. He volunteers at a women’s shelter once a week. He and his wife belong to a book club (Janice Y.K. Lee’s The Piano Teacher and Kathryn Stockett’s The Help are two recent novels they’ve enjoyed). He also “hacks away” at the piano, is anamateur photographer and, on weekends, enjoys long bike rides in the Massachusetts countryside.
    Oh, and he washes and folds socks, too.
    â€œI’m the laundry guy,” he says