the organized mind daniel levitin summary

The brain is sequential tasking, we flit from one thought to the next very, very rapidly, giving us the illusion that what we're doing is doing all these things at once. Not those nagging voices, like, 'Did I remember to turn off the pilot light when I left the house? And, 'Oh, I have to remember to make that call that I said I was going to do.' And, 'I have to remember to buy milk on the way home.' You get all that stuff out of your brain and then you can concentrate on work and leisure activities more fully.'ĭL: 'What it turns out is that we think we're multitasking, but we're not. So, what experts recommend and what the neuroscience says, very strongly, is that if you can get stuff out of your brain and out there into the world - something called externalizing your memory - it frees up your brain to be uncluttered and to think about the things your really want to think about. His new book is 'The Organized Mind.' He's also author of the New York Times best selling books, 'The World in Six Songs' and 'This is Your Brain on Music.' He tweets at 10 Ways To Get Your Brain Organizedĭaniel Levitin: 'The number of things that you can keep track of at once is limited to about four. He's also dean of the College of the Arts and Humanities at the Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute in Claremont, California.

In Levitin's new book, 'The Organized Mind,' he fuses self-help and neuroscience to help readers manage the many floating, disorganized elements of their brains.ĭaniel Levitin will be speaking about 'The Organized Mind' at Brookline Booksmith Thursday at 7 p.m.ĭaniel Levitin, professor of psychology and behavioral neuroscience at McGill University.

So now, in the age of smart phones, Wikipedia, grocery stores and deadlines, it makes sense that we're struggling to keep our heads above the overwhelmingly informative water. Because our brains, which evolved tens of thousands of years ago, are still just programmed to hunt, gather, raise children and do little else. (Ryan Ritchie/Flickr) This article is more than 8 years old.ĭo you often find yourself losing your keys, missing doctor's appointments, forgetting passwords to your favorite websites?įor many, the answer is 'yes.' But, if our brains were capable of developing all this stuff, should we also be capable of keeping track of it?Īccording to neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, not necessarily. Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin argues our brains aren't capable of processing everything in the age of information overload.

The organized mind daniel levitin summary