Daniel Levitin is the author of The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload (2014), as you may have guessed by the title of this post. From the Amazon page for the book (linked to in previous sentence), here is the ad copy:

New York Times bestselling author and neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin shifts his keen insights from your brain on music to your brain in a sea of details.

The information age is drowning us with an unprecedented deluge of data. At the same time, we’re expected to make more—and faster—decisions about our lives than ever before. No wonder, then, that the average American reports frequently losing car keys or reading glasses, missing appointments, and feeling worn out by the effort required just to keep up.

But somehow some people become quite accomplished at managing information flow. In The Organized Mind, Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, uses the latest brain science to demonstrate how those people excel—and how readers can use their methods to regain a sense of mastery over the way they organize their homes, workplaces, and time.

With lively, entertaining chapters on everything from the kitchen junk drawer to health care to executive office workflow, Levitin reveals how new research into the cognitive neuroscience of attention and memory can be applied to the challenges of our daily lives. This Is Your Brain on Music showed how to better play and appreciate music through an understanding of how the brain works. The Organized Mind shows how to navigate the churning flood of information in the twenty-first century with the same neuroscientific perspective.

Levitin stopped by Google recently to talk about his new book.

Daniel Levitin: "The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in an Age of Information Overload"

Published on Oct 28, 2014


The information age is drowning us with an unprecedented deluge of data. At the same time, we’re expected to make more—and faster—decisions about our lives than ever before. No wonder, then, that the average American reports frequently losing car keys or reading glasses, missing appointments, and feeling worn out by the effort required just to keep up.

But somehow some people become quite accomplished at managing information flow. In The Organized Mind, Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, uses the latest brain science to demonstrate how those people excel—and how readers can use their methods to regain a sense of mastery over the way they organize their homes, workplaces, and time.

Mindfulness Practices for Workplace Issues

From Huffington Post. Image created by Jeremy Hunter for Mindful magazine.

ENLARGE and DOWNLOAD

Practice: Learn a practice where you follow a simple object (like your breath). The repeated returning to a focal point trains your attention.

Benefit: Focus. Your attention wavers less and you're not as easily pulled away by external distractions or internal chatter.

Practice: Let others talk about themselves. Listen and consider what might cause them pain.

Benefit: Not as judgemental. You take more time to explore what might be causing other people pain and problems instead of assuming the worst.

Practice: Take a few minutes and let your attention scan your whole body from toe to head. Go breathe fresh air.

Benefit: Body awareness. You more often notice how you actually feel in your body and when it needs care.

Practice: Sit quietly doing nothing for five minutes. Then as you contemplate the problem, imagine you're seeing it for the first time.

Benefit: Fresh eyes. Increased ability to let go of assumptions, expectations, and storylines and see things anew.

Practice: Listen fully to a longer piece of music without doing anything else at all. This helps you appreciate rhythm, rather than trying to force things.

Benefit: Patience. You let things develop in their own time rather than always trying to push them.

This article also appears in the April 2013 issue of Mindful magazine as part of a package titled "Is Mindfulness Good for Business?"