Organized

We have information overload. So much so that we forget things like the password to our Facebook account, the PIN for our credit card, the digital door code of the loo at workplace - for goodness' sake, no laughing matter when there is a pressing need.

The need for taking charge of our memory cabinet has never been greater. My brain seems to be shrinking inversely proportional to the explosion of job items. In short, I'm forgetting more things than I remember.

One good explanation is that our brain's memory system, according to neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin, resembles a big, old house with piecemeal renovation. We simply add things one thing at a time, as and when we need them. A haphazard hodgepodge of different things, each one solving a problem at a different time.

That's what I learned after picking up the reserved book The Organized Mind at the public library today. An obvious take-away, after reading its first chapter, is to think of better filing systems to retrieve information. By the time I entered this book in the Goodreads - my cabinet system - I then realized that I have already finished reading it over two years ago.

As I reflected on the ridiculously disorganized memory cabinet of mine, it is hard not to be struck by the irony.