Use your head wisely
Trine Kolding tells about the brain’s many applications, and how to utilise the brain capacity to a better work procedure.
The brain has incredible and multi-faceted applications, but to use it as storage for all the things we need to remember is both unsuitable and inefficient.
There are limits to how much we can remember here and now.The short term memory stores exactly what happens here and now, and that part of the memory has a limit of about 5-9 units or pieces of information.But it also has a time limit in the sense that if we do not focus our attention on what we are doing right now, it will disappear from our short term memory soon after.
Learn to focus on one thing at a time
Through a typical work day, you are often flooded with information and demands related to your willingness to adapt.If you should have a chance to keep up, maintain your focus and get the best out of all work situations, all unnecessary information needs to be cut out, and you should preferable focus on one thing at a time.
Roughly speaking, it is a waste of good storage and brain capacity to use the brain as storage for things and tasks we need to remember to do.Use it instead to carry out the task and for quality assurance.
Make sure to have a few and good collecting tools to gather and maintain all your projects, tasks and information.
Here are six tips to get started:
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Define and minimise the number of collection point (collection points are all the places you receive information from, or where you write it down).
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Write down instead of remembering
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Introduce routines (have relevant systems to manage all information, projects and tasks).Things that require an action needs to be put in your calendar or task list, so you make sure you get the job done.
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Empty the collection points on a regular basis
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Remove alarms and notifications about new e-mails etc.There is no reason to let interruptions control you.
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Remove the ones, which you are master of.
If you want to use tools to help you illustrate your information sources, here are some suggestions.
- Dropbox to save and share documents
- TimeLog to collect time registrations and project finances
- Microsoft teams (Slack) to easily communicate with your colleagues
- OneNote for all your notes and to share note collections with your colleagues
- E-mail handyman – take control of your inbox and empty it each day
- The todoist app to keep track of your to do points
