I’m a big fan of notebooks, schedules, dictaphones and the like. Anything that can be used to record your thoughts as they fly by.
The less thoughts you force your brain to manage, the less brain processing power will be left for whatever tasks that may pop up during your day. Therefore, the more information you can offload to “external storage devices” (notebooks, schedules) the better. See and use these devices as external extensions of your brain!
What makes this works is, that your brain is genetically wired to automatically erase information that no longer is required. That’s so neat! Whenever you record an appointment in your schedule, your brain will gradually forget it because it figures it doesn’t have to remember, because it is now in your schedule!
The same goes for ideas that suddenly pop up – offload them by writing them down in your notebook, and get back to them when you have the time.
And as a free bonus of this technique, let me recite the old Chinese proverb: The palest ink is better than the best memory.
Use this technique to offload as much of your brain capacity as possible so you can focus on things that are more important than today’s grocery list.
