Meditation provides you with a forum in which you get familiar with the rhythm of your mind. Understanding how it plays, or what consumes it, under certain conditions. Practicing compassion for errant thoughts in Meditation reduces their ability to hijack your executive function.
Or you can go deeper by zooming in on the triggers you have in your closet by IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapy. Your mind has its own executive committee of parts; like anger, sadness, fear, joy and disgust in Riley’s mind in the “Inside Out” cartoon franchise, that are activated because of past trauma and current stress. Knowing your triggers can prevent those parts from hijacking your executive function.
Another one to consider is if it is important or urgent (or some combination thereof). Sometimes marking it with something like IU for Important and urgent or NINU for not important and not urgent can help you prioritize a little easier as well.
When you are struggling with memory, then everything is a fire that needs to be put out, right? Even a reminder on what thing is really important is key for improving not only your memory, but your stress levels as well.
The idea of using a paper tool to write down schedule and tasks that are also digital is like highlighting the information in your brain to make it easier to recall. Thanks for this.
I’ve been following Jim Kwik and increasing my reading speed. The focus and pushing distractions out from my thoughts as I read is helpful for many of the functions you mention. Also a meditation every day, to slow down the spin. Having more daily habits would be supportive, things I do No Matter What to keep my space uncluttered. Jim mentions that uncluttered spaces are also good for memory.
Super helpful! I have adhd and I use timers to keep on task. I also use an app (Clockify) that allows me to time tasks while assigning them to specific tasks or projects. For some reason when I’m locked in timing for one task I find it really hard to break away and do something else (thank you adhd hyper focus ). Thanks for this great post!
Brilliant! I realized that this post described me - although I had never really acknowledged it (so thank you for that!), and I was already implementing number 1. Multitasking has been my enemy for a long time, although-funnily enough-I had been praised to be a good multitasker in one of my previous job (it was written black and white in a recommendation letter) - which actually led me to burnout! So I have learned my lesson. Mindfulness meditation has been very supportive in that area to train my brain to focus on one thing at a time, which successfully reduced a lot of my stress. Oh, and how I love to-do lists that I can keep on referring to and reorganizing... life savers. I have multiple notepads at home (yes, physical ones), which are all dedicated to one topic (I must admit though that I sometimes get lost in my own system and need to reorganize it as a result!). But anyway, I love this post for reinforcing what I was already doing (and understanding why!). And good notes on item 2, abbreviations are really helpful for loaded brain :)
Something appeals to me about saying “FU, Invoice!”
Ha that’s what I thought 🤣
Two further ideas:
Meditation provides you with a forum in which you get familiar with the rhythm of your mind. Understanding how it plays, or what consumes it, under certain conditions. Practicing compassion for errant thoughts in Meditation reduces their ability to hijack your executive function.
Or you can go deeper by zooming in on the triggers you have in your closet by IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapy. Your mind has its own executive committee of parts; like anger, sadness, fear, joy and disgust in Riley’s mind in the “Inside Out” cartoon franchise, that are activated because of past trauma and current stress. Knowing your triggers can prevent those parts from hijacking your executive function.
Very true indeed. This is my personal experience too (all of it).
Another one to consider is if it is important or urgent (or some combination thereof). Sometimes marking it with something like IU for Important and urgent or NINU for not important and not urgent can help you prioritize a little easier as well.
When you are struggling with memory, then everything is a fire that needs to be put out, right? Even a reminder on what thing is really important is key for improving not only your memory, but your stress levels as well.
I've never heard of the shorthand technique. Really looking forward to trying this out with a bigger project but also with everyday tasks
The idea of using a paper tool to write down schedule and tasks that are also digital is like highlighting the information in your brain to make it easier to recall. Thanks for this.
I’ve been following Jim Kwik and increasing my reading speed. The focus and pushing distractions out from my thoughts as I read is helpful for many of the functions you mention. Also a meditation every day, to slow down the spin. Having more daily habits would be supportive, things I do No Matter What to keep my space uncluttered. Jim mentions that uncluttered spaces are also good for memory.
Great tip on abrevations! I’ve never heard it before, will try!
Super helpful! I have adhd and I use timers to keep on task. I also use an app (Clockify) that allows me to time tasks while assigning them to specific tasks or projects. For some reason when I’m locked in timing for one task I find it really hard to break away and do something else (thank you adhd hyper focus ). Thanks for this great post!
Interesting read! Thanks.
Brilliant! I realized that this post described me - although I had never really acknowledged it (so thank you for that!), and I was already implementing number 1. Multitasking has been my enemy for a long time, although-funnily enough-I had been praised to be a good multitasker in one of my previous job (it was written black and white in a recommendation letter) - which actually led me to burnout! So I have learned my lesson. Mindfulness meditation has been very supportive in that area to train my brain to focus on one thing at a time, which successfully reduced a lot of my stress. Oh, and how I love to-do lists that I can keep on referring to and reorganizing... life savers. I have multiple notepads at home (yes, physical ones), which are all dedicated to one topic (I must admit though that I sometimes get lost in my own system and need to reorganize it as a result!). But anyway, I love this post for reinforcing what I was already doing (and understanding why!). And good notes on item 2, abbreviations are really helpful for loaded brain :)