Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life: Train Your Brain to Get More Done in Less Time

ISBN: 0373892446

Author: Hammerness, Paul

Condition: Used

Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.It was a Thursday, around 6:00 pm, and I was sitting in my office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, located along a tree-lined stretch of Alewife Brook Parkway, a few miles outside of Harvard Square.The four-story brick building, an annex of Massachusetts General Hospital's psychiatry department, is where I see patients as part of my research and teaching responsibilities at Harvard Medical School. They span the age and occupation spectrum-elementary-school children, grandparents, lawyers, salesmen, housewives and house-husbands-but they have one thing in common: they are coming to see me and my colleagues with familiar complaints and concerns. "I know I could be doing better" is a common one; as is, "I can't go on like this."While the complaints may vary slightly, the symptoms they describe are the same-and consistent with the condition we treat. You've probably heard of it: attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).One of those patients, we'll call her Jill, is late for her appointment.As I sit catching up on e-mails, the door bursts open and in she flies, out of breath from climbing the two flights of stairs to my second-floor office. She is flustered and clearly upset."Sorry I'm late!" Jill says, as she plops down on the chair facing my desk. "You wouldn't believe my day.""Try me," I say. "Take a deep breath and tell me what's going on."Jill is in her late thirties and a highly educated research scientist, one of the many "knowledge workers" who labor in Cambridge, home of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She takes a moment and launches into her story, which begins a few weeks earlier when she temporarily moved into a friend's apartment while her own house was being renovated."Last night, when I came in," she says, "I put my keys down somewhere, and this morning, I had not a clue where they could be."I nod. I have a feeling I know where this is going."I looked everywhere-the usual places, which of course are not the usual places, as it's not my place. My friend, she really is a good friend, but I am wondering if she has more trouble than I do. You think I am disorganized, you should see her place"I know this is the right time to jump in and direct our conversation back to the issue at hand or-like this morning-Jill could continue running in verbal circles and not getting anywhere. "Okay, so, you were looking for your keys ?" Jill smiles. "Oh, right, yes, I was flipping out. I spent thirty minutes trying to find my car keys."Jill then stops, shaking her head."Well, did you find them?" I ask.She nods ruefully. "Eventually.""Where were they?""Right on my friend's kitchen table! And, of course, I'd walked back and forth through the kitchen ten times while I was looking for them. All that time they were right thereright there in front of me. Unbelievable!""Sounds very frustratingbut pretty believable, as those keys have eluded you before." Jill smiles ruefully, and I press on. "Then what happened?""My day was in shambles from that point on." Jill went on to relate how the half hour she'd spent looking for the keys set off a domino effect of tardiness and inefficiency-problems galore. She arrived at work late for a meeting and opened the door to the conference room just in time to interrupt an important point that one of her company's head honchos was making. Embarrassed and angry at herself, she returned from the meeting and finally got in front of her computer to find a barrage of e-mail reminders that further annoyed and overwhelmed her. She sent out a flurry of responses, including a snippy reply to the wrong person, who was not happy to get it (neither was the correct recipient, when she eventually cleared up the mistake). Dealing with her e-mail gaffe kept her from attending to a project due by noon. Her deadline blown, she skipped lunch, scrambling to get her work done, and what she did hand in-two hours la

• Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life: Train Your Brain to Get More Done in Less Time