The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload

I enjoyed this book, but understand that it’s not a simple book of techniques or direction. The author goes deep into the human mind – the swear, the first chapter is a lesson in neurological anatomy. You’ll read more about the human brain than you probably care to know.

The book is interesting, but if you were looking for something practical, this ain’t it. The best practical advice I could find was: “externalize memory.” Basically, write things down a lot.

There is a very interesting chapter on medical decision making, where the author tries to give some context on putting medical probabilities (any probabilities, really) in context. Don’t have surgery for prostate cancer, it turns out, because it’s not worth it.

Again, this feels like “Gladwell syndrome.” An interested book which doesn’t really have much of anything practical to offer, but that I enjoyed reading all the same.