When was the last time you cleared your mind? Wouldn't it be nice to process one thought at a time and get rid of all of the unnecessary pressure and stress these multiple thoughts put on us?
A little less than a year ago, many employees from our company got together to have a business planning and "brainstorming" session. The following is something that I learned from our conversations.
Apparently, having too much on your mind takes up 'psychic RAM' space which bogs you down and gives you that stress we were talking about earlier. The cure: Write it down! Everything! Little, big, personal, professional, urgent, not urgent, harebrained, not-sure-what-to-do-with-it, anything!!!
Your mind is for having ideas to begin with - it does that really well. It also reviews and analyzes data. However, it is not for storing and organizing the data. Your head has limited room and it's a crappy office! Your mind is not designed to hang onto things and remind you. It does a lousy job of it, as a matter of fact. Your mind can accumulate up to only about ten discrete items before it loses perspective on all of them.
Another problem is that things stored in your head, especially commitments to do things, operate without a sense of past or future. That means as soon as you tell yourself to do something ("call Mom", "Mow the lawn", "Fax that appraisal order", etc.), there is a part of you that thinks you should be doing it all, all of the time. (That's me!)
So, as soon as you file two things in your mind, you create instant stress and failure, because a part of you is trying to get them both done right now, and it can't do that. That's why people are so easily distracted and can find it hard to focus.
The more sophisticated you get in life, the more you will have ideas that can't be implemented where you have the idea. You'll be buying bread in the store, thinking of something to talk to one of your clients about. And you'll be talking to a client and remember you need bread. So, if you want bread to happen where bread is, and you want the information for your client to be when you are with your client, you must capture the thought the moment you have it.
That means keeping notepads, pens, and in-baskets in appropriate places around your life and work, and using them to collect whatever you are thinking about that might have usefulness past the moment.
Capturing all the things we have on our mind in some external form is absolutely critical for clarity and peace of mind.
I don't know about you, but I keep a notebook with me at all times in my office and also keep a pop-up post it dispenser handy for the quick notes. I try to write down everything I can, when I can, but I still need to work on getting all of my thoughts out when I have them. I manage to hold alot of information up there and it shows in my stress level. Just ask my husband.
So, the challenge to all of you is to "Get it out of your Head!" Try to write everything down when you think of it and make use of that note at the appropriate moment. I will work right along side of you. If there is anything we can do to make our lives a bit easier, it's worth a shot!
Information provided to you by Angie Gerhardson, Personal Mortgage Consultant with Homestead Mortgage Corporation. To get mortgage information or view my mortgage calculator, please click here.
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