![\"Brain](\"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Brain-abuse.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who would argue that their brain was unimportant (and if they did, you would wonder how well it was functioning anyway). Yet on our travels we find that many people misuse their brains. They expect it to perform well in areas where science and experience tell us it just doesn\u2019t cut the mustard. And that means they don\u2019t exploit its full potential.<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019ve learned enough about the brain in the last 60 or so years to know that it is powerful and dependable at some things, and limited and unreliable when it comes to others. Thinking creatively, drawing connections, brainstorming, focused thinking \u2013 all great uses for our grey matter. But counting on it to remind me of the fact that I need to buy olive oil? Allowing it to have the thought over and over \u201cI need to email the proposal to the client\u201d? Only half-deciding what to do with several (hundred?) emails and leaving them in the inbox to fester?<\/p>\n That\u2019s brain abuse. Of course if you\u2019re guilty of it, you are also the only one who can put an end to it. A first step would be to consider a spotter\u2019s guide to the forms the abuse might take:<\/p>\n – Re-thinking things<\/strong><\/p>\n If your brain space is precious, why would you allow it to have a mundane thought more than once? The only thoughts you should have multiple times are thoughts you enjoy. Anything else should be dispatched to some place in your organizational system where you\u2019ll be reminded when you can do something about it.<\/p>\n – Leaving thinking half-finished<\/strong><\/p>\n This is a close cousin of re-thinking. If you have an email inbox that\u2019s chock-a-block, I\u2019m imagining there will be more than a few emails in there that you have opened, gotten a sense of, closed, possibly marked unread (the digital ritual that indicates \u201cI\u2019ll think about that some more later\u201d), and then left so you could move on to other things. And you might have repeated this several times for the same email. That\u2019s not only brain abuse, it\u2019s inefficient. Better to finish the thinking: what\u2019s the outcome that you want to or need to create that relates to this email? In other words, when will it be done and off your mind? And what is the very next visible action that you will take to move it forward?<\/p>\n – Trying to fill your brain beyond capacity<\/strong><\/p>\n Ever since George Miller\u2019s research at Princeton in the 1950\u2019s, we\u2019ve know that our short-term memory is limited. There is only so much that we can keep in there \u2013 Miller reckoned about seven items – before things are either lost, or fall into long-term memory. And the problem with long-term memory is that you can\u2019t be sure when things will re-emerge from it, like a huge field of jack-in-the-boxes popping up without much rhyme or reason.<\/p>\n You\u2019d think that, knowing that our memory is so severely limited, we would deduce that there is no way it\u2019s going to cope with tracking all of the dozens of moving parts in our lives. But we see most people soldier on, heads full of details they\u2019re hoping desperately to remember, but often generating failure, internal stress and distraction instead. Better to make it a habit to empty your head at any opportunity. Employ \u201cdistributed cognition\u201d. In plain English, write things down, or send yourself an email, or voice mail, or whatever it takes to free up that precious mental space.<\/p>\n – Counting on your brain to remind you when you want to be reminded<\/strong><\/p>\n My wife is fuelled by Earl Grey tea. Her day starts with that first cuppa, and if it\u2019s not available, it doesn\u2019t start well. When we go on holiday, it\u2019s a very good idea to make sure we have some with us, as most places overseas won\u2019t have it on the breakfast menu. Do I count on my brain to remember that I need to pack the tea bags? I value holiday tranquillity too much. Earl Grey appears (in bold letters) on my packing list.<\/p>\n Identify your brain\u2019s strengths and weaknesses, and stop giving it things to do that it doesn\u2019t do very well. Remember, only you can prevent brain abuse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who would argue that their brain was unimportant (and if they did, you would wonder how well it was functioning anyway). Yet on our travels we find that many people misuse their brains. They expect it to perform well in areas where science and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_eb_attr":"","gtp_columnspro_styling":"{}","gtp_paragraph_styling":"{}","gtp_heading_styling":"{}","gtp_spacer_styling":"{}","gtp_video_styling":"{}","gtp_group_styling":"{}","gtp_cover_styling":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[149,150,250,151,152,153,51,154,70,93,101],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2099"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}