There are more than 6,000 languages on Earth (25). Levitin writes that people are easily swayed by first-person stories and vivid accounts of a single experience (21). It is responsible for taking away a great deal of the leisure time we thought we would all have in the twenty-first century” (19). He says, “Each of us is doing the work of others and not getting paid for it. The key to success is simplifying what we can.

Levitin notes that our brains are constantly overloaded. Therefore, we must organize ourselves so we can focus on what matters most.

Levitin states, “Attention is the most essential mental resource of any organism” (11). He points out that “We are surrounded on this planet by billions of other humans but we can understand only two at a time at the most! It’s no wonder that the world is filled with so much misunderstanding” (7). Levitin emphasizes that our brains must be organized and information off-loaded so we can process the information and relationships that are most important. In 2011, the average person took in five times as much information as in 1986, the equivalent of 175 newspapers (6). He notes that in 1976, the average supermarket stocked 9,000 unique products. He posits that “The average American is sleep-deprived, overstressed, and not making enough time for things she wants to do” (xxv). Hunter and gatherers were not inundated with text messages and Facebook posts. He argues that evolution has not yet caught up with modern sophistication. He evaluates the brain from an evolutionary perspective. It would be impossible to list every insight I underlined in this book. Other insights are entirely counterintuitive. Some of his advice is basic, like using index cards and always placing your car keys and glasses in the same place. Levitin seeks to help readers understand how to grapple with a world that is filled with far more information than people can process or remember. It can be somewhat overwhelming, yet it is filled with fascinating observations.

It reads somewhat like a scientist’s compilation of years of his experiments and studies. This book is filled with references to various studies in the field. I have read several books lately that examine how people think and solve problems. This book falls into the same genre as Thinking Fast and Slow.

The organised mind book