Making Sense Out of Information Overload

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Recently, I read a fascinating book called The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin. Levitin is the Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience and Music at McGill University. He holds several degrees, has taught at various prestigious North American universities, and is the author of bestselling books such as This Is Your Brain on Music and Weaponized Lies.

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In The Organized Mind, Levitin focuses on how our mind operates when it comes to processing information. He looks at various areas of our lives, how we are hard-wired in those areas, and what we can do to overcome some of our mental and behavioural tendencies in order to lead more productive and organized lives.

With respect to the interactive media industry, he raises several interesting points that are relevant to anyone working in the industry.

The Tablet and Chisel

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There is a preconception that if you’re into technology, you have no use for writing things down on paper. But Levitin dispels that myth. In chapter 2, he describes how Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook revealed that she carries around a pen and notebook to keep track of her To Do list. She’s quoted as saying that around her office, it’s like “carrying around a stone tablet and chisel.”

Levitin, however, argues that downloading information onto index cards or into notebooks helps to clear the mind of information overload. Being able to organize thoughts through physical methods, which removes the pressure to recall, also leads to better brainstorming which is exactly the same principle behind card sorting and other UX design strategies.

The Multitasking Myth

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If I had a dollar for every time I saw a job posting that mentioned “multitasking” as a necessary skill, I would probably be living on my own private island, enjoying the good life. Apparently, every job requires multitasking.

But in chapter 3, Levitin notes that we’re not really good at multitasking. If anything, we’re moving from one task to another rather than doing multiple tasks simultaneously. And, he says there’s a physical and mental cost to doing that. Research has shown that multitasking can increase the creation of stress hormones and adrenaline which causes us to lose focus. We also possess a novelty bias that encourages us to gravitate to something new. This means we’re too easily distracted for our own good. The research says that these “multitasking” distractions cause poor “cognitive performance,” meaning we lose IQ points when we multitask. Yikes!

In the interactive media industry, there is an expectation to be connected, to be responsive. But as Levitin argues, we need to have time to “disconnect,” to relax and focus on one task. We’ll be more productive and the quality of work will be better if we stop trying to multitask all the time. That’s why more and more companies are offering benefits that foster a better work-life balance. They want employees to step away from their desks in order to be more productive overall. Being overworked leads to more errors, so doing less multitasking will actually save time in the long-run because we won’t be spending extra time trying to fix our mistakes.

Tribal Thinking

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Levitin also had some interesting insights on our social biases. Over the last few years, the focus for many industries, not just interactive media, has been on increasing diversity in the workplace. This is an important goal because employing people from different backgrounds encourages greater empathy towards all people. And, from a business perspective, it makes sense that you want to have input from a variety of people in order to create a product that attracts as wide an audience as possible. 

According to Levitin, in chapter 4, our “in-group/out-group” bias causes us to view our own group as diverse, while other groups are seen as homogenous. In a workplace culture that doesn't recognize the need to focus on creating diversity, the group bias will only exacerbate the situation. For example, when a hiring manager interviews candidates for a job, the group bias could affect the manager's view of those candidates. People who identify with the same group as the manager could appear more qualified because they're being assessed on their individual achievements. Meanwhile candidates from an outside group may be judged based on what the manager’s impressions of that whole group are. This will likely lead to the hiring manager offering the job to someone that's like them.

We tend to rely on stereotypes when we judge other groups which greatly affects our ability to create new and meaningful relationships with people who are different from us. And without varied relationships, there is little hope of us understanding people from different walks of life and incorporating this knowledge in the work that we do.

Final Thoughts

In our busy lives, we tend to be fatalistic about our social and mental environments. We may think there's not much we can do about being bombarded by emails and feeling overwhelmed at the amount of information coming at us. But in The Organized Mind, Levitin believes there is much we can do to take control of the situation. We can offload information from our brain and onto paper so that we're not relying heavily on memory. We can accept the fact that stepping away from the "noise" to focus on a task is better than trying to do everything at once. And we can recognize the need to overcome biases toward people who are different from us in order to create valuable relationships. 

All of these points are important to keep in mind for anyone in the interactive media industry because there is so much information coming at us. We also need to be aware that the product or experience we create is going to be available to more people because of the different access points with digital technology. We need to be mentally sharp to stay on top of everything. So, by following Levitin's advice, we can be one step closer to achieving our own organized mind.