Reducing Mental Effort – Part 2

We continue the series on reducing mental effort. Distracting thoughts are a major source of wasted mental energy, so in this part we’ll cover a few ways to reduce internal distractions. Empty your head One reason we dwell on certain thoughts is that we’re trying to remember certain to-dos, ideas, and items that require deeper consideration. Refreshing these items in our minds sucks up extra neural energy and doesn’t necessarily move much towards completion. If your brain is using its working memory to continually bring up distracting thoughts, you can often free up extra processing power by allowing your brain to forgot. This helps you feel less mentally and emotionally fatigued as well. A simple practice for when your mind feels cluttered and distracted is to do a brain dump. Write down every distracting thought you can think of, either on paper or one of your devices. Get the info out of your head, and externalize it somewhere. Write down incomplete projects and unfinished items. Write down ideas that keep popping into your mind. Write down any worries or concerns. Write down anything you’ve been trying not to forget. Whatever your brain has been nagging you about, dump it onto paper or a screen. Really squeeze your brain to get this info out, even if you have to do a few sessions over a few days. This practice allows your brain to relax more, knowing that it can reference those details somewhere else instead of having to ref...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Productivity Source Type: blogs