Abstract of the book. The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload

For example, in Google’s own job interviews, potential candidates are confronted with a question that has no correct answer. Here’s one for you to try on for size: “How much does the Empire State Building weigh?” Google was interested in whether the candidate could use their logical skills to work through a problem on their own, for example, by calculating the approximate size and weight of the concrete used for the building.

Get to grips with probabilities or lose a vital skill for assessing information.

Imagine you’re at a university where ten percent of students are engineers. Look, here comes a student wearing a pocket protector: a plastic sheath for holding pens in your shirt pocket. Now, what would you say is the probability that this is an engineering student?

The fact that a pocket protector is a standard accessory for the stereotypical nerdy student might cause many of you to think he very likely studies engineering. But remember the ten percent ratio. If 90 percent of students aren’t engineers, it’s far more likely that our pocket-protector friend doesn’tstudy engineering.

Our initial misconception reflects the way in which a person or situation that seems a perfect example of something can cause us to ignore the base rate. A base rate is the probability of an event occurring without taking other factors into account.

Because of this tendency, it’s vital that we critically assess the way in which statistics are presented to us. After all, many of our important decisions may involve statistics, so our understanding of them should be unbiased.

Imagine that you’re very sick. Your doctor offers you a treatment that will increase the likelihood of your recovery by ten percent. If the treatment increases your likelihood of recovery from zero to ten percent, then you’ll still have little chance of survival. But, if it increases from 90 percent to 100 percent, your recovery is guaranteed, and you’ll certainly be on board!

What if it increases from 20 percent to 30 percent? You might hesitate and inquire about the side effects and cost of the treatment before agreeing.

From a statistical perspective, this is bizarre since in all of these cases, the increase of ten percent is the same. The scenarios just feel different because of their varying starting points.

Though our brains often have difficulty dealing with probabilities, by remembering the mathematics behind them, we can make our choices with a greater and more objective understanding of their implications.

Final summary

The key message in this book:

We live in an age of information overload. This presents a challenge for our brains, which are wired to manage information by focusing attention on one thing at a time. By learning about the way our brain distinguishes, focuses and categorizes, we can better organize our own lives.

Actionable advice:

Increase productivity by increasing your sleeping hours, not your working hours.

Studies have demonstrated the way in which sleep improves your brain’s ability to solve complex problems. The expression “sleep on it” has real biological significance, and an awareness of this will allow us to be more effective at work. So next time you’ve got a large task, don’t sacrifice your sleep to work on it – you’ll be much more effective when you allow your brain to refuel and continue work in the morning.

Suggested further reading: Make it Stick by Peter C. Brown

Make It Stick is a critical update on our way of thinking about learning and memory. Taking the traditional ways of learning to task for being ineffective, and even counterproductive, the book uses recent scientific findings to suggest how we can learn more effectively and improve our memories along the way.