How much can my brain handle?

Clarity is king

Author

George Pillari
June 20, 2024

Read time 55s

We typically forget 50% of information we consume within an hour. In a day, the number goes to 70%.

One of my favorite stats is regarding wrongful convictions. More than 75% are overturned because of unreliable eyewitness testimony. In other words, unless those witnesses were interviewed within minutes of the crime, their memory degrades with every passing hour. With this in mind, its a wonder that prosecutors even bother using eyewitnesses.

Let’s go with a new expression, “Clarity is King.” When we say this, we mean that we have cleared out much of the unneeded information, so what we do process and remember is, well, the good stuff.

Getting to clarity is not easy and requires work “upstream.” What we mean by this is rather than getting faster at processing emails, text messages, and social media interactions, we should do less of them. You don’t need to be on every conference call and in every meeting. You don’t need to attend every social event. How many times has your social agenda (never mind work) exhausted you? Not a good state of mind for clarity.

AI image generated by author

This is similar to the key lessons of the The Seven Deadly Stupidities: rather than add more data to a decision, focus on what can be removed from the decision-making process to simplify things and increase the probability of a good decision.

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Look at some of the most successful people you know. They always have time to speak with you because they don’t try to do everything, they know that Clarity is King and they avoid getting overwhelmed.

Keys to success

  • Make liberal use of the Unsubscribe button. Whenever possible, lose the FOMO and reduce the flow of information to you.

  • Spend a half hour every week organizing your interactions. Review your calendars and drop non-essential items, cancel some of those back-to-back-back social outings, and regularly re-assess what’s important in your life. Priorities change, don’t fight it.

Develop an attitude of pruning, rather than gathering the information and interactions coming at you. Sharpen your skills at discerning what is important. Think about developing clarity and get better at it.

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