Losing my Marbles

Sometimes I think I'm losing my marbles. Sometimes I lose my phone or my reading glasses, I often can't find my keys and lately it's been my air pods I misplace. Not being able to find stuff is one of the few things in life that drives me totally insane. It makes me want to behave like a small toddler, kick and scream and roll around on the floor like a beetle in distress. It is the about the only thing that makes me want to use extra creative language. And the annoying question, where did you have it last?, makes me want to pull out all my eyelashes one by one. If I knew where I had it last, I would be able to find it!!!!

In a work situation I am very organised. I file things in a way that I can find them again and my brain tends to remember where work items are stored. I can categorise and colour code spreadsheets and Trello boards and everything stays neatly in order. I love things to be organised, so when I misplace something, I find it intensely frustrating.

I read chapter 1 in The Organized Mind by Daniel Levitin today. This is a book that has lots of words packed tightly together so is not an asthetically pleasing book to read. It's a deep read and one you have to concentrate on carefully so although I bought it a few days ago, I am only just getting stuck in now. I learned some fascinating things that help explain why I forget things like where I put my keys etc. Apparently we are not designed to deal with all the information we receive every day. Our brains are only able to focus on two main things at once so when we get distracted by a third thing, our subconscious brain will decide which item is not a priority and that's when you can't remember where you put your keys.

I also learned that someone with a PhD in biology today can't even know all there is to be known about the nervous system of a squid. Go back a couple hundred years and you'd be the top scientist if you just had a college education in science. The amount of information our brains are required to process every day is insane! Levitin writes, "This information explosion is taxing all of us, every day, as we struggle to come to grips with what we really need to know and what we don't. We take notes, make To Do lists, leave reminders for ourselves in e-mail and on cell phones, and we still end up feeling overwhelmed." He goes on to say, "Our hunger for knowledge can be at the roots of our failings or our successes. It can distract us or it can keep us engaged in a lifelong quest for deep learning and understanding. Some learning enhances our lives, some is irrelevant and simply distracts us. . .Successful people are expert at categorizing useful versus distracting knowledge."

Highly successful people are able to actively sort out and essentially triage information. Most of them also have amazing assistants and whole teams of people to help them filter information so they can focus on what's really important. Now I know what I'm missing. I just need a team of people to filter ideas for me so I can figure out what career paths to focus on. I wish it was that easy. Apparently in later chapters, he will explain how to do this for yourself without a posse of filterers and hopefully it's something I can tap into to help me not only Karen a new career, but keep all my marbles.

Today's photo is of me and some beautiful marbles I bought at the House of Marbles in Bovey Tracey (yep that's the name of a place) near where my brother lives. If you ever make it down to Devon, I highly recommend a visit there. You can buy stunning overpriced marbles and coffee and cake. If you'd like to watch a video of me throwing a distressed beetle temper tantrum you can see that here. I feel the need to clarify that this is the first time I have actually acted like this as a grown adult. It was surprisingly satisfying although Isla thought I was actually being murdered. Perhaps that should be a new Karen thing, maybe instead of asking for the manager we should roll on the floor and act like angry beetles, it would be much more entertaining anyway.