Organize Your Mind – 4 Steps to Getting Things Done

This episode is the seventh in the mini-series: 10 methods to manage time effectively.

Organize Your Mind – 4 Steps to Getting Things Done

This episode is about organizing your mind to get things done. It is a  part of the mini-series full of tips to manage your time better to fulfill your life’s purpose and in the transcription of this podcast, you’ll see the link to my website where you can see more resources.

Organize your mind story

My friend Bernie reached out the other day and asked for help with an awesome project with amazing potential. 

 I listened to him and was very impressed as he explained it.  I shared with him that I was blown away by his ideas and asked him to keep me in the loop as it developed.  

Have you heard about a life-changing idea sweeping across the world conceived and carried out by a hero named Bernie?  

Well, neither have I.  

As usual, I have not heard from him about this specific idea ever again nor do I expect to.

You see, Bernie is a dear friend with a great mind. I’ve known him for over 30 years, and he has come up with more life-changing, grand slam ideas than anyone I know.  

If you spend time with him, he will share an amazing idea every few minutes.  

So, over the last 30 plus years how many of the world’s great ideas have come to fruition from Bernie’s treasure house of a brain?

None!

Bernie comes up with great ideas and plans but never brings them to fruition. It is a great tragic story.  

So why do his ideas never bear fruit?

Well, he leaves them in his mind and his mind becomes cluttered.  

He does not organize them by category, break them down into action steps and start implementing them. Because he comes up with so many, they soon become replaced by the next one and get forgotten.  

But they are never really forgotten. 

They remain in his mind and become jumbled up with all the other amazing ideas and get in the way of making a clear, thoughtful plan to accomplish any of them.

Also, his mind has learned that it better put each idea into the back recesses and make room for the next one coming soon. There is no reason for his brain to organize them.

If Bernie could only capture each idea on paper (or computer). 

Organize them by category of what they could accomplish.

 Break them down into action steps.  

And make a timeline of when each step would get done in a format – he could stick to.  

His mind would be organized and clutter-free and boy would he start getting things done!

• Organize your mind organize your life

Many people, like my friend Bernie, also suffer from a disorganized life.  

They don’t declutter their mind, it spills over into everything they do.  Always on the verge of the next great thing, they can’t hold down a structured job or run their own business and end up having many part-time gigs that don’t pay them enough to support a family.  

Thus, either if they are lucky, they marry a good reliable supporter, or they don’t have long-term relationship success.  

Organizing your mind is not just important because of your success in your work or business.  You need to organize your mind, so you can maximize your entire life!

• Organize Your Mind and clear out the clutter, so your brain operates at its maximum.

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto wrote my favorite book of all time entitled “The Way of The Name” (meaning the Almighty). In his introduction, he talks about creating a filing system for your mind and he uses a garden as an example.

Imagine a flower garden where each color flower is in its own section neatly divided by shaded walking paths.  

In each color section, there are additional subsections of the different types of flowers all organized in carefully groomed and delineated circles.  

In the middle of each circle, there is a small clearing with a bench to sit on and appreciate the beauty.  Also between each section is an observatory tower so you can climb up and take in an aerial view of the beautiful garden as a whole.

Now contrast that to walking in the wilds and seeing the beautiful flowers all growing mixed up haphazardly together with random weeds.  

Still beautiful, but nowhere near the same.  

Whenever you have a chance, visit one of the world’s great botanical gardens and you’ll see what I mean.

We need to create this kind of organized garden or filing system to store our ideas. For each idea, we need to know “What are the roots and branches?”,  “What are the causes and effects?”  and “What is the most important action step to accomplish the above results/goals/roots?”.

• Getting Things Done Method

Getting Things Done, or GTD for short, is a popular task management system created by productivity consultant David Allen. 

The methodology is based on a simple truth: The more information bouncing around inside your head, the harder it is to decide what needs attention. 

Other lessons in this serieswill focus more on how to organize your day, week, or month, but this episode is to motivate you to organize your mind in order to achieve full productivity.

• Clear mental clutter

How do we clear mental clutter?

It is as simple as setting those thoughts free from our mind. Don’t just keep them in your head. Take them out, organize them, define them and let them define your work. 

• Organize tomorrow today

The last tool I’m going to leave you with is a powerful tool from the Rabbis of old to organize tomorrow before you go to sleep each night with a Cheshbon HaNefesh. Which means accounting of the soul.  

When getting ready to sleep, think of the five most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow.  

You should have them written down already, so you can easily review them.  

As you sleep, your decluttered and organized mind will still work in the background. If you do this on a regular basis, you’ll find that you will start waking up with ideas on how to succeed with these action steps.

Get more done

In the next podcast, we will learn how to Eliminate, Delegate, and Automate so you can concentrate on the most important action steps and still get it all done!

For more guidance and tips on how to live your dream life, go to my website, The Rabbi Who Got Rich on Sunday, to access content-rich articles and more.

You can also access a link to that web page from the show notes if you listen to this podcast on any popular podcast platform.