🤯Overwhelmed-No-More Solution. 3 Must-Have Systems of Any Achiever.

TUNE IN TO LEARN: 
Ever feel like your brain has too many tabs open? 
 
Imagine mastering cognitive health to streamline your thoughts, boost productivity, and balance your life. 
 
Join me in this episode of Your Brain’s Coach podcast as I share TOP 3 systems that will allow you to navigate the world of complexity with ease. 
 
Drawing from top productivity experts and leaders, we’ll explore the critical importance of robust systems to prioritize what truly matters, filter out distractions, and maintain focus amidst the chaos of endless to-dos. 
 
Discover the transformative power of understanding your working memory, learn how to prevent mental overload by setting up effective filtration systems, we’ll dive into the benefits of personal policies and pre-planning, from meal choices to study schedules, to free up mental space for important decisions. 
 
Tune in and start taking control of your thoughts, emotions, and actions, leading to better cognitive health and a fulfilling life. 
 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey, guys, and welcome back to another episode of your Brain's Coach podcast. My name is Angela Shurina, I'm your host, I'm your Brain's Coach and it is my job here to bring to you all the best recent, cutting-edge, most important, useful and effective and sometimes fun and mind-boggling brain-body tools so you could take better control of your thoughts, of your emotions and, most importantly, impactful actions to move big rocks forward in your life, even when you feel like there is so much distraction and clutter and to-dos are never ending, even in that situation. So you could take control of things that need to be prioritized and you can move things forward, feeling like you're building more and more satisfying and fulfilling experience. Today, guys, on Friday I finished another certification for stress resilience, recovery, sleep and at the end of Friday I think it was 8 pm, maybe 8.30, I felt like so many things happened recently and there is so much on my plate, and there is so much on my plate and there is so much to do that I cannot possibly keep up that pace and get it all done. And at that point I realized, yeah, it's time to get back to my systems, which you're going to learn about in a moment to clarify, to capture, to filter things out and then take the most important steps and actions and keep moving the most important things forward.

Speaker 1 1:59

So I shut down my computer on Friday night. I felt like I needed to celebrate my recovery certification with a proper day off. So I was scheduled to go to my first national park experience adventure. We went out to see some flower blooming, which happens only for a couple of months during the season in South Africa. So the whole day was 100 kilometers away from my computer, which I learned about myself. It's the only way to make myself not be on my computer at least a portion of the day. So that happened. And then on Sunday I scheduled a planning, clarification, capturing and filtering session. You'll find out what it's all about in a moment. And after that, coming to Monday, I felt like I got it, I have it all figured out and whatever I don't have yet figured out I'll figure it out. But I felt like you know, this week the most important things are scheduled and the rest of the stuff, well, you know you can't take care of everything, and that's what I want you to understand In our world of so much opportunity and possibility and choices, people who are going to win and it's up to you to decide whether you're going to be one of those people.

Speaker 1 3:30

People who are going to win are people with better systems to navigate all this noise, distractions and choices. It's like in a supermarket. You go to any supermarket, like literally any, and I've traveled a lot and if you have a good system of choices, of personal policies, what it is you want to do with your nutrition, all this other stuff doesn't matter. Like I don't see most of the supermarket, or in a very tiny supermarket, I can find exactly what I need to make on some base level, my meal plan policy work. So that's what you get.

Speaker 1 4:12

You get this clarity, almost like a beam of light showing you the way when you have the right systems in place, and that's how leaders, how high achievers, get ahead. They don't necessarily work more than anyone else. No, like everyone is busy the whole day, the whole freaking waking day, but leaders, achievers, have better system to filter out the things that they need to do that absolutely have to get done in order to move their agenda forward, and a lot of it has to do with their ability also to navigate that overwhelm that comes not from again, from having too much, like me on Friday, feeling overwhelmed, overloaded, too much on a plate that I cannot possibly handle at all, and then going through my systems, handed it all, and then going through my systems, my systematic approach, and feeling like I got it, I have it all figured out. There is more than plenty of time to get the important stuff done, so today I'm going to share with you systems that doesn't rely on any specific app or any specific, even protocol, but they need to be implemented in some way or fashion. What I learned from top productivity experts, business leaders, leaders in different arenas, who achieved a lot, like I learned, they have some sort of solution around this specific concept to eliminate overwhelm and overload and keep themselves learning, pacing life, feeling like they're on the top of their game, remembering and solving problems, focused and alert and present when needed.

Speaker 1 5:59

You can have it all when you take care of what is called cognitive or mental health. But the mental health, you know, sometimes and I think actually in most cases it gets this emotional component and maybe trauma and stress component. What I'm talking about and that's where I try to separate cognitive health and mental health what I'm talking about is handling your life, your work, everything you need to do to keep your life running and achieve things. Taking care of all of that so you don't have this feeling of overwhelmed, forgetting things, dropping balls, constantly feeling behind like there is too much. And that's what I want you to get better at from today's episode Obviously taking action after the episode.

Speaker 1 6:54

Because if you just listen to stuff and don't then incorporate that into some sort of action plan, it's like you never heard it. Knowledge is not power. Knowledge is potential power, only giving you the results and power if it's acted upon. So whenever I hear something on a podcast or read something in a book, or I hear something from a person and I feel like you know I got to implement that, so then I sit down sometime in that day or the very latest next day and I make a note of it in my note app on my phone to sit down and see where and how I'm going to be putting that into action. Because, again, if you don't put it on your schedule, don't put it into some action plan. It's like that learning never happened. True, learning is about taking different action because you know something different. So today, again, is about taking care of your cognitive health and having good systems in place that are time and experts-proven good, systems that allow you to not feel overwhelmed and forgetful and constantly feeling behind and dropping important balls, but instead feeling alert, focused, competent and thoughtful and present and ready to learn, remember, solve problems and show up as your best self as often as possible.

Speaker 1 8:27

Your brain, guys. It has limited capacity. It's a machine, biological machine, but it is a machine, and it is very similar to a computer, obviously different in so many ways because it's inside your skull and we have different energy systems and different ways of operating, which is defined by nature and biology, which we didn't design. But a computer is actually made in an image of our brain and so a lot of processes work quite similar, like, for example, no matter what computer you have, if you open too many programs, too many apps, too many tabs, it's going to slow down. The more intense the tasks are, the faster that's going to happen. That's why it does matter how many tabs you have open in your browser.

Speaker 1 9:20

If you have 30 or 40, your computer's memory is going to be loaded with that instead of maybe doing something more important like maintaining I don't know the health of your hard drive or something like that. Not that techy, but you get the idea. Your brain has limited capacity and if you overload it with 30, 40 taps, that doesn't mean shit. You know sorry for my French you know what's going to happen the most important stuff doesn't get done, or you feel like it's too much, like there is already too much on your plate. You know, in Avatar there is this Avatar movie there is this moment when, before teaching this guy who decides to become Avatar full-time, so to speak, before teaching him their community wisdom, that sage or the elder tells him you cannot pour in a full cup. So if you already have too much stuff, that doesn't necessarily mean it's important. If you already have too many things, the important stuff doesn't have the space to go into.

Speaker 1 10:22

And, by the way, you do have a working memory which is kind of like if you are on a techie side. Kind of like if you are on a techie side. It's an operating memory of your computer which stores the data needed to ongoing tasks right now. And then it's in this constant dance of being freed up. And, for example, you open the program, stuff gets loaded into this short-term memory and then you operate with this program, you do stuff, and then you close it down and that gets unloaded so other stuff can come in to be processed. So you have a very similar thing in your brain it's called working memory where your brain stores stuff, like, for example, when you remember a phone number to speak it out, speak it back to someone else. That's where it's stored. But if you don't use it any longer, it actually is eliminated. It doesn't even go into your long-term storage, your long-term memory.

Speaker 1 11:18

So what you want to understand, the more stuff that is kind of open and your brain maybe waiting for it to be operated on, the more stuff you have that like, oh I got to do this, I got to do this and there is this project and that project and that project and you never unload it, you never capture it somewhere. It all gets in there, never goes away, because your brain doesn't know what needs to be stored there and what can be, so to speak, flushed out for the new stuff to come in and you become like like a slow-down computer with 40 tabs open. You're not able to take on more and all the major stuff gets slowed down. So I want you to understand that about your brain, that that's actually how your brain, based on current science works. So without systems, it's like putting more and more, opening more and more tabs and being more and more slowed down and feeling overwhelmed. That feeling is overwhelmed it's not because you have actually too much. It's because you store in your brain, for no good reason, too much and then you cannot operate more complex stuff. So, anyhow, that's about your brain. So what do you do to prevent that feeling of overwhelm, to not overload your working memory, to actually have this capacity to stay focused and clear and make great decisions when it truly matters, like? So what do you do?

Speaker 1 12:44

I'm going to share with you practices that I learned from top experts, from the best people, high achievers, who really done some great, some phenomenal stuff. First, it's not a too much problem, it's no filter problem. What do I mean here? Do you know what are you trying to achieve at this point in your life? As simple as that your work, your health, your relationships, your fitness, whatever that is.

Speaker 1 13:12

Do you know what are the few things that are important for you right now? There is this thing you can do it all, just not at the same time. So what are those two, three things? If it's one thing, it's even better If I found one thing to one priority, it would be better. I guess I do have one priority my business is my number one priority and I do treat it like that. Majority of my schedule is organized around my business and that is prioritized. So I'd say business number one, but then taking into consideration that my health is a support system of that, so I make sure that I always sleep well, eat well, manage my stress well, all of that exercise right.

Speaker 1 13:54

But business is my number one priority right now. And then also relationships, personal relationships, family friendships, all of that and the rest of stuff that kind of doesn't matter, and I make sure that I focus on the quality stuff Again my family, my friends, not just some parties that I don't enjoy truly or some other noise that never brings me any satisfaction. I know myself I did quite a lot of self-awareness work and that is why it's so easy for me to say no to entertainment and all kinds of invitations, because I know exactly what I want from this life, what makes me tick, what makes me happy from this life, what makes me tick, what makes me happy, and I make sure that my schedule reflects that. So it's not of too much problem, it's a no filter problem, and your filter is knowing what it is. You're trying to achieve, what is important for you right now, and what are those choices and decisions that lead you towards that vision of your life at this point, which are not so?

Speaker 1 14:56

That filtration system. That's where a lot of world struggles with, because most people just don't take any time to figure out who they are, what the F they want and where the F they're going with their life. And the reason why I'm so passionate about that? Because it should be in our education system but it's not there. And so we spend decades of our life learning about how to do a profession or learning about the world geography, history, et cetera but we spend close to zero time learning about ourselves. And that's how you end up, with the world that has so much and most of the people having no idea how to make proper choices aligned with who they are, because they simply don't know who they are. So make sure that you spend some time doing those sometimes boring or seemingly non-relevant exercises like figuring out your purpose, your why, what kind of person you are, what makes you tick, what do you want, when you ask a lot of people what you actually want one, two things from life. I can summarize it in one sentence I want to create the world. I want to contribute to the world, where more purpose-driven people unlock the most of their potential and use it to make a better world for all of us. That's what my whole life is all about. But that clarity comes from a lot of self-awareness work right. So you don't need an eye to automate systems or automate things that shouldn't be there in the first place. You need a clear filtration system. You need a clear filtration system.

Speaker 1 16:38

Second, where this overwhelm comes from, there is the great saying by David Allen, the author of Get Things Done System, the system that has been used for decades now all across the world, the system to organize your to-do list and your priorities and your project, your personal and professional. So he has this great saying your brain is a crappy office, and what he means here is our brain is for thinking, creating ideas, making decisions, figuring out complex stuff and solutions. Our brain is not for storing trivial stuff like I need to buy cat food and my own food and go and I don't know, take my kids to school and tell this to Mary and tell this to John. Those things should not be in your brain. To John those things should not be in your brain. So what David Allen teaches the whole world and that's how he made a living being one person but coming up with this genius idea all he basically says is you need an organizing system for all of this stuff. It shouldn't be in your head.

Speaker 1 17:51

Your head is a crappy office and the first step in the system is having a system to capture stuff. What are your projects, what are your priorities? What are your to-dos, what are the ideas? What are the options? What do you need to do on Monday? What do you need to do in the week? What do you need to do in a month? What do you want to accomplish in a year? It should not sit in your head Now. To give you an idea.

Speaker 1 18:14

When you have a good capturing system like for me, it's a combination of a planner, a calendar, notepad for ideas, with a note app on my phone, dedicated project folders in my Google Drive and in my computer and reminders in my calendar. So when you have a good capturing system and good calendars and reminders supporting that system, what happens is, even if I get amnesia tomorrow, I still can get through most of the stuff for the next months and probably till the end of the year. If I don't remember any of that, I can still get the most important stuff done, and that's when you know you have a great capturing and organizing of all of this to-do stuff. That's what you know when you have it and that is good, that you can literally say I can forget everything I know right now and I still can get the most important things done. That's what it means to have a good capturing system, right?

Speaker 1 19:19

So your brain is a crappy office and a lot of that overwhelm that you have simply comes from you trying to store all of that in your head and trying to remember all of that. Your brain was never designed for that. And, by the way, did you know that? Even the fact, the act of writing things down or dumping it all out from your head on a piece of paper that even helps you sleep better? Why? Well, because then your brain doesn't have to store all this information and keep your neural circuits engaged in on stage, which is the opposite of the off state that is needed to create the deepest kind of sleep. So write things down and you'll see how faster you're going to fall asleep and how better you're going to sleep. For a lot of people it actually ends up like in my experience with my clients, with them being able to sleep beyond six hours because they're not worried about forgetting, like internally they didn't have that state of on, they can be fully off. So write things down before going to bed, see what happens. Do it for at least a week to give experiment a chance of success.

Speaker 1 20:31

So the second thing is having capture system. Your brain is a crappy office. It's not good storage facility. And number three well, until Elon Musk, you know, creates some sort of like storage tech, storage in our head, until then, like it holds true. Number three personal policies. You know, like a lot of companies have their policies basically saying we do this in this way, we don't do this. Then whenever somebody people working in the company make certain decisions that are important decisions and can affect, you know, company separations, profits, well-being of the company. So you have policies in place. So even on your worst day, you can still make the right decision. And, ta-da, it turns out that having the same policy for a human being is also a great idea. So you don't have to make choices about trivial stuff all the freaking time.

Speaker 1 21:32

Like somewhere on the internet it says people make on average 300 food decisions a day. I'm like 300 decisions. What are you guys thinking about? I eat the same food on breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have been doing it, with slight variation, for a decade of my life. Do you know how easier it gets to do grocery shopping or meal planning? I just go through the whole supermarket, no matter how big. In 20 minutes I'm done out of there and for the next week I don't have to think at all about what I'm going to eat. Can you imagine how much free time and decision-making capacity you just freed up to think about the important things like meaning of life, purpose of life and who you are in this life? So personal policies that's what they do and it comes down to your meals, to what you say no to, what you say yes to, when you go out, with whom you go out, what kind of vacations. I pre-plan my stuff at least a week in advance, so I know what I'm going to say yes to and what I'm going to say no to. There is no decision-making involved. If I know that I have studies planned, let's say for the next week to make my certification happen in the next three months. It means that in those hours that I plan for my studies, there is automatic no to everything else.

Speaker 1 22:54

And then also what I notice is it becomes less of a personal issue. I'm not thinking about should I say yes to this person or that person. I'm like this is my priority and I'm saying yes to that because I decided to do so, because it's important. And so also when you say I don't go out at that time because I go to bed at 8.30. And then also people get less offended because yeah, this person goes to bed early, so that's why they don't go out. It's not about me, which is true, but then also again, it's a way of offending less people because they understand it's not your choice, it's your policy, this is what I do, this is how I function and that is why I'm saying yes to that and saying no to, but not just again about that person.

Speaker 1 23:38

It's also about you not having to make all of these decisions. Like, for example, I make purchase decisions outside of my routine. You know groceries or transportation, et cetera. I make purchase decisions outside of my norm only on Saturdays. You know what it also does. It helps you to save a ton of money because you don't make purchases driven by emotional like oh you know, I saw this and I want this. No, by the time it's Saturday. If I saw something on Monday or Tuesday or even on Friday, by the time it's Saturday, I'm like yeah, you know, I already forgot about that. And you save so much and you get to save money to spend it on things that are actually important to you and you feel a lot less stress because you don't waste money on stuff that doesn't really matter.

Speaker 1 24:32

But beyond that, when you have these personal policies to help you make decisions in your worst times, and also not to make decisions when asked many times during the week whether you would go here, there or anywhere, or whether you would eat this or this or that, like somebody asked me while we were out to a national park Angela, why don't you eat a cookie? I'm like I don't eat sugar, so I don't make that decision. Should I eat this cookie or not? No, I just don't eat. It Makes my life easier. Make the decision Should I eat this cookie or not? No, I just don't eat. It Makes my life easier, actually. And every time I see a cookie, I'm like, it's just not my food. So, personal policies that's a way to automate your decision making, your yes and no's, and that's a way out of decision fatigue and a lot of that overwhelm that you might be experiencing.

Speaker 1 25:18

So, handling complexity the gateway to the top Guys, what I noticed working with quite a few high achievers over the years and learning a lot from social media and interviews on different podcasts, what I learned is that, yes, they do have good work ethic, but it's not like you know. They do a lot more 24-7, a lot more than you do. They have better than 90-something percent of the people. It's better systems for handling complexity. If you have no system for handling complexity, when complexity comes and eventually it does, it's going to overwhelm you, run you over. It does it's going to overwhelm you run you over, leaving you behind wondering how on earth all these people who I admire achieve all that much. Better systems, better systems, guys. And don't believe me, ask any person you admire. Thanks to social media, you're just one step away, one click away from that person. Don't believe me. Ask that person, give them a compliment. You know you accomplished so much. How do you do that? And they'll probably tell you about a bunch of systems that they use to be able to do so.

Speaker 1 26:25

So clear minds, supported by systems, make big things happen, no matter what, no matter the distractions, no matter the complexity, no matter the economy I guess what else? When you reduce mental clutter and you lower your stress by doing so, your energy levels rise, making you feel like a superhero, ready to take on the world any day of the week. So the formula for getting to the top and out of overwhelm forever, the formula is filter. Understand what the F do you want in this life, who you are and how you're going to handle things like your values. So filter, have a filter, not trying to just remove distractions magically somehow.

Speaker 1 27:12

Capture your brain is a crappy office. Capture your brain is a crappy office. Do you have a good system of storing everything From the birthday of your mom to buying cat food to the most important project of your life, with all the prep that's required? Do you have the capture system? If you got amnesia tomorrow, would you be able to get through the week? If not, you need a better system and create policies, just like any good company creates policy. For a freaking reason, guys, it's not just the good to have.

Speaker 1 27:49

Gesture Policies are there for a reason it's a rule book for people to make good decisions. So create personal policies. What you do, what you don't do when you go to bed, what you eat when you exercise, what kind of people you spend your time with. When you spend time with those people around networking events, meetings, like everything what are your personal policies? Spend your decision-making power on moving big rocks of your life forward. So do you have filter capture, create policies system in place? And if you don't, then that is the time to work on it. No better time to reduce overwhelm and make sure that important things get done then today. I'd recommend just delaying everything else until you have this system, unless it's truly urgent. Or, at the very least, schedule a couple of hours and that will just give you an idea of what exactly you need to work out and how. But schedule a couple of hours over the next week, tops couple of weeks. But make it happen, make it done If you want to create the life that you truly love living with a lot of impact, achievement and happiness and extraordinary things, and having the vision for your life realized. Filter capture, create policies.

Speaker 1 29:25

And, guys, don't forget to share this podcast episode. We don't run any ads. We don't do a lot of promotion. Need to get better on that and figure that one out. So please do share this podcast episode with at least one person who might be feeling overwhelmed because they want to jump. They have everything they need to jump to the next level, but that overwhelm just doesn't allow them to do so. So share this podcast episode with them. Let's make the world a better place together and, till next time, be a superhero that you are, get important things done and let's make this world an awesome place for all of us to live in. Talk to you soon and have a clear kind of day.