Chaos Control, Part II: Defrag Your Mind
This is a multi-part guide, split into 3 distinct parts. This post covers Part II: The Mind.
Now that we have our command center established (in Part I), we can begin the real work. To work on our minds, we need to first understand what exactly we are working on, how our brain works in these contexts, and why we should do any of this to begin with.
You NEED to Do Nothing... Sometimes
I've had more than one client over the years bring up problems with sleep due to a specific issue: their mind racing at a million miles a minute when they close their eyes to go to sleep.
I'm not going to pretend like this is a catch-all cure for a restless mind… But if you struggle with this, I invite you to ask yourself this question:
"Did I have any time to just think throughout the day?"
Did you have any period of time where you weren't taking in stimuli? By stimuli, I mean… almost anything. Talking to people, reading of any kind (even just browsing the internet), social media, TV, video games, engaging music, any task or physical activity that requires focus.
These things all have their place; I'm not saying 'don't do any of this stuff'. But, do you have even 5 minutes where no outside information is coming in? 30 seconds?
In the age of smartphones it's even more difficult to find this 'do nothing' time. What do we all do when we're not receiving some sort of mental stimulus for just a few seconds?
We reach for our phone. At best, you feel a massive urge to grab your phone, even if you don't actually do it.
I do it too. I'm no better. These things are like little dopamine generators that fit in your pocket or hand. We never have to be 'bored' anymore; there's always something novel that we can find in one of our apps, on social media, in our email, and so on. This is going down an entire different rabbit hole on dopamine which is beyond the scope of this series.
For our purposes here, the issue is that it's so easy nowadays to fill every gap with 'stuff'. Information. Consumption.
Phones are highly water-resistant nowadays so you can even take your phone in the shower with you - which is otherwise one of the very few places we are forced into a low stimulus/information environment. Or, you throw on a podcast or YouTube video over your Bluetooth speaker.
Quick Tip: Make it slightly less convenient to use your phone
If you're trying to watch a show or otherwise don't need your phone on you at this very moment, place it in a different room, or at least out of sight and out of arm's reach. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how much easier it is to resist the urge - or the urge just goes away completely (out of sight, out of mind). It makes you wonder: 'how badly did I truly want to be on my phone, if all it took was placing it ten steps away to kill off the desire completely?' It's simply because it takes zero effort when it's in our pocket.
No wonder our minds are defragmented, and then racing at a million miles an hour when they are finally given a chance to process everything they've been taking in all day: at night when your head hits the pillow.
Even if you JUST did this - take a couple minutes at some point in the day to do absolutely nothing, beyond maybe sitting outside and observing nature - your brain would benefit greatly.
Your subconscious mind will do a lot of the defragmentation (processing and reorganizing of thoughts) for you during this time.
This is why you can get stuck on a project or problem, step away from it and do something else for a while, and then have the solution smack you upside the head out of nowhere while you're in the shower, doing the dishes or driving.
You and your conscious mind need to do nothing sometimes, so that your subconscious mind can get to work. They can't operate at the same time on the same thing, and they do not work in the same way. You need both.
Get Out of Your Head by Getting Into Your Body (AKA: Move!)
A massive benefit to exercise that rarely gets talked about is the 'cognitive reset' effect.
After a few hours of a mentally demanding task, you might feel exhausted. But, you could go exercise and perform totally fine. Why is that?
Your brain was tired. Not your body.
Now, you might not be able to go do your workout immediately after this 'brain-draining' activity depending on your schedule - but just doing it at any time of day period is going to help.
The 30, 60 or however many minutes it takes for your workout is effectively mental recharge time. It also forces you to focus on something that isn't the thing that mentally drained you earlier.
Not only is it essential to your workout performance - and thus the results you get from it - that you are actually focused on your workout (i.e. not scrolling through TikTok between sets or even worse during sets, replying to emails between sets etc.), it is also important so that your brain is actually recharging during this time.
Don't half ass your workout, and also half ass whatever else it is you're trying to do in between sets.
Quick Tip: Go for a walk
Even if you can't fit in a full strength training session, you could go for a short walk, or stretch indoors if weather is not permitting. If your brain is fried anyway, staring at your computer isn't going to get you anywhere. Take a break.
You can also use this short, light physical activity as your 'do nothing' time. If the thought of sitting still and doing nothing sounds impossible, then a short walk or stretch session can work - but if you want it to act as 'do nothing' time, then the same rules apply: no TV/engaging music/audiobook/podcast/etc.
Your Hobbies Are More Important Than You Think
Stuff you do for fun helps the brain recharge in a similar way. The fact that you're simply not thinking about the other, more serious things for a while is beneficial - even if the 'fun' stuff you're doing is mentally engaging or demanding.
An excerpt from my ‘Everything Is a Game’ series that I’d like to reiterate here:
It's important to spend time doing things you enjoy doing, for the sake of doing them. This actually helps you recharge from more serious things, helps connect you to others, and allows your brain to make connections subconsciously that you could not make if you were always in 'work/serious/go hard' mode all the time.
But, even if it didn't do all those things… Life is meant to be lived. Life is meant to be enjoyed.
Even if that activity you spent time on did nothing for you except bring you joy, then it served its purpose.
Using the tips and insights from above will help your mind recharge and organize itself on the subconscious level. Next, we will put our refreshed and recharged brain to use in a Chaos Control Session.
Chaos Control Session
(Reflect → Organize → Plan)
If you only take action on one part of this guide, this is the one to implement.
Action Step: Highlight 2 to 3 areas in your life that you want to get more in control of, feel prepared for and get on top of. Your workout plan, nutrition/meal planning/meal prepping, work, a side project, a hobby, doesn't matter. You could probably pick far more than 2 or 3; limit yourself to 2 or 3 at a time so you're not spread too thin.
Write those down, then decide when you will conduct your 'Chaos Control' session regarding that area. You might find it works best if you do all of them back to back, in one chunk of time during the week. Or, you might attach each individual Chaos Control session to the activity it is tied to.
Example 1:
Sunday afternoon (or whenever you have a chunk of free time), plan 60-90 minutes to complete all of the Chaos Control sessions; maybe you 1) review your workouts from the week, reflect on how each workout and even each exercise went, and plan any tweaks you want to make going into next week, 2) plan out your meals for the week, 3) reflect on how your practice sessions went on a new instrument or song you're learning, then plan what you're going to work on next week, and when.
Example 2:
Chaos Control for exercise: after your last workout of the week, as soon as possible after or that evening. Review your performance and notes, make any changes needed going into next week.
Chaos Control for meal planning: the day before your normal grocery shopping day.
Chaos Control for instrument practice: after last practice session of the week or that evening.
Give yourself 15-30 minutes per area. That means this could be as little as 30 minutes per week (15min x 2 areas), and at most 90 minutes per week (30min x 3 areas). The exact length of time is adjustable of course. I can tell you from experience that even spending 5 minutes to do this makes a massive difference compared to 0. These types of reflection and planning tasks, while they are cognitively demanding, don't take as much time as we think they will.
Bonus Section: Clean Up Your Computer
Your computer is quite literally an extension of your brain. The organizational state of your computer reflects the organizational state of your mind. You are the one downloading the files onto it, after all. This is more of an occasional task, and with good habits in place you'll keep it pretty organized by default, and won't have to do a big cleanup sweep too often.
These practices are very easy to skip in the moment. "I just need to download this real quick then get back to whatever I was doing; I'll properly name it and move it to the correct folder later." Chances are, you won't. Then eventually you end up with a big bloated mess that bogs things down more and more until it's so bad you are forced to do a full cleanup. It only takes a few seconds, and you're already there with the file - might as well do it now.
Action Step: Quick File Cleanup & Organization
Minimal folders and shortcuts on the desktop. Avoid having individual files just hanging about; find a folder to place them in.
Large files (programs, videos, HD images etc) that you no longer need? Send 'em to the recycle bin, then be sure to empty the recycle bin afterward. This one is more so to just reclaim storage space.
Take it a step further by looking through miscellaneous documents, notepad files, etc. and trash anything you don't need anymore.
Organize the rest into folders.
Come up with naming structures for your files. 48930273902.jpg doesn't tell you a whole lot.
Organize your bookmarks within folders and subfolders. Get rid of any you no longer need or want.
Action Step: Create a 'Second Brain' (in ONE spot)
If your thoughts are scattered between apple notes, voice memos, google docs & sheets, google drive, notepad, sticky notes (real or virtual), notetaking apps, journal, and so on… You might feel scatter-brained. Because your thoughts literally are scattered everywhere.
These all have their uses… But they should each have specific uses. If you have workout/side project/journaling/brain dump notes scattered between all of these, good luck actually doing anything with all that information. Get it all in one place. The less brainpower you have to use on 'where did I write that down again?', the better.
As you might be able to guess if you've read my emails, Notion is my second brain. It is highly organizable and customizable, and I find the page icons + page cover images make it more fun and makes each page instantly distinguishable. It's also highly searchable, and has some cool features like the 'side-peek' feature, letting you open up pages side by side. I use it for just about everything in my life and it's been a game changer.
There are countless 'second brain' apps and Notion templates. A template can help, but you don't need one. You can create a blank Notion account for free and just start building and organizing your own second brain, one thought or page at a time. You also don't have to use a dedicated app, or Notion at all. You could make a rudimentary second brain literally with just Notepad/Word documents/Google Docs, then organize the pages into appropriately named folders.
The important thing is that you personally designate one place as your second brain; even if you quickly jot down a thought in your phone notes, you know that the next step is to later transfer that thought into your designated second brain space.
That's it for Part II. Part III covers Your Life.
Thanks for reading.
-Shane
