So What, Who Cares (vol 1, issue 3) Why ignoring things is bliss

Here's how I justify living in one of the most bonkers real estate markets in the country: It's currently 60 degrees and breezy here. Anyone who has ever spent August laying atop their bedsheets and praying for the humidity to break can understand. Since it's feeling like back-to-school weather, let's look at a few stories that put you at the head of the class.

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People who use Kindles to read a book are fuzzier on the precise order of narrative events in the book they've just read.

So what? The research adds to a growing body of work examining the several systems of information we're subconsciously logging as we engage in the act of reading -- in this case, underscoring the link between our tactile/spatial memories (the place we were in the book) and the contents at a specific place in the book. (The physical-cognitive link works for writing down information compared to typing it out too. This is why highlighting things doesn't emblazon them on your brain like writing them does.)

Who cares? People who rely on reading as a way to absorb actionable information. People whose children are getting to the age where they have to read books and write book reports. If the medium by which we access a book affects how we recall the information, we're going to need to develop the ability to discern which medium is appropriate for what type of reading we do.

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Want to be happier and more productive? Learn how to aggressively filter out demands and ignore things. As Ed Batista writes:

What trips up so many of us is imagining that we can keep lowering that threshold—by working harder, longer, “smarter” (whatever that really means) in the futile hope that eventually, someday, we’ll get to the bottom of that list.

The key is recognizing that prioritization is necessary but insufficient. The critical next step is triage.

So what? By blowing a hole in the idea that you can do it all if you just do it better, you can stop spending time beating yourself up over what you're not getting done and start spending your finite mental energy on what you can do. This strategy fits in with the business pundits' embrace of the idea that "balance" is hokum, because "balance" places everything as equal and offers no starting or stopping points. As Geri Stengel writes, "You can't manage your time if you don't know what your priorities are."

Who cares? Anyone who is ambitious. The ability to set priorities, triage accordingly, then act on those priorities is highly valued in corporate circles, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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Finally, if you want to really get things done, embrace the concept of mise en place.

People have started noticing that chefs -- with their habits of prepping their workspaces well ahead of time so they can work quickly without spending a lot of brainpower scrambling for supplies -- are basically masters of work organizations. The concept of preparing your workspace to enable seamless work can easily be translated to your computer desktop too.

So what? Classic desk jobs are not the only place to learn cognitive skills and best practices for working efficiently. Also, this story highlights what cultural cachet chefs have right now -- their jobs are hot in pop-culture circles and tap into a bigger cultural foodie moment.

Who cares? Anyone who wants to work on their own executive functions (i.e. the suite of cognitive skills that help people practice categorization and prioritization) or help someone else develop their executive functions.

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On a final pre-fall note: Get your hands on a copy of Norman MacLean's A River Runs Through It And Other Stories, then read "USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky" for one of the most achingly lovely descriptions of August's liminal qualities:
What I remember best is crawling out of the tent on summer nights when on high mountains autumn is always approaching. […] Even at night great winds seem always to blow on great mountains, and tops of trees bend, but, as the boy stands there with nothing to do but to watch, seemingly the sky itself bends and the stars blow down through the trees until the Milky Way becomes lost in some distant forest. As the cosmos brushes by the boy and disappears among the trees, the sky is continually replenished with stars. There would be stars enough to brush by him all night, but by now the boy is getting cold.
Here's hoping for a happy end of August to us all.