Overcoming Overload?

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Mar 11, 2015 at 05:50 PM

I agree with the others that you probably are being asked to do more than is fair or reasonable. However, if you’re committed to trying to deal with it all, I would like to make an “out of the box” suggestion as a tool for managing it all: give TheBrain a try.

Here are the reasons I think TheBrain MAY be the answer for you:

- You can put any information into it. Add spreadsheets, e-mails (at least if you’re using Outlook on Windows), Word documents, PDFs… almost anything can be associated with a thought (TheBrain’s nomenclature for an item).

- It’s primary viewing mode is always drilled to a manageable, bite-sized spectrum of information. So you don’t have to be looking at a long and growing list of tasks. Just focus on the tasks at hand.

- It is very flexible with regard to how you categorize your information, so you can build a system that works for you. For example, you can add multiple tags to a thought, so you can relate it to colleagues and priorities and contexts… whatever. You can assign a thought type to any thought (just one type per thought). Visual properties can be associated with thought types, so you can add visual cues to your thoughts in this way. So, for instance, you can have a thought type of “simple to do” and give it a checkmark icon, so you can quickly designate any thought as a “simple to do.”

- You can, if you choose, add due dates and alarms to thoughts.

- TheBrain has a deceptively simple and effective search function, so you can quickly find anything in your Brain.

- You can link any thought to any other thought, so you are not stuck in a typical linear hierarchy, like you get with any of the task list programs.

TheBrain is really easy to use, though it may appear complicated at first. The developers have a ton of how to videos that explain things pretty clearly.

The price is a bit steep, so you should definitely try it before you buy it. But I’m like you: I get overwhelmed once my tasks lists (I use Toodledo) get to a certain length. TheBrain keeps me sane (pardon the pun).

Steve Z.