Copyright 2014 by Brainetics, LLC
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House Company.
www.crownpublishing.com
Harmony Books is a registered trademark and the Circle colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Byster, Mike.
The power of forgetting : six essential skills to clear out brain
clutter and become the sharpest, smartest you / Mike Byster
with Kristin Loberg.
pages cm
1. Attention. 2. Memory. 3. Thought and thinking.
I. Loberg, Kristin. II. Title.
BF321.B88 2014
153.125dc23
2013032193
ISBN 978-0-307-98587-3
eBook ISBN 978-0-307-98586-6
Cover design by Kelly Sue Webb
Cover photograph: Getty Images
v3.1
To my wife, Robin, and my son, Josh, who have always believed in me and encouraged me to take a chance and go for it .
To my dad, Dave, and my sister, Beth, for their constant love and support .
And especially to my mom, Gloria. She taught me I could accomplish anything, as long as I never gave up and I kept my hair combed and my shoelaces tied .
I couldnt have done it without any of you .
Memory is the mother of all wisdom .
AESCHYLUS (525456 BC)
INTRODUCTION
A Forgettable Story
Kathy M. gets up at 5:00 a.m. so she can sneak in a forty-five-minute jaunt on her treadmill while responding to overnight e-mails, checking her Facebook page, and catching up on the morning news. By the time she lands at her desk at 9:00 a.m.after shes made breakfast for the family, showered, dressed, lost and found her keys, sent several texts, shared a few photos online, opened some apps, downloaded key documents to her iPad, organized the kids lunches, and dropped them off at schoolshes already dealt with volumes of information and competing demands via her cell phone and home computer. Now at work, she struggles to prioritize her tasks amid the flurry of to-dos, incoming calls, and e-mails. She saves the review of an important file until later in the day because she fears her brain cannot concentrate on it yet. Lunchtime hits and she wonders where her morning went, as she finds herself halfway through the day but feels far behind the eight ball in terms of how much shes accomplished. Scatterbrained, she tries to calm herself back into full focus by grabbing a coffee and scrolling through her favorite Web site. But then more distracting e-mails come in. And when her boss enters the office around four oclock and asks her a quick question, she draws a total blank in a response. Her brain has shut down. Correction: Her brain never really got to work that day.
This, unfortunately, is typical not just of Kathy but of millions of us who are blessed and cursed in our hyperkinetic world, where theres just too much information to process and expectations to address 24-7. But the good news is theres an answer to this modern plight. Theres a way to cut through the clutter in your brain and develop a laser focus and concentration. A way to power through tough problems so that you can move on to enjoying the rest of life and not let issues linger more than they need to. The solution lies in a little-known phenomenon: forgetfulness. Thats right: When we learn to forget information, we have the ability to remember what we need to work faster and smarter through our day.
I dont know anyone who doesnt feel overwhelmed by responsibilities while at the same time drained by trying to keep up (and barely doing so). And although we think were doing ourselves good by, say, taking a time-out at work to troll the Internet or respond to messages from friends, we could actually be doing a great disservice to our brains. Creativity and insight cannot be born from a brain living in a culture of distraction. Nor can fast, productive thinking happen when were under the duress of stimulating activities. We are living with the same brains that our caveman forebears developed for us centuries ago, and those brains are not adapted to the realities of our modern era that have us navigating so many sources of information and stimulation.
Brain clutter is a costly condition. While it may not have an official diagnosis in the medical world, it most definitely has an undeniable list of symptoms: brain fog, inability to focus or concentrate, lack of productivity and innovation, stress, anxiety, nervousness, angst, worry, dread, and even depression. (A doctor will give you more grave-sounding technical conditions.)
The average working professional spends roughly 23 percent of the workday on e-mail and glances at the in-box about thirty-six times an hour. It takes most of us more than a minute to return to a task once weve stopped to read a new e-mail. Imagine gaining back all that time and energy! And imagine what it can do for the next generation. This is serious, folks. I like to think of myself as a fun and hip guy who tries to crack a few jokes when teaching, but I cannot express the severity of our current crisis. In fact, my desire to reverse this trend is the whole point of writing this book.
If we can learn to minimize the idle, ineffective clutter and maximize the stuff that future successes are made of, then we can go far. Mastering the art of forgetting, as youre about to find out, will be the ultimate key to that achievement. Whats more, training your brain to operate faster, focus intently and immediately when you need it to, and unleash its fullest potential doesnt hinge on genetics, inherited IQ, access to the best schools, or even medical breakthroughs. The one skill that trumps all others in becoming smarter, more productive, and exceedingly more imaginative is, in fact, forgetting . I realize that this may sound absurd and quite counterintuitive. How can forgetfulness and efficiency coexist? Arent these two concepts absolute opposites? Far from it.
In this book, Im going to teach you everything you need to know to get your brain working more effectively for you. Youll be able to maximize the full power of your brain and get a lot more accomplished every minute of your day. And being able to forget will provide the foundation.
Let me be clear: This is not a memory book. Im not here just to teach you a trick to memorize the Declaration of Independence so that you can recall it in a heartbeat. What youre going to learnusing a variety of exercises, shortcuts, and toolsis the art of forgetting. This single skill alone will help you become a better, more effective individual in all that you do. The forgetting lessons and their related exercises will enhance your ability to communicate, innovate, impress others, stand out in a crowd, get ahead of your peers, move up the corporate ladder, magnify your employability and moneymaking capacity, make excellent decisions, solve problems, plan for the future, speak publicly with ease, be a stronger player in games and sports, ask for what you want, adapt to new situations, handle crises, work under pressure, be independent, and more.
There are hundreds of abilities that can be elevated by mastering the power of forgetting. Throughout the chapters, Ill point out specifically why youre learning a given stratagem or being told to do something that seems impossible or impractical (such as multiply two-digit numbers in your head), but regardless of the specific lesson youre reading about on any given page, I want you to always keep your eye on the biggerand much more monumentalpicture and prize: Developing a mind that works super fast will allow you to live up to your greatest, most innovative potential.
