On Topic: Writing stuff down

This is pretty much as it occurred, as best as I can recall, and took place a few weeks ago while I waited for information to load from my old smartphone to my new one.

Store clerk, with early days for him on the job: 'So what do you do for a living?”

Me: 'I work at The Gazette.”

Clerk: (Excitedly) 'Really?!”

Me: 'Yes.”

Clerk: 'Cool!”

Me: 'Yes, it is.”

Clerk: (Pause) 'What do you do there?”

Me: 'I'm one of the editors.”

Clerk: 'Really?!”

Me: 'Yes.”

Clerk: 'Cool!”

Me: 'Well, yeah, it can be, most of the time …

.”

Clerk: (Pause) 'Have you ever driven to Canada?”

Me: (Lost now) 'Um, yes, but not from here.”

Clerk: '‘Not from here.'”

Me: 'Right. (Pause) Are you planning to drive to Canada?”

Clerk: 'No. I was just asking.”

Me: '…

Cool.”

This bit of randomness came to mind as I was reading Daniel J. Levitin's 2014 book, 'The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload,” which came out in paperback last month. In it, the author, a psychology and neuroscience professor and the social sciences dean at the Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute in San Francisco, writes about how memory, and thinking about a memory, leads to other memories.

Take the idea of a firetruck, for example, Levitin notes. That could bring to mind other vehicles that respond to emergencies - ambulances, police cars, utility-company trucks - or that have ladders hanging on them - roofers, arborists, window installers. Or maybe a firetruck would prompt you think of kittens stuck up in trees.

Then consider an aspect of that firetruck, such as its color, which in turn could remind you of a number of other items that are red - apples, roses, tomatoes, blood (which could lead to vampires, say) or a Sun-Maid raisin package.

One thing leads to another.

Levitin's point is our brain tends to categorize stuff in a variety of ways. Computer scientists call that relational memory.

So maybe our friendly store clerk mentioned above associated something he'd recently read in The Gazette - a story that sprung to mind after I'd said I work here - with a quick trip to Canada. A travel story perhaps?

Or maybe something less direct - a hockey story, and his memory made its own leap to contemplating the Great North.

Or maybe my voice reminded him of Gordon Lightfoot.

OK, it's more likely, given his age, he doesn't know who Gordon Lightfoot is. But you see how this works, right?

But this clutter of what our memory can haul up from the depths, like the nets of a commercial fishing operation, all goes to why we, as decision-makers, need to be organized.

'Nothing comes to my desk that is perfectly solvable,” Levitin quotes President Obama. 'Otherwise, someone else would have solved it.”

The White House has lots of smart people who can figure out stuff. Anything that reaches the Oval Office really doesn't have an ideal answer for all concerned - the chief executive of the planet's superpower has to choose among a variety of directions, most of which are going to annoy, harm or in fact endanger someone or some interest.

He's not deciding. He's choosing.

Or as Steve Wynn, Wynn Resorts CEO, tells Levitin, 'I'm the one who has to choose which of those two negatives we can live with.”

So organizing how make decisions - or make choices, if you like - is vital.

'The Organized Mind” discusses a variety of methods, and lots of ways to think about thinking. One I particularly like is especially low tech, which Levitin quickly admits - writing things down.

For example, he talks about performing triage on pending decisions by categorizing, or externalizing, them. Create a list:

' Decisions that can be made right now because, frankly, the answer is pretty darned obvious

' Decisions that can be handed off to someone who knows more about this particular subject matter (and who isn't flattered when the boss acknowledges you know more about something than he or she does?), or who simply has more time to look into it (not quite as flattering, I admit)

' Decisions that could use a bit more brewing time - we've got all the details at hand, but still, let's give these some more thought …

' Decisions that require more fact-finding - make a list of what still has to be learned, who should be consulted for informational or political reasons, and then set a deadline, 'even if it's an arbitrary one,” Levitin advises, 'so that you can cross this off your list.

Better organization also gives you better odds all aspects at least have had a fair hearing.

And then if you decide, for example, your entire company should relocate to Canada, well then, you'll be able to explain how you came to that well-reasoned conclusion.

Cool.

Remember that this coming Thursday will be the next Business 380 Excellence Business & Breakfast networking event, 7 to 9 a.m., at TrueNorth, 500 First St. SE in downtown Cedar Rapids.

Panelists on hand to discuss health care and health insurance business issues will be Mike Fay, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield vice president of health networks; Tim Sagers, MercyCare Business Health Solutions medical director; Ted Townsend, UnityPoint Health-St. Luke's Hospital president and CEO; and Ron Fuhrman, TrueNorth CPA and benefits adviser.

Go to www.TheGazette.com/tickets to sign up while seats remain. See you there.

' Michael Chevy Castranova is enterprise and Sunday business editor of The Gazette. (319) 398-5873; michaelchevy.castranova@thegazette.com