I decided that from now on I will stick to the process of compulsive note-taking. Since my college days, I have felt that the lack of note-taking has bitten my chances of executing an impactful project and has also been holding me back from having an anxious-free life. For the past few days, I have applied this always-novel strategy to meetings especially and it really works like a charm. First, it channels your focus on the thing that is happening in the present moment which in turn leads to faster lookups in the future.

I always find it difficult to focus in meetings when I am not the one actively contributing, as my mind wanders off into the different realms of this modern world. Due to this, meetings had a fleeting effect in the time aspect(time dilation to be precise). I also didn’t retain most of the information. Not to mention the amount of anxiety I was left after the meetings. Because I couldn’t really distill or retain the information.

But this really changed quickly, when I made the decision to take notes obsessively. I am no longer distracted by the forces of the internet during the meetings. I note down all the things that interest me and form a gist and list of to-dos after the meetings. This would effectively reduce a lot of mental load from the subconscious part of my brain where I needn’t necessarily worry about keeping the state of mind intact. It’s like you have discovered database and memory again. And the best part is that by the end of the process you’re left with a stateless mind which is what you expect from therapy.