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- What your cluttered mind is costing you (it's more than you think)
What your cluttered mind is costing you (it's more than you think)
Jon Matzner
May 24, 2025
If your email looks like this PLEASE LET ME HELP YOU.
Your brain wasn't designed to be a storage device.
It was designed to think, create, and solve problems. But when you use it as a freaking filing cabinet for everything you need to remember, you're wasting its most precious resource: brainpower.
Most people walk around with their heads full of open loops.
The meeting they need to schedule.
The email they forgot to send.
The project that's been sitting on their desk for three weeks.
All of this mental inventory creates a constant background hum of anxiety and distraction.
You can't focus on what matters because part of your brain is always occupied with what you're forgetting.
Getting organized is about freeing up your mind to do higher order tasks (and clearing out the low order stuff)…. aka BUILDING LEVERAGE.
When I see someone's screen cluttered with hundreds of notifications, red badges everywhere, and an inbox with hundreds of unread messages, I'm looking at someone who has surrendered control.
They're playing defense against their own system instead of using it as a weapon for getting things done. Every notification is an interruption. Every unread message is a decision postponed. Every overflowing folder is cognitive FUZZ.
I was on a zoom call with a member of our team a few weeks ago, and realized they had AUDIO NOTIFICATIONS on for slack. How in GODS NAME do you get anything done like that?
The person operating at the highest leverage on their time have mastered something simple: they capture everything, process it, and act on what matters.
Nothing lives in their head that could live in a system.
Nothing sits in limbo without a clear next action defined.
Nothing important gets buried under the noise of everything else.
Being organized helps me be a better boss, a better friend, a better dad.
When your mind is clear, you can give your full attention to whatever is in front of you. The conversation you're having. The problem you're solving. The creative work that actually moves the needle. You're not half-listening while mentally cycling through your to-do list.
The organized person has learned to distinguish between motion and action. They don't confuse being busy with being productive. They don't mistake activity for progress. They know the difference between urgent and important, and they structure their days around what matters rather than what screams loudest or what is at the top of their inbox.
Here's what high leverage organization really looks like: you deal with things ONCE.
You make decisions when they need to be made, not when you can't avoid them anymore.
You spend time on work that compounds rather than maintenance that merely keeps you afloat.
You're proactive instead of reactive because your system surfaces the right things at the right time.
The disorganized person is always catching up, always behind, always firefighting. They're trapped in a cycle of reaction and recovery.
They spend enormous amounts of energy just managing their own chaos.
When you achieve a high level of personal organization, something remarkable happens.
You stop “managing” your work and start directing it.
You stop reacting to your day and start creating it.
Mastering your personal organization is mastering your attention.
And attention, more than time or talent, is the scarce resource that determines everything else.
The person who can focus completely on what matters most will always outperform the person who spreads their focus across everything that seems urgent (even if they aren’t as good!).
This is why personal organization deserves the same obsessive attention you'd give to any other competitive advantage.
So what the hell can you do about it?
I’m teaching 12, live one hour sessions starting in two weeks.
It’s free for Sagan members.
It’s $499 for non-members.
Come yourself.
Invite your local team.
Send your global team.
WHATEVER.
We are going to go step by step.
Yallah Habibi,
Jon
Here are a bunch of podcasts I’ve done on this topic to give you a preview!