Getting Organized in the Google Era: How to Stay Efficient, Productive (And Sane) in an Information-Saturated World

Whether it’s a faulty memory, a tendency to multitask, or difficulty managing our time, every one of us has limitations conspiring to keep us from being organized. But, as organizational guru and former Google CIO Douglas C. Merrill points out, it isn’t our fault. Our brains simply aren’t designed to deal with the pressures and competing demands on our attention in today’s fast-paced, information-saturated, digital world. What’s more, he says, many of the ways in which our society is structured are outdated, imposing additional chaos that makes us feel stressed, scattered, and disorganized.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Luckily, we have a myriad of amazing new digital tools and technologies at our fingertips to help us manage the strains on our brains and on our lives; the trick is knowing when and how to use them. This is why Merrill, who helped spearhead Google’s effort to ＂organize the world’s information,＂ offers a wealth of tips and strategies for how to use these new tools to become more organized, efficient, and successful than ever.

But if you’re looking for traditional, rigid, one-size-fits-all strategies for organization, this isn’t the book for you. Instead, Merrill draws on his intimate knowledge of how the brain works to help us develop fresh, innovative, and flexible systems of organization tailored to our individual goals, constraints, and lifestyles.

From how to harness the amazing power of search, to how to get the most out of cloud computing, to techniques for filtering through the enormous avalanche of information that assaults us at every turn, to tips for minimizing distractions and better integrating work and life, Getting Organized in the Google Era is chock-full of practical, invaluable, and often counterintuitive advice for anyone who wants to be more organized and productive-and less stressed--in our 21st-century world.

DOUGLAS C MERRILL is the Founder & CEO of ZestCash - a financial services technology company committed to serving the underbanked - and was previously Chief Information Officer and Vice President of Engineering at Google. Prior to Google, Douglas was a Senior Vice President at Charles Schwab and Co. and an information scientist at the RAND Corporation. He has a Ph.D. in cognitive science from Princeton University.

JAMES A MARTIN is a PC World technology blogger, whose articles have appeared in many publications and on web sites including Washingtonpost.com.