Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor.

I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, a firm specializing in activating workplaces,

helping you discover ways to amplify performance and employee engagement.

Together, we do leader boot camps, keynotes, and pulse checks.

Just let us know what you need.

So can we talk for a minute about the secret of my

success? I mean, my version of success, of course, maybe not yours. And also maybe not a secret as I'm

talking about it openly, and I've done so before. But you get my drift. It is my bullet journal.

I swear this thing looks like it comes straight out of 1997. It is an

anthem to analog, and yet it is the thing I would save in the fire, after the dog and the children

and all of my golden girls paraphernalia. People think it's quirky, but I love it because it

captures absolutely everything, from the things I have to do

today, this week, this month, and this year, to all of my ideas for future podcast episodes,

and TED Talks I want to watch, and LinkedIn posts I want to write, workouts I want to try,

and on and on. It works for me because my mind is noisy, and the bullet journal is my holding

place for all the chaos. I always just thought it was a thing I did, that lots of people do,

but it turns out this thing I do has kind of a fancy name. It's called cognitive offloading,

which is essentially a schmancy phrase for the tools and strategies you use to manage

all the stuff banging around in your brain. When we leave all the important things inside of our

minds, the stuff uses up space and energy that it could be using to do more interesting

things, like innovating and imagining, like learning, and like being really present

in the conversation you're having. So let's talk about some basic ways that you can clear the

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