Back in 2020 there was an article from The Gazette with an INSANE stat:
There’s an estimated 6.5 square feet of self-storage for every person in America!
WWW-OW!
Also: $38 billion is spent every year at something like 45,000 storage facilities.
And… wait for it… building new ones tripled in the past five years!
You know things will only have increased since then.
I guess people need somewhere to keep their “I might need that one day” stash.
Or the “I’m not quite sure whether to chuck out or keep” pile.
And I guess the cool stuff that can’t squeeze into your shoebox apartment has to go somewhere.
Marie Kondo will be having palpitations at the thought.
But…
With this extra stuff comes the need to keep track of it.
That is… unless you prefer chaos to reign. And love paying forever for something you could possibly do without.
I mean… You have to remember to pay for it. Track swipe cards. Never mind keeping tabs on the the piles of stuff lurking inside.
If you have a storage unit… all the stuff takes space in your brain filing cabinet.
And the more stuff there is… the more file folders, draws and entire cabinets you need.
Stuff too much in… and some might spill out.
(Yeah… don’t ask me for scientific proof for that statement!)
But more than likely it will increase our anxiety levels… as we scramble to keep up with everything that’s spinning around in there.
Having some sort of external storage system as a “second brain” can certainly help.
And is definitely useful… what with the myriad of things to remember as a freelancer.
I use a second brain system. But it still needs careful curation. Otherwise ends up in a shambles.
(One day I might talk about it)
A few simple things that can help with brain overload are:
1) Don’t try and stuff so many things into it in the first place!.
(Is that one of my Captain Obvious statements again? 🦸♂️)
I mean… be discerning about what you want to learn and retain.
When you’re studying something you don’t have to watch every single suggested YouTube video on the subject. Really!
2) Find a system that works for you to keep notes.
It could be a journal, electronic note system (e.g. Evernote), or clay tablets. There’s plenty of options.
Key is find something that works for you.
But I’d suggest you don’t try every single option out there. (Unlike yours truly more or less did.)
It’s just a way of feeling productive but really just avoiding doing actual work.
And work is what you actually want to do as a freelancer. Right?
3) Curate.
And whatever notes need to be kept… keep it tidy. And review them.
So you won’t be like the hapless person renting his third storage unit….
But not having the faintest clue where anything actually is.
Review things you want to retain.
Remove things from your second brain if they’re not needed.
I mean you don’t want to just add a collection of impossible-to-understand notebooks into the mental mix of more things to track!
..
That’s some ideas. Take or leave.
And if you have a storage unit… do you know what’s in there? Really? 😜
My cat’s the cutest,
P.S. This is worth storing in your brain for when you need it: website, email, courses, community, funnels… in an all-in-one marketing system. I use and recommend systeme.io. Check it out here via my affiliate link:
https://a.chrismilham.com/systeme
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Chris Milham