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Getting Organized in the Google Era

272 pages

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 What's more, he says, many of the ways in which our society is structured are outdated, imposing additional chaos that makes us feel stressed, scattered, and disorganized.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.

(from Chapter 6, in PDF format)


About the author:
Douglas C. Merrill, Ph.D., is the former CIO and Vice President of Engineering at Google, where he helped bring the company to its IPO and with related regulatory activities.  At Google, Merrill held direct line accountability for a team of 1,500.  He left Google in April 2008 and then served as Chief Operating Officer of New Music and President of Digital Business at EMI Music.  He is a graduate of the University of Tulsa with a major in social and political organization. Merrill attended Princeton where he received Masters and Doctoral degrees in psychology. His academic publications include articles in The Journal of the Learning Sciences, Cognition and Instruction, Reliable Distributed Systems, and a paper in the book series Lecture Notes in Computer Science (1992).  Merrill is also a former researcher with the RAND Corporation and is listed among the organization's most notable participants.  Today, he is is the CEO and founder of ZestCash.com, a financial services technology company that provides credit alternatives for the underbanked. ZestCash announced a $19 million round of Series A funding in July 2011 and was one of Forbes’ Names You Need to Know in 2011

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