Alphabet

In the case of information, reading several articles and sources on the same topic can create a lot of clutter. Because it creates internal struggles and questions:

• What sort of information is important?
• This post said this is important while another post said it wasn’t important. What information is relevant here?
• What information should I internalize and apply?

... for organizing information:

• Location: put the most relevant stuff to be within reach.
• Alphabet: for organizing lists of people and statistics, dictionaries, and official documents.
• Time: used when providing step by step instructions or when things have to be in chronological order.
• Category: organize information by similarity or relatedness.
• Hierarchy: organizing information that is used collectively to compare things.

"GTD is an organizational system. It doesn't put rules around how you actually do your work. Instead, it focuses on how you capture the work you need to do, organize it, and choose what needs your attention"

“Whatever problem you’re struggling with is probably addressed in some book somewhere written by someone a lot smarter than you."

- Ryan Holiday

...in terms of reading retention:

• Impression
• Association
• Repetition

Learning is a two-step process:

• Read/listen: feeding ourselves new information.
• Process and recall what you’ve just ‘learned’: connecting new materials to what we already knew.

You should not waste your time by committing unimportant details to memory. 

Your focus should be on understanding the bigger picture, on how things relate to each other.

Acronyms, music (very effective) or rhyme, or sentences of words that start with the same letter as the items you are trying to memorize are all mnemonic techniques that help you to remember and retrieve information.

Stories encompass all the qualities of information that makes our brain love and remember it: vivid and colorful picture and engaging plotlines about other beings that are alive.

By creating a narrative that is interesting to and include items you need to memorize, you create a story your brain can follow.

Is a linear method of taking notes that proceeds down the page, using indentation or bullets to denote major and minor points.

Pros: it records content relationship in a way that is easy to review.

Cons: difficult to go back and edit information written in this system.

Works for: recording terms, definitions, facts and sequences, when taking notes on slides or readings.

The goal is to jot down your thoughts as quickly as possible. Format is kept to a minimum: every new thought is written on a new line. 

Pros: Is like free writing for notes.

Cons: lack organization and notes can be hard to understand.

Works for: meetings or lectures that lack organization; when information is presented very quickly.

• De-clutter your space, empty, shred and get rid of literally any frivolous thing that adds no value to your productivity.
• Organize with colors and labels, to put items in the right places.
• Use storage boxes & containers to help you stay organized.
• Segment your work zones to help trigger a better output.
• Organize your desk accessories: everything from your stationeries, laptop, files, and trays.
• De-clutter and organize your Laptop/Desktop by deleting those folders, pictures or softwares that you don’t need. 

The best gauge of being well organized, "is just the lack of anxiety that comes from a clean comfortable workspace where you feel like things aren't piling up and overwhelming you."

Common sources of clutter for entrepreneurs include business cards, printouts from the Web, and literature from conferences and seminars.

A good way to get rid of clutter is to turn each piece of paper that you're keeping around into an action item in your planner. 

This process walks through a list of prompts in different categories, looking for things you're trying to remember and commitments you've made and gets them out onto paper.

It will help you clear your thoughts and get the distractions out of your head.

Take the time to review the coming week's schedule and organize it into large chunks of time, with tasks grouped by importance and urgency.

It will make it easier to manage your work.