Further proof that Google is everywhere… If you pick up a copy of the January / February Men’s Health magazine (you know, one of those ones that you see on the shelf at the supermarket right above the candy counter), in between the articles on “5 ways to meet the love of your life” and “5 ways to double your salary in 2 years” is an article on Douglas Merrill, the CIO and VP of Engineering for Google. In this article he shares his 4 rules for organizing your life in order to reduce your stress levels:

1. Empty your Head - Your mind can only hold 7 things at a time, and incomplete tasks take preference, so if you clear your head, you’re going to reduce your stress levels.
2. Swap Filing Cabinets for scaffolds (tools for managing different parts of your life) - not surprisingly he recommends Google tools, such as Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Spreadsheets, etc.
3. Redefine organization as search - Don’t attempt to store everything in your head, use a personal online database and search it when you need answers.
4. Leverage other people and their ideas - If you hire bright people from diverse backgrounds with different skill sets, and divide the work up right, you’re going to naturally become more organized.

Naturally the article goes into more detail on each of these than I’m giving you here, but you get the idea. There were a couple of other interesting facts mentioned in the article (not counting the fact that he’s my age, my height, and 25lbs lighter), with the most interesting being that he typically doesn’t travel with a laptop, if he’s going somewhere all he needs is his iPhone. Now it doesn’t say if the other people he travels with bring their laptops with them though.