I feel a strange air of calm. It is an unfamiliar feeling and one with which I’m not entirely comfortable – an ‘uneasy calm’ might describe it more adequately.

Let me explain. Last year was an extremely busy one and the overarching theme was stress.

We all hope by sharing these feelings they will be acknowledged and we will be given more or better resources to help us cope. Let’s be honest, though: that’s not likely is it?

However, we did spend some time trying to ‘stress less and achieve more’. While I haven’t actioned every thing I meant to, I have addressed a large part of it.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have a massive to-do list, but I feel like I know what I have to do and that I haven’t forgotten anything that is going to wake me in the night.

The most effective thing I have achieved is creating my ‘second brain’.

The brain is an amazing muscle and it can do many great things, so why do we clog it up with stuff we have to do?

The brain is for strategising, planning, having great ideas, persuading you to buy stuff you don’t need – not for storing a great big list.

For this I have created my second brain, one list where I know everything is written. It is a list I can access from anywhere, whether on my computer or on my phone – whenever I have that thought, I can record it.

There are an awful lot of apps out there that do great stuff with organisation. Evernote has more functions than I will ever use; Wunderlist sends messages like ‘don’t forget the milk’. There is one to suit everyone, but you have to find the right one for you. I created my second brain months ago, but because it wasn’t stuck to my computer on a post-it note it was easy to ignore.

Now I print it off each morning, highlight the tasks I want to achieve today and update and tidy it daily – it’s a great feeling crossing it off!