Get More Mileage from your Thinking Time
(This tip was originally published in the Thinking Directions Occasional Update on 10/2/06.)
I'm a believer in using checklists and notes as memory aids. But sometimes you need to be able to rely on your own memory. This is particularly true for things you want to remember every time, like:
How do you program yourself to always remember something? The process is called "setting a standing order." It's a "standing order" to your subconscious memory banks to send you a reminder every time you need one.
Here are a few tips for making sure that your standing order is obeyed—that you do, in fact, remember at the appropriate time.
1) Tie your standing order to a concrete, physical event that you know will happen. For example, I set a standing order as follows: "When I get out of a car, I need to remember to look at the seat to make sure I didn't leave anything inside. I will remember that when my feet hit the ground to stand up." My feet hitting the ground is the physical event that triggers the reminder.
2) Make the order positive, not negative. If you want to cut out "ums" from your speech, give yourself the instruction to "pause silently" when you have an urge to say "um." That's easier—you know exactly what TO do. Otherwise, you know only what NOT to do.
3) Always act on the reminder when it occurs to you. No excuses. When I go to bed at night, I have a standing order to double check that the door is locked. I do it whether I'm tired or not, and even when I am "certain" that it "must" be locked. Unfailing repetition reinforces the standing order and makes it become second nature.
4) Only set a standing order if the action is truly important to you. If you ignore a reminder because it's "not really important," you may feel a little guilty for not following through. Guilt is demotivating. It will undercut your commitment to act on the next reminder you get.
5) Automatize just one standing order at a time. Adhering to the "no excuses" rule takes some willpower. Overdoing it can wear out your commitment. So, if you are actively trying to cut out "ums," don't also try to change how you gesture. Wait until cutting out "ums" has become second nature.
(This tip was originally published
in the Thinking Directions Occasional
Update on 10/14/06.)
Willpower is crucial to achieving your goals. From putting forth an extra effort to meet a deadline, to curbing your spending to save for the future, willpower is the force that turns your good intentions into reality,
I think willpower draws on a kind of reservoir of emotional energy. Because it is so important to be able to call on willpower when I need it, I do several things to conserve that energy by reducing how often I need willpower:
1) I schedule my activity so it matches the frame of mind I'll be in, so I don't need to use willpower to change my mindset. So, I write in the morning when my mind is calm. And in the afternoon, when I often feel restless, I play music and do administrative chores.
2) I create routines to follow. For example, in the morning I have a regular sequence that starts with feeding the cat. Each step leads naturally to the next. Because the sequence has become a routine, I only have to use willpower once, to get it started.
3) Instead of suppressing temptations, I take action to eliminate their source. For example, if I have eaten all I think I should, I'll clear my plate so I'm not tempted to eat more. Every time you suppress, you use a little willpower; by eliminating the temptation, you save that effort.
4) I take resistance seriously. When I am resisting doing something that I "know" I "ought" to do, I look at the situation afresh. If it is really the best thing for me to do, why would I resist? Often there is a factor I overlooked. For example, the other day I realized I was resisting starting a big task because a particular small task was more urgent—it needed to get done first. By taking resistance seriously, I doublecheck to make sure I use willpower only when I need it to do the right thing.
All these tactics help me to conserve my emotional energy so I can fuel my willpower when I need to.
(This tip was originally published in the Thinking Directions Occasional Update on 12/9/07.)
Here's a daily practice I learned from Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness.
Once each day, write down three good things that happened in the last 24 hours. You can write them before going to bed or first thing in the morning. You can write them in a journal or in a calendar or on a Post-it. You can include important achievements such as winning a contract or simple pleasures such as eating a good meal. All that matters is that you write down three such items, every day.
As you can guess, the purpose of this practice is to reinforce a positive outlook and avoid feeling overwhelmed by negativity. Even on the worst of days there are a few bright spots, and bringing them to mind helps you maintain perspective.
Dr. Seligman ran controlled experiments to test the technique. Not only did his subjects report being happier and more optimistic during the studies, but they liked participating so much that they continued writing down three good things each day after the experiment was over.
This little bit of thinking each day has large emotional rewards. Why? Because it strengthens two kinds of value judgments:
1) What you hold as good: Every time you decide consciously that something is good, you reinforce, clarify, and concretize what "good" means.
2) What you hold as important: Important means "entitled to attention or consideration." When you spend a little time focusing on the good in your life, you are implicitly asserting that the good is what's important.
Not bad for three minutes of thinking each day.
(This tip was originally published in the Thinking Directions Occasional Update on 8/28/07.)
Questions are the motor of thinking. A question puts your subconscious databanks into motion—it's a request to the subconscious to provide information. In my course on Thinking Tactics, I teach techniques to generate questions to move thinking along. Recently I learned from writer Marcia Yudkin the value of asking pre-packaged questions in addition to your own. [Note 1]
To warm up your thinking on a subject, Ms. Yudkin recommended answering this set of six questions on paper, allowing yourself exactly three minutes per question:
[Note 2]
These are excellent questions to jump-start your thinking. They cover six logical processes: concretization, definition, differentiation, analysis, analogy, and proof. In 6 weeks, I have used them a dozen times.
I find that three minutes per question is the perfect amount of time. It's long enough that you have to push yourself a bit and short enough that you don't get discouraged or bogged down trying for the perfect answer. And when I'm finished, I'm not just warmed up—I've generated a substantial amount of useful material.
You can use this 3-minute technique with sets of questions for different purposes. Good pre-packaged questions appear in many "how to" books. For example, here is a set of questions for describing a problem:
Problem Description [Note 3]
And here are questions for improving a regular decision process:
Decision Improvement [Note 4]
I've collected these and other question-sets and written them on index
cards. Now when I face a puzzle, I look through the cards, then choose the
most relevant questions to spur me on my way. I'm finding that questions I
read about years ago are suddenly helpful in new situations. For example,
I've adapted the questions for
improving decisions (above) into a set for improving judgment.
Asking myself pre-packaged questions has become an indispensable technique for me. I've added this tool to my workshop, and I am recommending it to you. Collect pre-packaged questions. Then, when you need to jump-start your thinking, simply choose an appropriate set, and spend three minutes answering each one on paper. It will be time well spent.
Notes:
1. I learned this technique from Marcia Yudkin's CD course, Become a More Productive Writer.
2. Marcia Yudkin reports this set of questions is called "Cubing" by its creator, Elizabeth Howe.
3. Kepner & Tregoe, The New Rational Manager. See my recommendation.
4. Gary Klein, The Power of Intuition. See my recommendation.
(This tip was originally published in the Thinking Directions Occasional Update on 12/1/06.)
When your thinking process feels stopped by too much on your mind, take a moment to distinguish whether your are overloaded or overwhelmed (or both at once).
"Overloaded" is a cognitive state. It occurs when you are juggling too many ideas in your mind, perhaps everything you need to do before an upcoming deadline. As you turn your attention to one thing, you lose track of another.
"Overwhelmed" is an emotional state. It consists of intense fear or doubt at the prospect of doing a difficult or challenging task. Worries fill your mind.
Both these states can make you feel out of control, with too much on your mind. Both can bring you to a halt in your thinking. But the solutions differ.
When the problem is cognitive—you can't keep track of everything on your mind—you need to address the problem directly, by making space. The simplest, most familiar way to free mental space is to make a list of the ideas you're trying to juggle. Once they are down on paper, you can think about them one at a time, contrast and compare them, decide priorities, etc. Making a list eliminates overload in many, many situations. (For more difficult cases, I recommend a process of spiraling, which I teach in Thinking Tactics.)
In contrast, when the problem is emotional, you do not always have to address the emotional issue head on. All you need to do is to calm down sufficiently that the emotions aren't interfering with your thinking process.
The first step in calming down (and sometimes the only step needed) is to acknowledge what you're feeling. By naming it for yourself, you immediately gain some perspective on the situation. (For more advanced techniques to recalibrate emotions, see my review of Mind Over Mood.)
When you are both overloaded and overwhelmed, I recommend addressing the overload first, because making a list or spiraling turns your attention toward solving the problems. Taking charge may even be enough to calm any sense of being overwhelmed. Regardless, it will give you more mental resources to cope with the emotional issues.
The first step in all problem solving methods is: identify the problem. This is just as true for mental problems as physical ones. When you accurately identify what's stopping your thinking, you can efficiently solve the problem and move forward.
