It's easier to think at your desk than on your feet. Knowing this, you can make it easier to follow through on your own good intentions. Good intentions often fail when "something" comes up. For example, you intend to exercise at lunch, but then at 11:45 you see you...
If worries never break your concentration, congratulations. Most of us get stuck occasionally in a worry loop. For example, you might be trying to work out some budget numbers, when you start worrying about whether they will be acceptable to your boss. Each number...
It happens to the best of us. You sit down to work on your top project, but soon you find yourself thinking about how to respond to a contentious email. Or after a solid hour's work, you step out for a quick break and get waylaid by a co-worker who "just needs five...
By some estimates, people lose 2 hours of work a day due to interruptions. The time is wasted in two ways: First, when you are interrupted, you often lose your place. You have to go back and redo some of the work to restore your working context. Second, the topic of...
Don't be embarrassed if you occasionally feel scattered. It's a normal transition state. For example, after you've finished a major project, you may feel somewhat scattered until you've figured out the next big thing to focus on. But don't let yourself remain feeling...
In the chaos of battle, military doctors use a system of triage to determine whom to treat. They divide the wounded into three categories: those who will survive without treatment, those who will likely die despite treatment, and those for whom treatment will make the...
Imagine this scenario: Bob is working on manpower estimates for the upcoming year, a big project. Two hours in, when he is deep in the details, his boss drags him away to a meeting with a customer. During the meeting, new ideas for the manpower estimates pop into his...
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...
Questions are the motor of thinking. A question puts your subconscious databanks into motion—it's a request to the subconscious to provide information. Although I teach techniques to generate questions to move thinking along, sometimes it's helpful to use pre-packaged...
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...
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...
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: Remember the car keys. Pronounce that word PREF-ur-u-buul, not...
Wishful thinking doesn't solve problems. But it can transform your motivation when you are not "in the mood" to do the next task on your agenda. I stumbled upon this fact while on a long trip. At a certain point, I thought I should dig into four annual reports I had...
Many books offer great advice. Some are so powerful they change your mind on issues you consider settled. Very few are so clear you can learn something about thinking just by reading them. TJ Walker's Secret to Foolproof Presentations is all three. At first glance,...
I wholeheartedly recommend Barbara Sher's book, I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was. Her purpose in writing the book is to help you find and pursue a career that "makes your heart sing." She includes many creative exercises for zeroing in on that ideal...
Every few years, I re-read How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein. This little book helps me answer a crucial question: "What is the best use of my time right now?" Figuring out the answer can be difficult, particularly when I undertake new...
Let me precede my discussion of The Power of Intuition by explaining my understanding of the nature of "intuition." An "intuition" is just a thought, produced by the automatic (subconscious) integration of present observations with past experiences. Qua "intuition,"...
In the 1960's, Charles Kepner and Benjamin Tregoe translated a few key logical processes into simple, practical, teachable procedures. Since then, their methods have helped three generations of managers solve problems and make decisions at work. Their book, The New...
We are bombarded with factoids and sound bites in political speeches, subway ads, water-cooler conversations—everywhere. It takes a sharp focus to separate the babble from the facts. For guidance with this important task, I recommend Darrell Huff's classic book, How...
Emotions are our automatic life-reporting systems. We experience joy in our successes, eagerness to achieve the next goal, fear of a deadline we need to pay more attention to. Emotions are crucial to enjoying life and keeping it on track. Unfortunately, emotions can...
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What determines your productivity on a day-to-day basis? The effectiveness of your thinking. In the Thinking Directions Starter Kit, you get three foundational resources: