Sometimes when you "think on paper," you don’t get paragraphs of clarity, but paragraphs of questions. The questions proliferate in all directions as you see more and more things you don't know and feel you need to know to make any progress. Questions proliferating in...
In order to live a happy life, you need to see yourself achieving your values on a daily, weekly, and annual basis. For this purpose, I recommend that you adopt some regular practices. The daily practice is the "3 good things" process. The annual process is an annual...
Forgetting is real. It takes special work to remember an idea or an intention, particularly to remember it at the time you need it. The default is that you don't. This issue is much wider and more important than remembering names of people you meet or items on a...
Introspection is your tool for understanding and shaping your own psychology. Often, your first identification of a feeling is the tip of an iceberg. There is much more work to do before you know what caused the feeling, and can disintegrate any self-defeating beliefs...
The #1 general-purpose problem-solving tactic I teach is "Thinking on Paper." If you are not familiar with it, get my freebie, "Thinking Directions Starter Kit." If you are confused, overloaded, uncertain, blank, conflicted, or stuck in any way, I recommend you turn...
An important way you grow in the middle of challenges is to choose the person you want to be. This is not as easy as it might seem. I find it’s always helpful to put the vision into writing, spelling out what I want, in entirely positive terms. I recently did this for...
If you want to stay on a schedule, you need to be able to take breaks that last a certain amount of time, and no longer. But that can be difficult. By definition, you are taking a mental rest from concentrated effort. How do you take that rest, without slipping into...
I often recommend that when you are confused in your thinking on some issue, you need to take multiple passes, first to gather information, then to test your thinking. The simplest test is to ask about each sentence, "is that literally true?" By asking this question,...
The common wisdom is that you need to forgive an injustice from another. If that means “to grant a free pardon for or remission of (an offense, debt, etc.)”1 then I am not in favor of it. I’m in favor of a just response. Admittedly, that is more challenging. Often...
We're moving into the next phase of the coronavirus crisis. We're getting a glimmer of the long haul. To help you flourish through tough times, I recommend you take proactive action to ensure that you have sufficient pleasure in your life. You need positive...
Have you ever found yourself teleported to the refrigerator at the time you were supposed to be doing work? Or taken a “short” break to watch one video, then had that turn into watching an entire series? Or started to tidy your desk to settle down to work, and wound...
I am more upbeat than many of the people I’ve spoken with recently. This is true, even though in many cases, my expectations for the post-coronavirus future are more pessimistic than theirs. I’ve seriously entertained some pretty dire outcomes, but instead of letting...
With 20:20 Hindsight, I wish I had written this article before the last one, which analyzed the relative merits of “Don’t Panic” versus “Keep Calm and Carry On” as advice. That may have been a bit esoteric for some readers. So, better late than never, here is more...
“Don’t Panic” “Keep Calm and Carry On” Are these two pieces of advice equivalent? No. If “Keep Calm and Carry On” is your mantra, you are more likely to maintain your equilibrium in turbulent times, such as the current coronavirus crisis. Why? First, “Keep Calm and...
I'd like to share an invaluable technique that improves both your productivity and your motivation: Deliberately plan to reach a finishing point in your work every half hour. A finishing point is different from a stopping point. For example, if you're juggling, and...
I often talk about the negative impact of mental pressure. But I am occasionally asked whether some pressure isn't good. For example, a member of the Thinking Lab observed, "Just the right amount of pressure is desirable and beneficial.... I believe in values pressure...
There are only three obstacles to doing what matters most: confusion, temptation, and resistance, or some combination thereof. If you have difficulty doing what matters most, you may be under a false impression about whether you can overcome these obstacles....
Time management books talk a lot about keeping track of your commitments. Commitments are those tasks you have decided you are going to do, no matter what. They range from the trivial (mailing a letter today) to the profound (write a book). They can be personal (lose...
I believe the essential purpose of a journal is to introspect one's emotions in private. Why do that? Well, first let's agree that introspecting one's emotions is a value. When you introspect, you answer the questions, "what do I feel?" and "why do I feel it?" By...
People often say that you learn from failure. But I think you learn primarily from your mistakes, not from your failures. There's a big difference. You can make a good decision, based on sound reasons, and still have it result in failure. For example, there can be...
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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: