How a Decision Log Can Help You Move from Scattered to Focused
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...
How Triage Can Help You Prioritize Under Pressure
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...
Mental Cleanup Time: A Quick Process for Saving Your Brain State When You Switch Tasks
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...
Distinguishing Feeling Overloaded from Feeling Overwhelmed
When your thinking process feels stopped by too much on your mind, take a moment to distinguish whether you 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...
Jump-Start Your Thinking
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...
How Identifying Three Good Things Each Day Makes Your Life Better
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...
Aiding Willpower
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...
Setting Standing Orders
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...
Wishing for Motivation
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...
Book Recommendation: TJ Walker’s Secret to Foolproof Presentations
by TJ Walker
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,...