Start the Day with a Thought Download
I recommend "thinking on paper" * every day, on whatever issue seems important. But what do you do if you aren't sure what to think about? Start with a "thought download." ** A "thought download" is a page of thoughts--your thoughts. The page could be filled with...
Adopting the Priorities Mindset
One of my top life lessons learned is: if you want to create your dream life, you must stay ruthlessly committed to identifying and pursuing your top priority at each choice-point during the day. I call this "The Priorities Mindset." It took me years to truly learn...
Using a Proportional Response to Improve Quality
Improving the quality of your own performance, or that of an organization, can be a complex and long-term endeavor. In his book The Lean Startup, Eric Reis explains a doable method for making incremental adjustments that can dramatically improve performance in...
What to Do When You’re Waffling
Way back in 1998, when I wrote my first article on what to do when you get stuck on a difficult thinking problem, I offered one general piece of advice: Identify the problem. As Louis Sullivan said, "the problem contains and suggests its own solution." Although I now...
Blocked by the Same Old Bad Feeling? Release Its Hold
Sometimes when you feel blocked, the situation has a deep, painful, familiar feel to it. You say to yourself with a sinking feeling, “I’ve been here before.” When you recognize that old bad feeling, try this somewhat bizarre procedure from P. J. Eby to release its...
Change Proliferating Questions into Answers
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...
The Completions List
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...
How to Remember Your Commitment
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...
Introspect Deeply When You Catch Tinges of Hostility
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...
How Much Time Is a Problem Worth? 3 Minutes, 15 Minutes, More?
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...