Book Recommendation: How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life
by Alan Lakein
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...
Book Recommendation: The Power of Intuition
by Gary Klein
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,"...
Book Recommendation: The New Rational Manager
by Charles Kepner & Benjamin Tregoe
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...
Book Recommendation: How to Lie with Statistics
by Darrell Huff
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...
Book Recommendation: Mind Over Mood
by Dennis Greenberger & Christine Padesky
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...
Book Recommendation: Changing for Good
by James Prochaska, John Norcross & Carlos Diclemente
Making and Breaking Habits Bad habits. How do you break them? Good habits. How do you make them? In the simplest cases, all it takes is a little willpower. For example, if you want to stop uttering filler words like "y'know" and "um," it's fairly easy. Be vigilant —...
Book Recommendation: When Panic Attacks
by David Burns
Please ignore the title of this book and read on. David Burns, a well-known cognitive psychologist, has created an insightful guide to help people deal with a wide range of disruptive emotional issues: depression, anxiety, unearned guilt, phobias. In fact, his...
Don’t Let Pressure Sabotage Your Thinking
Pressure can sabotage your thinking. By pressure, I mean an issue weighing on your mind as you try to concentrate on something else. Perhaps it's an imminent deadline or a desperate desire to do a fantastic job. Maybe it's a highly-charged emotional situation you...
Case Study: New Year’s Resolutions
New Year's Resolutions. How often do they turn out to be empty rhetoric? A resolution is a special kind of goal. It is not just a one-time target, like doubling sales for the year. When you make a resolution to lose weight or stop smoking, your goal is to change your...
Applying a Thinking Tool to Create a Humorous Speech
Reading a "how to" book or taking a "how to" course doesn't magically transform a person's thinking abilities. Changing one's thinking methods can be as difficult as changing the established procedures of an entrenched bureaucracy. A person's old ways of thinking feel...