How to Distract Yourself from Distractions
The other day I got a call at 9:00 a.m. about an event I'm planning for my Toastmasters club. I felt I needed to take it. Soon afterwards I noticed an email from a fellow volunteer in another organization. It concerned a problematic situation, and I was lured into a...
Add a 15-Second Check to Your Decision
As a general rule, it is proper to trust your mind. Your conscious conclusions are based on all of your past choices, your past experiences, and the cumulative expertise you've built up over the years. However, when you make a decision based on limited information,...
Remind Yourself It’s a Hump, Not a Hill
Much of the advice for curing yourself of procrastination comes down to "just get started" or "just take a little step." Once you start on a task that you've been avoiding, you often find that the work develops its own momentum. If you can just get started, you can...
Turn Your Good Intentions into a Manifesto
Last week I gave a terrific class on how to troubleshoot "Rationally Connected Conversations." I mentioned three mistakes to watch out for. Then yesterday in a conversation I made all three mistakes. Actually, I did catch mistake #1 at a certain point and remedy it....
Have a Default Way to Start Your Break
At the start of a break during the workday, I have the idiosyncratic practice of reading one paragraph of Ayn Rand’s non-fiction. This is an example of a highly tailored tactic to help with a problem that many people have: breaks take over the work day. Let me explain...
Developing a Daily Planning Sheet
In the Thinking Lab, I offer a self-study course called, "Evolving a Scheduling Infrastructure."1 The goal of the course is to help you get a basic system in place to keep you productive. The basic system consists of only three things: 1. A daily planning session (15...
You always have a choice
Whenever I hear myself or someone else saying, "I have no choice," I challenge that idea. You always have a choice -- and owning your power of choice has huge benefits. When you think you have no choice, that just means you've ruled out the other options that you see....
Where to Look Before You Leap
A member of the Thinking Lab asked me for advice on how to decide whether to join a small startup or stay with his very successful, stable, lucrative job at a large company. Let's call him Max. Max had done a lot of thinking about his choice, but he still had some...
Right Brain/Left Brain vs. Conscious/Subconscious
Many pop psychologists divide mental work into "right brain" and "left brain" functioning. The right brain is supposed to be the holistic, intuitive, creative, emotional side. The left brain is supposed to be the logical, analytical, verbal side. This division was...
3 Ways to Reveal Facts You Are Missing
In the last blog post, I pointed out that when you struggle there is a fact that needs to be accepted. In a post a month ago I explained that the way you accept facts is that you factor that fact into your thinking, your expectations, and your planning. This leaves...