Avoiding Setbacks When You Add a Weekly Commitment
When you are on a program of continuous improvement, you are often adding some new activity to your weekly schedule, or improving the existing one. But by continually raising the bar you create a hazard: the increased potential for failure! Here are a few things that...
Avoid the Plague of Vague
"Somebody ought to do something about that." We've all heard that vague statement offered as a “solution” to a problem. But vague ideas can’t solve anything. You can’t grasp the implications of a vague statement—they are as woozy or woozier than what you started with....
Preparing for a Difficult Conversation
Whenever you have a difficult conversation ahead, it pays to get a quick overview of the issues sooner rather than later. That first quick overview helps you gain perspective on the situation, and identify problem areas so you can avoid mishandling the...
Strengthen the Weakest Link
When you have a complicated project, it's sometimes hard to figure out what to work on first. Like any prioritization task, the first step is to get an overview. You can't judge priorities without an overview. Once you get an overview, you can often identify the order...
The 24-Hour Rule for Reviewing Performances
What do you want to improve? Your presentations? Your powers of persuasion? How you run a meeting? Your joke telling? Your ability to answer questions? Whatever it is, to improve it, you need to review it. You may be thinking that means to record your performance,...
Need a Fresh Idea? Prepare to “Incubate”
Often fresh, new ideas occur to you after a period away from your work. That's why many authorities on creativity recommend taking breaks to let this process happen. But just taking a break isn't enough. How often have you come back, after a break, and been in...
Ideas on Breaking Habits
Here's an extremely interesting article which discusses the difference between making and breaking habits. Short version: Habits can be made, by adding actions to something that already happens. To break a habit, you can sometimes substitute an alternate behavior. If...
Ask An Easier Question
Asking yourself questions is essential in thinking. It's the way you get information out of your subconscious and into conscious consideration. Your subconscious is a huge repository of past observations, past conclusions, past training. It is where your expertise...
The Eye Movement Technique
There's much we don't know yet about the subconscious. Here's an example of a strange phenomenon that is sure to lead to interesting future discoveries--eventually: If you find you are obsessing on a thought, you can stop it with a simple rapid eye-movement technique....
Picking Favorites
Some years ago, I attended a seminar on "The Art of Introspection." The speaker (Psychologist Edwin Locke) encouraged the audience to consciously pick favorites. Wherever you are--in a hotel lobby, at work, watching a movie, reading an article--pick your favorite...