By some estimates, people lose 2 hours of work a day due to interruptions. The time is wasted in two ways: First, when you are interrupted, you often lose your place. You have to go back and redo some of the work to restore your working context. Second, the topic of...
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...
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...
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...
When your thinking process feels stopped by too much on your mind, take a moment to distinguish whether your 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Sometimes, when there's more work on your plate than ever, your output slows to a crawl. When this happens, you may feel you should just speed up. But that impulse is mistaken. To get moving again, first slow down your thinking. Bogging down is evidence you've...
A member of my Thinking Lab asked me how to remember better what he reads. He said: "I read vast amounts of information (news, articles, books), which I need to think about and retain. I've not had the greatest success. For a long time, I have simply read things and...
I had a long talk with a Thinking Lab member the other day. He was concerned about his power of concentration, which wasn't all he wanted. He often got distracted and tired when he worked for a couple of hours. So I gave him my spiel on concentration, and thought I...
If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ve been introduced to “thinking on paper.” If not, you can read about it and get instruction on it with my Thinking Directions Starter Kit. With that as the context, a client sent me this note about "thinking on paper"...
A bit of imagination can be surprisingly helpful with difficult thinking. I learned this by applying advice from Alan Lakein on how to get started on a difficult task: "Imagine this: You've been relieved of all responsibility for getting a difficult A-1 [important...
But they're all important! When everything seems like it's off-the-charts important to do today, a thought experiment can help you figure out your actual top priority. Here's how to do it: Look at your short list of tasks to do, and pick one. Now imagine this was the...
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