Some things need thinking. Some things don’t. Thinking is a purposeful process of integrating new observations with existing knowledge and values to figure out something new. The goal of thinking is either to put something into words (conceptualize it), infer a...

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...

If you've been reading my blog, or my website, you've read about a lot of processes and procedures you can use to help get your mental wheels turning when you're feeling overloaded, or conflicted, or doubtful, or otherwise not sure what to do. They're great ideas....

When you are stuck on a problem and need some new ideas, you can get creative ideas by making analogies to some other field. An analogy is an abstract parallel between two quite different things. For example, you might analogize driving to project management. In both...

There are two kinds of "I don't know." One kind is accompanied by a sense of bafflement and annoyance. If you put the feeling into words, it would say, "why would you expect me to know that?" That's how you feel when someone asks, "who's the president of Kyrgzstan?"...

Here's a surprisingly effective technique that can pry information loose from your brain and ignite your thinking when you're stalled: The "Q&A Technique." [1] Here's the technique: Write down a question you are puzzling over. ("How" and "Why" questions are...

Join me in the campaign to eliminate prejudice against messy thinking tactics. Floating in the back of many people's minds is the idea that "logical" means "neat." People sometimes hesitate to make a list unless they can write down the items in their proper order....

Here's some old-fashioned advice that may be just what you need to get out of a present-day thinking block: Spread out your notes all over your desk. That's right, your desk, not your computer screen. Yes, programs exist to move around words in many wonderful easy...

Boredom kills concentration, productivity, and pleasure. It's hard to motivate yourself to pay attention when you're bored out of your mind. If you find yourself bored in a meeting or on a project, you need a remedy. Here are three things you can do. One idea is to...

At a humor workshop I attended recently, Judy Carter taught us a formula for creating a joke around something mean that someone said to us. The steps were: Remember exactly what words were used, plus the tone and body language, so you can act it out. Backtrack: what...