Attentional Blink
Despite my experiments with meditation, I have difficulty focusing on my breath if I take a few days off meditating or yoga. The world is distracting, there are texts coming in, fire trucks going by, …
Culture
Billy Beane on Making Better Decisions, Challenging Entrenched Thinking, and Avoiding Biases
Billy Beane was put in the spotlight when Brad Pitt played him in the movie rendition of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. Sports fans, however, knew long before Moneyball that Beane was …
Turning Towards Failure
Our resistance to thinking about failure is especially curious in light of the fact that failure is so ubiquitous. ‘Failure is the distinguishing feature of corporate life,’ writes the economist Paul …
Winifred Gallagher On Living a Focused Life
“The American dream is no longer just to get rich quick, but also to enjoy doing it, the new captains of industry offer various best-selling decalogue for achieving this goal. Their tips range from …
How David Allen increased Drew Carey’s Productivity
Comedian Drew Carey outsourced the development of his productivity strategy to David Allen, author of the cult classic, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, who “taught him …
David Whyte on The Three Marriages of Work, Self, and Relationship
“We are each a river with a particular abiding character, but we show radically different aspects of our self according to the territory through which we travel.” *** The most difficult of …
The Three Essential Properties of the Engineering Mind-Set
Engineers use a unique mode of thinking based on seeing everything as a system. They see structures that aren’t apparent to the layperson, they know how to design under constraints, and they …
Why it’s easier to describe “what makes us happy” than answer the question “what is happiness?”
A passage from Happiness: A Philosopher’s Guide explaining, in part, why it’s easier to describe what makes us happy than answer the question what is happiness. I can say that I’m happy …
13 Practical Ideas That Have Helped Me Make Better Decisions
This article is a collaboration between Mark Steed and myself. He did most of the work. Mark was a participant at the last Re:Think Decision Making event as well as a member of the Good Judgment …
A Guide to Meditation
If I could encourage you to look into one thing to think and focus better, Lodro Rinzler’s Sit Like a Buddha: A Pocket Guide to Meditation would be it. Rinzler walks us through 10 steps. Step 1 …
Aristotle on Time
Aristotle, in The Physics, produces “a statement of the difficulties about the attributes of time.” Next for discussion is time. The best plan will be to begin by working out the …
The Seven Books Bill Gates Thinks You Should Read This Summer
Bill Gates is out with his annual summer reading list and, while longer than last year’s, it’s a great place to kick off your summer reading. “Each of these books,” Gates writes, …
The Power of Full Engagement: The Four Energy Management Principles That Drive Performance
We’re often told to manage our time, but managing our energy can be far more effective. Managing your energy lets you fully engage with whatever you’re doing. Here, we examine the four key principles …
Do Something Syndrome: When Movement Trumps Results
Solving problems almost always starts with ensuring you’re solving the actual problem. When the actions we should take are not obvious, or the problem is difficult, it’s easy to feel the …
The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship
“Work-life balance is a concept that has us simply lashing ourselves on the back and working too hard in each of the three commitments. In the ensuing exhaustion we ultimately give up on one or more …
A Brief History of the To-Do List
To-do lists are evil from a productivity perspective, it’s much more effective to schedule time. This is something New York Times science writer John Tierney and psychologist Roy F. Baumeister …