How to think positive. You can think posit WHEN A PERSON THINKS a negative thought and tries to get rid of it, that person is thinking positively negatively. Daniel M. Wegner of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, has conducted a long string of experiments that show the futility and actual danger of trying to get rid of thoughts. In some of the experiments, Wegner told his subjects, “Try not to think about a white bear.” The subjects were then asked to say aloud everything that came to mind. Of course, thoughts of white bears showed up quite a bit. Trying not to think a negative thought will result in thinking it more. Thinking is like breathing: It goes on night and day and you can’t stop it. The same is true about thinking. So when you find yourself disliking the content of your thoughts, instead of trying to stop yourself from thinking a thought, try to direct your thoughts. And the way to direct your thinking is by asking yourself a question. Of course, the kind of question you ask makes a big difference.
How To Stop Procrastinating Be inspired to overcome procrastination. Now in beta, BuddyHive.com links random buddies to be accountable to each other as they achieve small tasks. Click above, write in a task, and we’ll find a buddy to support you on your way. Procrastination is the intentional and habitual postponement of an important task that should be done now. Unpleasant tasks Unpleasant tasks rarely turn out to be as bad as you think.Complete these tasks first. Complex Projects Something looms ahead of you: starting a small business, getting a job, preparing the annual budget. Indecision People delay because they can’t make up their minds.Determine a time for making a decision and the criteria for making it. Fear of failure (lack of self confidence) People don’t want to face the consequences of failure, so they delay. Lack of interest You are tired or lazy. Perfectionism People delay because they want to get the project perfect.Set deadlines for yourself. Hostility towards a boss Distraction, lack of focus
How To Stop Procrastinating Josh Kaufman: Inside My Bald Head | The Pe HOWTO: Be more productive (Aaron Swartz: T Translations: 日本語 | Русский | Беларуская “With all the time you spend watching TV,” he tells me, “you could have written a novel by now.” It’s hard to disagree with the sentiment — writing a novel is undoubtedly a better use of time than watching TV — but what about the hidden assumption? Such comments imply that time is “fungible” — that time spent watching TV can just as easily be spent writing a novel. And sadly, that’s just not the case. Time has various levels of quality. If you want to be more productive then, you have to recognize this fact and deal with it. Spend time efficiently Choose good problems Life is short (or so I’m told) so why waste it doing something dumb? This isn’t to say that all your time should be spent on the most important problem in the world. Have a bunch of them Another common myth is that you’ll get more done if you pick one problem and focus on it exclusively. Having a lot of different projects gives you work for different qualities of time. Make a list Notes
Self-Discipline May Beat Smarts as Key to Zoe Bellars and Brad McGann, eighth-graders at Swanson Middle School in Arlington, do their homework faithfully and practice their musical instruments regularly. In a recent delayed gratification experiment, they declined to accept a dollar bill when told they could wait a week and get two dollars. Those traits might be expected of good students, certainly no big deal. But a study by University of Pennsylvania researchers suggests that self-discipline and self-denial could be a key to saving U.S. schools. According to a recent article by Angela L. Duckworth and Martin E.P. "Underachievement among American youth is often blamed on inadequate teachers, boring textbooks, and large class sizes," the researchers said. But how, educators, parents and other social scientists want to know, do you measure self-discipline? The study looked at one group of 140 eighth-graders and another group of 164 eighth-graders in a socioeconomically and ethnically diverse magnet school in a Northeast city.
How to have more confidence, emotional str EVERYBODY KNOWS WHAT IT MEANS to flinch. Example: You pretend you’re going to slug me, and I twitch or blink. I flinched. Now let’s expand and extend that idea in a useful way: Let’s say flinching is any form of shrinking back, pulling away or turning aside, when it’s done to avoid discomfort or difficulty. Have you ever noticed that you have a strong desire to put your hands in front of your body when you’re standing up and talking to several people who are all seated? Most people do. Or say you’re telling someone something she doesn’t want to hear. If you look at someone and they then look at you and you quickly look away, you flinched. Flinching is an attempt to protect yourself, and it’s very natural. But when you have the urge to flinch and you don’t, you gain a kind of strength. And you don’t have to spend years getting good at this; you can do it the very next time you talk to someone. Refuse to flinch. Don’t flinch, and feel the power. This is the “how” of courage.
How to Exercise an Open Mind - WikiHow Edit Article Edited by Sam Rawlins, Krystle C., Richd, Erika Altek and 105 others One hour of increased brain activity via innovative thinking or experiencing new stimuli can make you smarter, more energetic, more creative, more sociable, and more open to new experiences and ways of thinking. Ad Steps 1Don’t allow yourself any dead time. 20Browse something that you are not familiar with the internet. Tips Become more like an inquisitive child. Warnings Exercising an "open" mind and "stimulating" your mind are different.
Memory Improvement Techniques from Mind To © VeerPRZEMYSLAW PRZYBYLSKI Use these techniques to improve your memory. The tools in this section help you to improve your memory. The tools are split into two sections. As with other mind tools, the more practice you give yourself with these techniques, the more effectively you will use them. Mnemonics 'Mnemonic' is another word for memory tool. The idea behind using mnemonics is to encode difficult-to-remember information in a way that is much easier to remember. Our brains evolved to code and interpret complex stimuli such as images, colors, structures, sounds, smells, tastes, touch, positions, emotions and language. Unfortunately, a lot of the information we have to remember in modern life is presented differently – as words printed on a page. This section of Mind Tools shows you how to use all the memory resources available to you to remember information in a highly efficient way. Using Your Whole Mind to Remember You can do the following things to make your mnemonics more memorable:
Why smart people defend bad ideas - scottberkun.com [First published April 2005] We all know someone who’s intelligent, but who occasionally defends obviously bad ideas. Why does this happen? How can smart people take up positions that defy any reasonable logic? Having spent many years working with smart people I’ve cataloged many of the ways this happens, and I have advice on what to do about it. Success at defending bad ideas I’m not entirely proud to admit that I have a degree in Logic and Computation from Carnegie Mellon University. The problem with smart people is that they like to be right and sometimes will defend ideas to the death rather than admit they’re wrong. Until they come face to face with someone who is tenacious enough to dissect their logic, and resilient enough to endure the thinly veiled intellectual abuse they dish out during debate (e.g. For example, just because you can’t prove that I’m not the king of France reincarnated doesn’t make it so. Death by homogeny Thinking at the wrong level First, nothing is obvious.