The 15-Minute Routine Anthony Trollope Used to Write 40+ Books Beginning with his first novel in 1847, Anthony Trollope wrote at an incredible pace. Over the next 38 years, he published 47 novels, 18 works of non-fiction, 12 short stories, 2 plays, and an assortment of articles and letters. Trollope achieved his incredible productivity by writing in 15-minute intervals for three hours per day. His strategy is explained in Mason Currey’s book, Daily Rituals (audiobook): “It had at this time become my custom,—and is still my custom, though of late I have become a little lenient of myself—to write with my watch before me, and to require of myself 250 words every quarter of an hour…This division of time allowed me to produce over ten pages of an ordinary novel volume a day, and if kept up through ten months, would have given as its results three novels of three volumes each in the year…” —Anthony Trollope Trollope’s approach may seem simple on the surface, but there is more going on here than it may appear at first glance. The Problem With Big Projects
What’s The Best Time of Day to be Creative? New research finds circadian rhythms in our creativity. Do you feel at your most creative early or late in the day? Now psychological research is examining whether there’s a best time of day for creativity, depending on the type of creativity and your natural rhythms. To investigate Wieth and Zacks (2012) had participants take two different types of creativity test. The second measured their ability to solve analytic problems: these are the type of problems that require you to work steadily towards the answer, like doing your taxes. Both of these types of thinking are important in creativity, although at different points in the process. What Wieth and Zacks found was that strong morning-types were better at solving the more mysterious insight problems in the evening, when they apparently weren’t at their best. This research can’t tell us specifically, but it’s probably because being a bit sleepy and vague broadens the mind’s focus. Image credit: Yau Hoong Tang
Seven Speaking Tips That Beat "Pretend Your Audience Is Naked Aggh. Everyone showed up clothed! Once upon a time, I suffered from glossophobia. This affliction touches billions. I conquered it by discovering what makes people smile, nod, and listen carefully, because nothing calms you down faster than an interested audience. This is what I've learned. Children plea for them at night, and adults crave them, too. They want to be respected. This principle also underlies another rule of effective speaking: Dress like your audience, but just a little bit better." {*style:<i>Don't try to impress them. </i>*} If you truly want to help your listeners--by informing or motivating them, or improving their lives--they will care and listen. This recalls a favorite tip: We mistrust people who won't look us in the eyes--even if our eyes are among over 200 sets in a room. If you look each person in the eye for a few seconds, you make each person feel important--a feeling that every person craves. For this reason, minimize visual aids. . .
13 Strategies To Jumpstart Your Productivity Looking to increase your productivity? You’ve come to the right article. I don’t claim to be a productivity master (I always think there’s room for improvement), but I am very passionate about increasing productivity. I’m always looking for different ways to be more productive – stealing pockets of time where I can, deprioritizing the unimportant, getting system overhauls, etc. And I love it when I see my efforts pay off in the form of increased outputs at the end of the day. In this article, I have selected 13 of my best productivity strategies – tried, tested and validated. Here they are :D 1. Probably half of the self-help articles out there keeps telling us to set goals and set targets. I do regular goal setting to maximize my output. Be clear on what exactly you want to achieve. Further reading: 2. Does your work environment encourage you to work? Those of you who are employed can’t exactly choose the environment to work in. Further Reading 3. Further Reading: 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
How to Change Your Beliefs and Stick to Your Goals for Good In one of my very first articles, I discussed a concept called identity-based habits. The basic idea is that the beliefs you have about yourself can drive your long-term behavior. Maybe you can trick yourself into going to the gym or eating healthy once or twice, but if you don’t shift your underlying identity, then it’s hard to stick with long-term changes. Most people start by focusing on performance and appearance-based goals like “I want to lose 20 pounds” or “I want to write a best-selling book.” But these are surface level changes. The root of behavior change and building better habits is your identity. This brings us to an interesting question. How to Change Your Beliefs The only way I know to shift the beliefs that you have about yourself and to build a stronger identity is to cast a vote for that identity with many, tiny actions. Think of it this way… Let’s say you want to become the type of person who never misses a workout. Of course, it works the opposite way as well. Read Next
Does The Weather Affect Your Mood? Do grey skies make you blue or is it summer that gets your goat? Here in the UK the weather feels depressing. We’re in the middle of winter in the northern hemisphere and it’s cold and we’re being battered by gales and torrential rain. The sun, even when it does show its face, is setting at 4pm. It’s no wonder people in the street look fed up. But according to most of the research on the connection between weather and mood, they shouldn’t be. When you tell people this, though, they don’t believe it. So why don’t we see this effect in the research? That’s the question a new study by Klimstra et al. (2011) tries to answer with a group of adolescents and their mothers. And it turns out this is true. Unaffected: about half the people in their study fell into this group. This helps explain why studies keep finding that weather doesn’t have much effect on mood: it’s because we’re different and these differences were mostly being averaged out. Image credit: Noukka Signe
Are You Living in a Simulation? Many works of science fiction as well as some forecasts by serious technologists and futurologists predict that enormous amounts of computing power will be available in the future. Let us suppose for a moment that these predictions are correct. One thing that later generations might do with their super-powerful computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of people like their forebears. Because their computers would be so powerful, they could run a great many such simulations. Apart form the interest this thesis may hold for those who are engaged in futuristic speculation, there are also more purely theoretical rewards. The structure of the paper is as follows. A common assumption in the philosophy of mind is that of substrate-independence. Arguments for this thesis have been given in the literature, and although it is not entirely uncontroversial, we shall here take it as a given. Memory seems to be a no more stringent constraint than processing power. Writing and thus: .
20 Quick Tips For Better Time Management - Stepcase Lifehack Are you usually punctual or late? Do you finish things within the time you stipulate? Do you hand in your reports/work on time? If your answer is “no” to any of the questions above, that means you’re not managing your time as well as you want. Create a daily plan. Do you have any tips to be a better time manager? The 2 Types of Growth: Which One of These Growth Curves Are You Following? We often assume that life works in a linear fashion. People will say, “You get out of life what you put into it.” The basic idea is that for each unit of effort you put into a given task, you get some unit of return. There is just one problem. Instead, most areas of life follow two different types of growth. Which one of these growth curves are you following? Type 1: Logarithmic Growth The first type of growth is logarithmic. Logarithmic growth increases quickly in the beginning, but the gains decrease and become more difficult as time goes on. There are many examples of logarithmic growth in daily life. Fitness and Strength Training: The “beginner gains” come quickly at first, but then it becomes more difficult to get stronger each week.Literacy: Children and young students make massive leaps as they learn how to read. There are thousands of other examples. Type 2: Exponential Growth The second type of growth is exponential. The Challenges of Each Growth Curve How to Accelerate Your Progress