Creativity + Productivity = Success Why Multitasking Doesn’t Work You wouldn’t drink and drive. But would you drink and write? Maybe a glass of wine could be just the thing to get you started on that poem to your sweetheart. But how about a few beers before writing an important e-mail? Could you do with a shot of whisky before taking a phone call from a client? It sounds absurd when I put it like that. Here’s molecular biologist John Medina on the subject of multitasking while driving: Until researchers started measuring the effects of cell phone distractions under controlled conditions, nobody had any idea how profoundly they can impair a driver. That may sound like an extreme example, but by attempting two tasks simultaneously (driving and talking on the phone) these drivers were essentially doing the same thing as an office worker who is simultaneously writing a document, checking and responding to e-mail, fielding phone calls, surfing the web and/or engaging in conversations via social networking sites. There’s No Such Thing As Multitasking
The Myth of Multitasking: How "Doing It All" Gets Nothing Done (9780470372258): Dave Crenshaw The Multitasking Myth (Ashgate Studies in Human Factors for Flight Operations) (9780754679974): Loukia D. Loukopoulos, R. Key Dismukes, Immanuel Barshi Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – Does Creativity Make You Happy? Pin It One of my favourite writers on creativity is the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In this video of his TED talk, he explains the concept of flow for which he is famous. Flow is his answer to the question ‘What makes human beings happy?’ – ‘An almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness’ that we can experience when devoting ourselves to a meaningful challenge. In one of the slides in his TED presentation, Csikszentmihalyi outlines the main characteristics of flow, which you may relate to from your own experience: How Does It Feel to Be in Flow? Bandwidth Nirvana Early in the talk, Csikszentmihalyi presents us with the following description by a leading composer, of his experience while composing music: You are in an ecstatic state to such a point that you feel as though you almost don’t exist. This sounds like a mystical experience, yet Csikszentmihalyi offers a scientific explanation. Spontaneity Takes Practice Takeaway: Practice, practice, practice!
Tyler Durden’s 8 Rules of Innovation We all want to do remarkable things, and lead remarkable lives. No one wants to spend the day engaged in mundane productivity in pursuit of a meaningless consumer existence. Certainly not you, right? So why do we find it so hard to break out of our rut and do truly innovative things? Because it’s hard. It’s almost like becoming another person. I Know This Because Tyler Knows This… If you haven’t seen the movie Fight Club (or read Chuck Palahniuk’s excellent novel), I won’t spoil the fantastic plot twist where we come to understand who Tyler Durden really is. At its core, Fight Club is about living the life you truly want to live, and the hard path to getting there. Luckily, Tyler says a lot of things that apply directly to innovative action. Tyler’s First Rule of Innovation: “No fear. This is the most important lesson, and it’s the one people struggle with and resist. But believe it or not, this is how I’ve been running my businesses for the last 10 years. Tyler’s Second Rule of Innovation:
Tony Schwartz: The 90-Minute Solution: How Building in Periods of Renewal Can Change Your Work and Your Life (POLL) The only way to meet rising demand is to work longer hours, more continuously and stay connected 24/7. Welcome to the crazy credo that many of us now live by, encouraged by the companies that employ us, in a world that's been wildly accelerated by technology. It's also completely contrary to everything we know about what makes it possible for human beings to perform at the highest level. The human body is hard-wired to pulse. To operate at our best, we need to renew our energy at 90-minute intervals -- not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally. When we build this rhythm into our lives, it changes everything. Unfortunately, rest and renewal get no respect in the world we live in. The modern model for success is to hunker down for long and continuous hours in front of a computer or at meeting, answer emails late into the night and work till we drop. Consider some of the data from the poll we've been conducting over the past week at Huffington Post -- a poll you can take right here.
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion - Chapter 1 by Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D. “What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.” —Marshall B. Introduction Believing that it is our nature to enjoy giving and receiving in a compassionate manner, I have been preoccupied most of my life with two questions. My preoccupation with these questions began in childhood, around the summer of 1943, when our family moved to Detroit, Michigan. When the race riot ended and school began, I discovered that a name could be as dangerous as any skin color. Since that summer in 1943, I have been examining the two questions I mentioned. “I am not easily frightened. to top of page While studying the factors that affect our ability to stay compassionate, I was struck by the crucial role of language and our use of words. pain, whether for ourselves or others. a way to focus attention NVC guides us in reframing how we express ourselves and hear others. the nvc process NVC Process A doctor writes:
Quotes - Let's Talk Sense Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? -T. S. "What good fortune for those in power that the people do not think." "Through clever and constant application of propaganda people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise." "It also gives us a very special, secret pleasure to see how unaware the people around us are of what is really happening to them. " Adolf Hitler" "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. "My ideal of education is hard. “The Jewish people are to be exterminated,” says every party member. "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. "Once a government resorts to terror against its own population to get what it wants, it must keep using terror against its own population to get what it wants. The CIA is not now nor has it ever been a central intelligence agency. - John F. - Dante
How to Help Someone Who Won’t Help Themselves “We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.” ~Pema Chodron Recently I got into a hypothetical conversation with someone who very quickly turned hostile and accusatory. Let’s call her Jane. My first instinct was to get defensive, but then I realized this subject was quite raw for Jane, and there was likely something going on below the surface. Usually when people are combative seemingly without cause, there’s some underlying pain fueling it. As we got to the root of things, I learned that Jane was holding onto anger toward someone she once loved, and she felt a strong, driving need to convince people that this other person was wrong. Since she acknowledged that she’d been feeling depressed, lonely, and helpless, I felt obligated to at least try to help her see things from a different perspective. She was committed to being angry and hurt, and all she wanted from me was validation that she was justified. So what do we want? 1. 2. 3.
Why Lying Broken in a Pile on Your Bedroom Floor is a Good Idea. ~ Julie (JC) Peters The Goddess of never not broken. You know that feeling when you have just gone through a breakup, or lost your job, and everything is terrible and terrifying and you don’t know what to do, and you find yourself crying in a pile on your bedroom floor, barely able to remember how to use the phone, desperately looking for some sign of God in old letters, or your Facebook newsfeed or on Glee, finding nothing there to comfort you? Come on, yes you do. We all do. And there is a goddess from Hindu mythology that teaches us that, in this moment, in this pile on the floor, you are more powerful than you’ve ever been. This past week, I have been deeply inspired by a talk I heard on the Yoga Teacher Telesummit by Eric Stoneberg on this relatively unknown Goddess from Hindu mythology: Akhilandeshvari. This figure has snuck up inside me and settled into my bones. The answer, it turns out, is this: in pieces, warrior-style, on the back of a crocodile. Akhilandeshvari: And of course, this is terrifying.