Monotasking Is The New Multitasking We all know multitasking is inefficient. A classic 2007 study of Microsoft workers found that when they responded to email or instant messaging alerts, it took them, on average, nearly 10 minutes to deal with their inboxes or messages, and another 10-15 minutes to really get back into their original tasks. That means that a mere three distractions per hour can preclude you from getting anything else done. Then there’s the relationship “inefficiency” that comes from multitasking. We know this, yet we keep doing it. No human activity is immune. Fortunately, there are ways to learn to focus. Live right There are many reasons to exercise, hydrate, and get enough sleep--and the ability to fight distractions is one of them. Tie yourself to the mast To resist the original siren song, Odysseus bound himself to his ship so he couldn’t pursue these tempting creatures. Play offense Don’t tolerate boredom Bregman once spent a week consciously avoiding multitasking. Plan Accept your limits
12 Things You Never Knew On How To Think Effectively Effective thinking is something that can be practiced and developed over time. Everything begins and ends with the brain-heart connection. How you think either connects or disconnects the two. Here are some ways to think effectively that you never thought could be so easy. 1. “I’m not good enough.” 2. “I’m going to try this.” 3. So if you think you’re a failure, you don’t deserve success or happiness, or you’re not good enough, your subconscious mind is going to steer you in the direction of what you’re thinking. 4. Remember, everything begins and ends with the brain-heart connection. 5. So many great ideas are abandoned because of hesitance or procrastination. 6. So think like this: Thought…Idea…Vision…Action. 7. A very valuable money coach taught me this concept and when I realized it, I became unstuck. 8. For example, in your heart you know you need to set up a budget. 9. Generally, by looking at someone’s heart, you gain a deeper understanding as to their reaction. 10. 11. 12.
The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time - Tony Schwartz by Tony Schwartz | 8:53 AM March 14, 2012 Why is it that between 25% and 50% of people report feeling overwhelmed or burned out at work? It’s not just the number of hours we’re working, but also the fact that we spend too many continuous hours juggling too many things at the same time. What we’ve lost, above all, are stopping points, finish lines and boundaries. Technology has blurred them beyond recognition. Tell the truth: Do you answer email during conference calls (and sometimes even during calls with one other person)? The biggest cost — assuming you don’t crash — is to your productivity. But most insidiously, it’s because if you’re always doing something, you’re relentlessly burning down your available reservoir of energy over the course of every day, so you have less available with every passing hour. I know this from my own experience. If you’re a manager, here are three policies worth promoting: 1. 2. 3. It’s also up to individuals to set their own boundaries. 1. 2. 3.
Brain Fitness And Memory Programs, Brain Training - CogniFit The Super Simple Phone Hack That Will Transform Your Productivity A while back, my cofounder Leo gave me an interesting suggestion: He said I should try disabling all notifications on my iPhone. I find this suggestion especially interesting because it is one that goes against the normal phone setup. It’s so usual to stick to how things are, and with iPhone apps the easiest thing to do is to “allow” all those notifications. It seems almost odd to even consider doing things any other way. I chose to go along with Leo’s suggestion, although I was admittedly quite skeptical that it would change much. I imagined that I had pretty good willpower, and that I am fairly productive already. What it’s like to live without notifications “Don’t confuse the urgent with the important.” - Preston Ni For the first week that I turned off notifications, I checked Twitter, Facebook, email, and other places regularly. With zero notifications, I feel like I can get my head stuck into a problem much more easily than I did before. More than anything, I feel a lot calmer.
How to Study Less by Learning Things Once You read over your notes. Then you read them over again. Then you read them over a third time. Then you take the test and are surprised at just how much you missed. Despite reading everything three times! A lot of study time is wasted because of one problem: you fail to learn things the first time around. Repeatedly going over the same information like putting a band-aid over a sieve. The key to reducing the amount of time you study is simple: learn things the first time you see them, instead of after dozens of repetitions. This is all easier said than done. Step One: Find the Holes If you want to repair a leaky brain, you need to figure out where the holes are. What from this section am I most likely to forget? When you identify weak points, you can invest more time in fixing those instead of wasting time with a blanket studying technique of all information. Step Two: Repair Weak Points Once you’ve identified potential weak-points, you should immediately seek to fix them. Memorizing?
How Managers Become Leaders Artwork: Adam Ekberg, Country Road, 2005, ink-jet print Harald (not his real name) is a high-potential leader with 15 years of experience at a leading European chemical company. He started as an assistant product manager in the plastics unit and was quickly transferred to Hong Kong to help set up the unit’s new Asian business center. All of Harald’s hard work culminated in his appointment as the head of the company’s plastic resins unit, a business with more than 3,000 employees worldwide. Like Harald, many rising stars trip when they shift from leading a function to leading an enterprise and for the first time taking responsibility for a P&L and oversight of executives across corporate functions. What I found is that to make the transition successfully, executives must navigate a tricky set of changes in their leadership focus and skills, which I call the seven seismic shifts. Specialist to Generalist What is “enough”?
How to Learn Without Memorizing Photo by Edwin Stemp Rote memorization is an inefficient way to learn. Just retaining a single formula can mean pounding the same information into your skull dozens of times. If your computer hard drive had this accuracy, you’d probably throw it out. Unfortunately, you’re stuck with your brain. A few years ago, I noticed that smart people seemed to learn differently than most other people. While there are undoubtedly some genetic advantages that allow some people to learn effortlessly, I think part of this difference in success comes down to strategy. Is Your Brain a File Drawer or a Web of Ideas? A computer stores information as thousands of electrical 1s and 0s in a linear fashion. However, your brain isn’t a sequence of bits and bytes, so this approach doesn’t make sense. Other Forms of Learning What I’d like to advocate in this article is a more creative, spontaneous form of learning than the style you were probably coached for in school. 1. 2. 3. Examples: 4. 5. 6. 7.
10 Habits of Remarkably Giving People Think about people you truly respect. Think about people you truly admire. Think about people you love to be around. They may not be rich. Yet you love to be around them--and you would love to be more like them. They give: generously, selflessly, and without expectation of return. Here's what they give: 1. Relatively few of us work hard to find reasons to praise the person who simply meets standards. Remarkably giving people can often see the good in another person before that person sees it in herself, providing a spark that just might help her reach her true potential. 2. While it's relatively easy to ask for help, it's harder to ask for help when the assistance is personal. I once went to a meeting to talk about layoffs; by the time I got back to the plant word had already spread that cuts were coming. He thought and said, "Just tell everyone you tried. Unfortunately I didn't do it often enough. 3. Showing patience is a remarkable gift--because, ultimately, it shows how much you care.
How to Memorize Verbatim Text If you are visiting from StumbleUpon and like this article and tool, please consider giving it a thumbs up. Thanks! Memorizing does not have to be as hard as most people make it. The problem is that most people only know how to memorize by reading the same thing over and over again. You have to learn to memorize. In this post we are going to look at how the brain remembers and then show how to use that knowledge to come up with a method for memorizing verbatim text. In this article we are going to focus on a technique that will let you easily: Memorize a speechMemorize the BibleMemorize linesMemorize Scripture At the end of this article is a Javascript tool that makes it easy to implement this method. Synapses and Neurons and How to Memorize In the simplified model of the brain in this discussion, we’ll be looking at neurons and synapses. When you remember something neurons fire signals down particular synapse pathways to other neurons which in turn fire signals to other neurons.