Despite existing for 2500 years or so, mindfulness has been gaining popularity in recent years. One of the reasons for this is the large body of evidence – both anecdotally and scientifically – of the benefits that practicing mindfulness can bring (the key word here is “practicing” by the way). I only discovered mindfulness about […]
I am fascinated by cognitive biases and heuristics which are part of the growing field of behavioral econonomics. I’ve written about a cognitive bias known as “The Dunning-Krueger effect” before, but today I’d like to discuss one that I see quite often at work – the “status quo bias”. The status quo bias occurs when […]
I have been using to-do lists to plan my days for more than 25 years and am pretty confident that my productivity would be cut in half without them. But I also use my to-do lists for more than just tasks that I need to accomplish for the day. One of the great features of […]
We live in an instant gratification world. Many of the millennials that I know expect to have all the same “trappings of life” that their parents spent several decades to acquire.. now. We are bombarded with images of success, talent, and athleticism. We see musicians with no more natural ability than ourselves playing in front […]
A couple of my employees were invited to speak at the local university recently to discuss their jobs and their career choices with students. They asked me if I had any advice for them that they could share; they may have regretted that question after 45 minutes of my response. You see, there seems to […]
Ignorance begets Confidence There’s a cognitive bias known as The Dunning-Kruger Effect that describes how people who are very bad at something, actually think that they are quite good because they don’t know enough to understand just how bad they are; they overestimate their performance. “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are […]
“Meanwhile” is a great word for helping you (and others) focus on action. Use it as a reminder that although one path may be blocked, there's usually something else that you can be accomplished. It also reminds you that not everything stops while you are waiting, or procrastinating with or without good reason. For example: […]
I often hear how hard people are working – how much they are trying. Sometimes, I think it is easy to confuse activity with action. Don’t get me wrong – a high work ethic is essential. It shows character. It should be admired and celebrated and encouraged. But there is a difference between being busy […]
One of my employees recently told me that he had 2750 emails in his inbox. I couldn’t believe it, no wonder he had problems keeping on top of tasks and felt “overwhelmed” at times at work. Keeping emails in your inbox longer than they “need” to be there is the equivalent of having papers spread […]
I posted last July that I like to listen to AudioBooks and how the iPhone Audible apps is oh so spectacular. My preference is to listen to non-fiction books – business, personal development, etc – and read fiction. One of the reasons for this is that non-fiction can be delivered in a scientific or somewhat […]
