CULTURE

By some estimates, people lose 2 hours of work a day due to interruptions. The time is wasted in two ways: First, when you are interrupted, you often lose your place. You have to go back and redo some of the work to restore your working context. Second, the topic of...

When people complain about not getting things done, they almost always wish they had bigger blocks of time to do the work. A surprising solution to this problem is to plan your unstructured time using standard time blocks of 25 minutes. The method, called the Pomodoro...

Don’t be embarrassed if you occasionally feel scattered. It’s a normal transition state.  For example, after you’ve finished a major project, you may feel somewhat scattered until you’ve figured out the next big thing to focus on. But...

“Change your smoke detector batteries when you change the clocks to or from Daylight Savings Time. Otherwise you’ll forget.” This little trick suggests a way to help you achieve some of the most important goals you’ll ever set: your lifetime...

Did something go badly? A “discussion” with a spouse or coworker that ended in acrimony? A proposal that flopped? When something goes badly, you may be tempted to forget about it and just try to do better next time. But the secret to doing better lies in...

Join me in the campaign to eliminate prejudice against messy thinking tactics. Floating in the back of many people’s minds is the idea that “logical” means “neat.” People sometimes hesitate to make a list unless they can write down the...

When you have a big question to think about, don’t wait until you have 2 or 3 hours free to tackle it. There just aren’t enough big blocks of time available to make that a practical strategy. Instead, I learn how to Velcro together smaller blocks of...

Here’s some old-fashioned advice that may be just what you need to get out of a present-day thinking block: Spread out your notes all over your desk. That’s right, your desk, not your computer screen. Yes, programs exist to move around words in many...