You’ve heard it a million times: Stress is bad for you. It hurts your performance. So you need to reduce stress. But what if that’s all wrong? What if the real story of stress is a lot more interesting than that? And I don’t know about you, but when I hear the advice to “reduce stress,” I tend to roll my eyes. For most of us, that’s just not realistic.… Read More »Strategic Stress Management: Techniques that Really Work
When tomorrow comes, your attention will go somewhere. It has to. And, as Chris Bailey put it in his book, Hyperfocus, “Attention without intention is wasted energy.”1 So you’d be wise to choose where your attention will go. If you don’t, other people will choose for you. (App designers and advertisers, mostly.) And if you’re anything like me, you make far better choices when you decide what to do in… Read More »Decide Tomorrow Tonight
I’ve just finished reading Garth Nix’s Abhorsen Trilogy – a superb fantasy series. To my surprise, as I was enjoying this epic saga, I discovered a powerful lesson about procrastination. WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD (I’ve tried not to give away much of the plot.) In the world of these books, the dead don’t always stay dead. They try desperately to return to life, often with the help of evil necromancers. But… Read More »The Book of the Dead
You know that big, important thing you’ve been putting off doing? That project? That chore? That behavioral change? Yeah, that thing. It’s time to get started. Oh, you thought I was joking? Get started, right now. Seriously, stop reading this and get started. Wait, you’re still here? Why are you still here? Let me guess… I bet you’re experiencing some kind of resistance. Resistance is a psychological phenomenon that arises… Read More »Resistance is a Compass