Tag: personal-development
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Timed Exposure Can Be As Good As Practice
We know that deliberate practice is an important part of learning (and mastering) new skills–but what role, if any, does mere passive exposure play? Can relevant background stimulation help us to reduce the amount of effort and practice necessary to master a skill? To answer these questions Jonah Lehrer contacted the authors of a recent paper studying exactly…
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To Complete Goals, Concentrate on ‘The Big Picture’ (Not Subgoals)
To help control and manage progress on a difficult or long-term goal, we often split that goal into many individual subgoals. Once we begin to complete these subgoals, our continued motivation and progress toward the main, or superordinate, goal can be compromised. A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2006…
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Evidence-Based Study Tips
A recent issue of The Psychologist included a “rough guide to studying psychology” by the editor of the excellent Research Digest blog, Christian Jarrett. In his guide, Jarrett provided nine evidence-based study tips: Adopt a growth mindset: [Students] who see intelligence as malleable, react to adversity by working harder and trying out new strategies. […] Research…
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Life Advice Through Management Theory and Business Strategy
When Harvard Business School’s class of 2010 invited professor Clayton Christensen (expert on disruptive technology and innovation, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma) to address them, they requested he talk on how to apply management theory principles to one’s personal life. Christensen responded by answering three questions: How can I be sure that I’ll be happy…
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Letting Go of Goals
Designed to help you find focus and tackle “the problems we face as we try to live and create in a world of overwhelming distractions” is focus : a simplicity manifesto in the age of distraction. This is Leo Babauta‘s latest book and he is producing it iteratively online. One issue I have is that…
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The Keynote MBA
Truth is, the great value in most MBA and JD programs can be boiled down to 5 to 10 talks, presentations, classes and conversations that changed the way you experienced the world. Following up on this comment, Jonathan Fields presents The Seven Keynote MBA: seven keynote speeches, from a diverse group of people, that together…
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Nine Diet and Lifestyle Tips for Longevity
By studying the world’s Blue Zones–“communities whose elders live with vim and vigor to record-setting age”–Dan Buettner and team discovered a set of common behavioural traits in their subjects. In his TEDxTC talk Buettner discusses what he discovered to be the myths of living longer and the nine common diet and lifestyle habits of those…
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Askers, Guessers and the ‘Disease to Please’
Saying No to seemingly unreasonable requests and unwanted invitations is easy for some and a gruelling mental challenge for others. This disparity between responses can be explained by looking at the behavioural differences between Askers and Guessers: In Ask culture, people grow up believing they can ask for anything–a favour, a pay rise–fully realising the…
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In Praise of Self-Tracking: The Data-Driven Life
It is a natural desire to strive for self-improvement and seek knowledge about oneself, but until recently it has been difficult or impossible to do so objectively and quantitatively. Now, through self-tracking systems and applications that are becoming prevalent in many of our lives thanks to a number of technological advances and sociological changes, we can,…
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After Procrastination, Self-Forgiveness Limits Further Procrastination
In a short article summarising six “surprising insights from the social sciences” we are told how those in powerful positions show little restraint when presented with food and are informed that the perceived “attractiveness advantage” of more sociable people is there simply because they groom themselves better. However I feel that the only constructive insight…