Integrate!

It's obvious to everyone that just before you drop, you should rest. Holidays are often seen as ways to ward off collapse from fatigue or burn out. When absolutely necessary, rest for a short time and then get back into the swing of things. This necessity arises at different times for different people in different kinds of work. For entrepreneurs, it arises just before they crash (if they're lucky). This isn't the best way to think productively. If we use the word "creative" lots of people feel they can sidestep the value of rest because they do not see themselves as "creative." For many years, I thought that having a research degree in a competitive field meant that I was an analytical thinker. I am, of course, an analytical thinker but it turns out that in no way also prevents me from being the kind of thinker who produces stuff: words and ideas and motivation and innovation. You might not be a creative person but it is likely that if you are readi...

It's Friday afternoon and you're looking back at a week of work. What did you accomplish this week? If it feels like nothing, look again. You did make progress and if you don't notice it, you will probably lose it. So if something is better now than it was on Monday, it's a good time to pay attention. Paying attention to progress helps stabilize it in your mind so that it becomes part of the assumptions you take into Monday morning. It's often not enough to prevent slippage. What you need is to add a little oomph to progress so that it stays in place until you can get back to it. Here's three ways to add oomph to your progress, illustrated with examples from my own week. Notice the progress and give it a metaphor.  For instance, this week I have been away at sea without my usual landmarks to chart progress.  But when it's dark, I can look at the stars and begin to notice that I have moved.  Sometimes it is only in the dark that we can focus on the sign...

What difference does it make if work is just a little bit fun?  Logically, fun is a distraction and there's no particular reason that a day with a little fun in it would be more productive than a day of focused, serious work.  Practically, we all know that we're more likely to be productive if we're having a little fun mingled into our task focus.  How does that work exactly? First, it helps us remember that people are not computers and they don't work the way computers do. Our thinking is a complex weaving of reason and memory and sensory awareness and emotion. Fun can involve three of those, and that means that it's actually quite a rich form of thinking. A little fun is likely to be using a lot of your brain, and that wakes up more resources for applying to your work. Next, it's useful to think about the patterns in your thought and work. Patterns work the same way over and over.  Real productivity involves doing more than repeating the same patterns: it ...

Does it happen in your work?  There are many different reasons for ending up with a pile of work that bores you. It's a chore that needs to be done and you have to get through it before you can get back to doing something that engages your full attention and feels productive. There's lots of advice on how to tackle the mountain, from taking frequent breaks, to stressing out (a little stress is productive when the task doesn't require inventive thinking) to delegating the work to someone who will love it (there are some jobs no one loves).  Over my years as a teacher facing a mountain of marking, I have tried most of the advice.  It has all left me convinced that sometimes a chore requires a little mental toughness and a lot of persistence. You don't have to love what you do all the time. You do need to nurture two very different parts of yourself. One part is the one who runs conscientiousness and duty and persistence.  That part is habitually low maintenance but...

There's a kind of rule that people stop having bodies when they get to work, at least in jobs that do not involve obvious physical labour.  To be professional is to stick to ideas and tasks and objectives. That means that while we may ask "how are you?" we really mean something like "of course you are fine because you are at work." We mean this although we all have experience of the difference between working when we feel well and working when we are in pain. How do you feel when you think about police officers, fully armed and allowed to drive, on patrol while suffering from migraine, back pain or sleep deprivation?  What about when you think of your doctor or nurse making decisions or giving medication while distracted by pain?  Perhaps the person marking your child's exam is suffering from a repetitive strain injury or nerve problem. Someone in pain is and is not disabled. They do not want to give up the chance to do their work and we, as a society, d...

There are lots of sexy gifts that we wish we had: wisdom, charisma, strength or acuity.  They are characteristics of the successful and powerful, the characteristics we associate with being better and doing better.  Persistence is not sexy. Courage is sexier than persistence. We admire courage although if we are wise and honest, we hope that we won't need courage very much or very often. Courage is a gift that means you're in big trouble and it will probably hurt before it gets better. Courage is sometimes so like persistence that they might be twins. Persistence is the quiet twin, the one who knows how to make herself inconspicuous when the company arrives. She is often found with her equally undesirable cousin, Patience.  The two are hard to notice and yet, when we look we find them both wherever people are able to maintain success. You might be lucky once, but if you are lucky repeatedly, it's because you have made room for persistence. I think if I were a fairy ...

Have you ever known that you were absolutely in the wrong mood for what you had to do next? You know that your attitude changes your effectiveness.  The question becomes how you can change your own attitude. Your current attitude colours all your perceptions. That makes it very hard to perceive the differences that would allow you to build a different attitude.  Many people don't even try. They just wait it out, hoping that the next mood that hits will be more useful. Or they pretend that attitude is something that only happens to other people. A more useful approach has three steps: 1) Move your body. 2) Connect with a new rhythm. 3) Borrow the best available attitude. It's hard to change your own mind. It's easier to change your body.  If you want to signal yourself to get moving, try moving.  A walk, a run, a climb up stairs: any of them will get the blood flowing, adjust your breathing and rhythms, and suggest to your whole brain that it look for ways o...

There are two kinds of conversations that are great. The first kind happens when you want it to happen. By this I mean, you choose to talk to someone you expect to have a great conversation with and you set up a context where conversation is likely.  Sometimes this means sitting someplace quiet; sometimes it means attending an event and following up with an opportunity to talk; sometimes it means going for a walk or a drive.  In all of these situations, you are intentional about who is part of the conversation and where it happens. There's another kind of great conversation. It's the kind you don't intend and don't expect. These conversations happen in rich environments where people are in that interesting state of being enlivened by their work (whether or not it's paid work) and temporarily detached from it (maybe they've stepped out for a bio break or maybe they are doing an errand, for instance). Lots of research shows that creativity happens when lots of d...