My stepson Benjamin loves video games. When a new hot game comes out like “Call of Duty”,  he is at the local games shop at midnight  so that he can be amongst the first in the country to purchase it on the day of its release.  Using this strategy he always pays top price for his games. I also like playing video games, but I prefer to wait until the price of the game is reduced. Benjamin’s and my decisions are based on our values. To him the priority is getting the game the minute it is released. I, on the other hand procrastinate, preferring to wait  until the price of the game comes down. My priority is how much I pay.

In his book ‘Wait, The Useful Art of Procrastination’ Frank Partnoy looks at the psychology of waiting and procrastination,  and particularly how it affects decision making. Read the rest of this entry

A few weeks ago I was watching a documentary on TV about an advertising agency going through the process of  preparing a pitch in order to secure a contract with a new major client. The men involved boasted about how hard they worked. One of the company executives was in his office at half five in the morning and did not leave until late at night. He associated his long hours with success.

“One reason our competition is not as successful  as us is that they are in bed whilst we are hard at work.”

One night the executives realised that one of their colleagues was missing.

“Where is he? What has happened to him? We need him here to be working.”

The scene cut to the missing executive at home seeing his children before they went to bed.

“I’ve not seen my kids for four days, ” he said. “When I leave for work they are still in bed, and when I get hom they are also in bed. I missed them so much,  I just had to get away to see them.”

In the meantime at the agency, men were  looking at their watches. “Where is he? This is not on, he cannot go missing at such a crucial stage of the process.”

Many equate success with hard work and long hours. Unfortunately there often is a price to pay for this. Read the rest of this entry

5 Apps to Help Your Daily Life

To live a balanced and happy life is attainable but comes with difficulties and takes a lot of patience and knowledge. Angry Birds may be the only app you use on a regular basis but consider downloading these apps to aid a manageable and productive life.

Fitness: Keeping a healthy and active lifestyle is important not only for your body but for your mental state as well. The award winning and frequently downloaded app to get you there is Sports Tracker. Sports Tracker keeps track of your exercise, analyzes your performance and you are able to share your information and photos with your friends, a great motivation application. Read the rest of this entry

If you are aware of your habits then you can easily predict what you will do in any situation.  Sometimes your habits are good, you help your neighbours out with their gaden project. Sometimes your habits are not that good: You are overweight and want to be thinner but find yourself eating doughnuts every day at your morning coffee break.

We all have habits that we want to change, but often find that deep seated habits that we have had for many years are very difficult to get rid of. Somehow, we just do not have enough willpower to do it.

You may think that willpower is something you are born with.  Some people seem to have lots of it, and others very little. The Olympic athlete evidently has lots of willpower to endure the punishing training regime that is required to win the gold medal. You, on the other hand may find that you do not have enough willpower to go for a mile jog every day.

Can you train yourself to have more willpower? Read the rest of this entry

How Mistakes Can Make You Smarter

There are 2 typical responses to mistakes: paying attention & shutting down.  A guest post by Kelly McGonigal, PhD 

OK, nobody wants to make mistakes — but how you react to them makes a big difference in whether you learn from them.

Two new studies looked at what happens in people’s brains as they make mistakes. One used college students performing a computer task; the other used doctors making decisions about which medications to prescribe. In both studies, participants received immediate feedback about whether they had made the right decision, and they were given opportunities to try again, using what they had learned. Read the rest of this entry

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It seems that every time I watch the TV news I am bombarded with items on how badly the economy is doing.

• The Euro is in crisis
• Fuel costs have soared
• Pensions are being frozen
• Job cuts are announced
• Another high street retailer goes out of business

In a few days it will be Christmas and with all the presents, cards, food drink to buy, my bank account takes a real hit.

If you too are feeling the money pinch, what can you do about it?

Read the rest of this entry

Creativity is one of those words we associate with activities such as art, music, drama, dance, craft and the like.

What is not always recognised is how important creativity is in the process of  problem solving. No matter how great your life is there will always be problems. If you are a manager or leader at work then a large portion of your time will be spent dealing with problems that arise. Some problems will be simple and easy to deal with. For more complex or difficult problems  creative thinking is required.

Alicia Arnold is a certified facilitator of the Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process (CPS). She has written a book titled “Creatively Ever After” which details this approach to problem solving.

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Creatively Ever After.

A guest article by Alicia Arnold.

My interest in creativity developed at a young age, though I didn’t know it was called “creativity” back then. When I was 9 years old, a teacher explained there was no such thing as a one-legged stool. Being a curious youngster with a strong imagination, I raised my hand and shared, there was indeed, such a thing as a one-legged stool (picture a flared leg). My feedback was met with disdain. Although I would have hoped an elementary school teacher would have encouraged out-of-the-box thinking, this was not the case. This initiated my behavior of holding back and filtering my ideas. After all, ideas seemed to get me into trouble. Read the rest of this entry

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If, like me, you lead a busy life ,then you are faced with a large list of things that need to be done.  It is very easy to feel overwhelmed by the length of this list. Some time ago I came acros the work of David Allen. His Getting Things Done way of organizing appealed to me and I decided to implement his method in my life.

In the past I have written database systems for my business clients, so I began to to look at how I could translate David Allens’s ideas into a computer program. The result is Life Manager Pro, an application that I created over a year ago. Since then the program has gone through many changes. Read the rest of this entry

A guest article written by Julia Valentine has been added to the article section. Read the rest of this entry

If you want to improve your life it is important that you understand how your brian works.

I’ve just been reading The Shift by Takumi Yamzaki. The first part of the book looks at how the brain operates.   You experience your world as reality.  Everything that you see, feel or touch seems to be real. At any one time there are masses of data entering your senses. You remain unaware of most of this information. Your subconscious mind filters and edits the information and presents this edited version as reality. Read the rest of this entry

My approach to self development is a self directed one. This means that I read self growth books, attend seminars, watch videos and then from all that I take in, I create my own, self-directed path to achieve success.  If I fail, then this is also totally down to me. I have no single teacher to follow, no outside help.

If I was religious then I could call on God to help me. I have no religious faith of belief so this is not an option for me.

If you are religious then how does the balance between helping yourself and God helping you work?

One person who seems to have struck that balance is Bette James Laughrun who, with her daughter Kathie Nelson has written the book “I Want What She’s Got! The Secrets of Creating an Outrageous Life” Read the rest of this entry

If you examine the statistics for Olympic events you often find that the difference between the gold medal time and the silver medal time is marginal, often 1% or less. In the swimming events the margin can be just one swim stroke that takes less than a second. This means that an athlete may need only improve his or her performance by just 1% in order to take their place on the winner’s podium.

Tom Connellan has taken the idea of improving performance by just 1% and applied it to all areas of life. The result is his book  “The 1% Solution For Work and Life”. Read the rest of this entry

Perform Like A Rock Star and Still Have Time for Lunch

I recently watched an interview with Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones on TV. He was talking about his life. As a teenager he just wanted to play the blues which is why he joined the Rolling Stones. Then he got rich and famous, but found this difficult to handle. As a result, he spent years in a haze of drink and drugs. He obviously had not had a happy life.

When I was given the book Perform Like a Rock Start by Orna W. Drawas to review, my first thought was that I did not want to be perform like a  rock star, especially as being a rock star seemed to involve many lost years of drugs, misery and possibly an early death! But as I started reading it I was pleasantly surprised.

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