Making great decisions can be tricky: there are many hidden traps and potential roadblocks you need to be aware of. Here are 5 practical, actionable insights to help you make the best possible decisions to improve your life.

1. Value is in the eye of the beholder

How much is a gallon of water worth?

Well, if you’re reading this, you can probably get a gallon of water for pennies from your kitchen tap. Yet, if you were dying of thirst in a desert, you’d happily pay a hundred bucks for it, right? On the other hand, you’d pay a hundred bucks an hour for a plumber to avoid the water being there in the first place (in your flooded basement, that is).

Many people believe value is intrinsic to an object. Sure, water is water is water, but its value varies enormously depending on what you need it for.

Decision making is a very personal business — it’s about assessing what’s valuable to you. There’s no absolute best job, best car or best life to be lived: value is in the eye of the decision maker.

How to Apply This Insight

• Always decide on your own. Sure, factor in other people’s opinions, but bear in mind that they may value things (very) differently. Blindly following other people’s advice may lead to disastrous decisions — even if they are based on “sound” advice from people with the best intentions of helping you.

2. Know your goals before choosing

As we’ve seen in insight #1 above, no decision outcomes are intrinsically ‘good’ or ‘bad’ — the outcome depends on who you ask, and there are never absolute answers. How do you make sure you’re making the best decision for your life, then?

It may sound obvious at first, but it all boils down to your goals — knowing what you want out of the decision.But establishing a clear picture of your goals for decision making is not always trivial, and I don’t think people invest enough time to do it properly. Consider this dialogue from the book Making Great Decisions in Business and in Life:

Salesman: Hey, want to buy an elephant for $800?
Passerby: No, thanks.
Salesman: How about an elephant for $500?
Passerby: No! What would I do with an elephant? Come on, I live in an apartment.
Salesman: You drive a hard bargain. How about two elephants for $500?
Passerby: Make it $400 and you’ve got a deal.

The point is clear: if you have no use for an elephant (or for the latest shiny gadget, if you will), it will never be a good deal now matter how little you pay for it (unless you plan to make a profit reselling it, of course).

How to Apply This Insight

• Be clear about your goals before deciding. A great way to ensure you carefully consider your goals before deciding is by using the PrOACT approach, which is a great, structured way of making decisions.

• Beware of doing the wrong comparisons. To assess how valuable something is to you, the only comparison you should make is how it ties in with your objectives. If you don’t need, say, that latest phone in the first place, it’s meaningless to compare it with the model you already have, or with its “light” or “premium” versions! For more on how comparisons can lead you astray, check The Relativity Mind Trap.

3. Your decision outcome can be no better than your best alternative

Many people see decision making as an analytical process that, if done right, is guaranteed to lead to nice outcomes. They believe that if they just think hard and long enough, great outcomes will result from their decisions.

The truth is: no matter how much effort you put in, no decision outcome can be better than the best alternative you considered. And no amount of analysis or systematic thinking will change that.

Having a good amount of alternatives to explore and choose from, then, is essential for making great decisions. If you’re having a hard time deciding, it doesn’t mean you’re a poor decision maker: most likely you’re just out of decent alternatives.

How to Apply This Insight

• Generate many alternatives. Before jumping in and deciding among just two or three options that first come to mind, spend time generating plenty of new alternatives. Use idea-generation techniques, such as lists of 100 or SCAMPER. Set yourself idea quotas. Don’t be shy about flexing your brainstorming muscles.

4. Make effort proportional to importance

The more important a decision is, the more time you should spend on it. ‘Duh, that’s just common sense’, you say. Well, just like with many other things in life, common sense does not equal common practice.

Here’s what often happens: we spend time on decisions not based on how important they are, but on how difficult they are. These are two very different concepts. Let me illustrate.

Suppose you’re buying a car, and you’re torn between two very similar models: One has slightly better transmission, but the other has a slightly better engine. One is slightly cheaper, but the other is slightly more reliable. You see, it’s a decision that is hard to analyze, with many complex tradeoffs!

Yes, it sure is a hard decision… but that doesn’t mean it’s an important one! After all, you’re probably going to be fine with either car as the differences are minimal.

The closest your alternatives are, the harder it is to decide. And, perversely, the less relevant your decision will be one way or another!

As a wise decision-maker, you will realize that if alternatives are very close to each other in value, it matters less which one you picks. You should save your energy for more important decisions — those with very different payoffs.

How to Apply This Insight

• Pay attention to “hard” decisions. When you can’t make up your mind between two choices, chances are that they’re so similar that it doesn’t matter which one you pick. See if the tradeoffs you’re considering match your decision objectives (see insight #2 above).
• Agree on a decision deadline. If you still find yourself bogged down on a decision of borderline importance, set a fixed block of time aside and agree to have the decision made at the end of it no matter what. Can’t really make up your mind for such a minimal difference? Toss a coin at the last second if necessary.

5. Taking a structured approach makes a big difference

Making great decisions is a process that involves many unique and diametrically-opposite “thinking modes”. For instance, to generate good alternatives, you must be creative and non-judgmental. But to ultimately make up your mind, you need to be judgmental. Knowing when to switch thinking modes is important, and it’s too easy to get it wrong.

In that context, I strongly advise that you see the decision making process as a chain of separate steps. Isolate each step, going into different thinking modes in turn in order to make the best possible decision.

How to Apply This Insight

• Use the PrOACT approach. The best way I know to structure decisions is the PrOACT method (from the great book Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Life Decisions, highly recommended). The ‘PrOACT’ method consists of examining the core elements of your decision separately, using them to clarify and organize your thoughts as you go. To know more, check out the article The Essential Guide to Decision Making.

There you go. Here are the 5 insights that always help me make better decisions. What do you think about them? Do you have any additional ones that you try to keep in mind when making decisions? Share them in the comments!

Related Articles

• Top 10 Thinking Traps Exposed — How to Foolproof Your Mind, Part II
• Top 10 Thinking Traps Exposed — How to Foolproof Your Mind, Part I
• The Relativity Mind Trap: How Comparisons Can Lead Us Astray
• The Essential Guide to Effective Decision Making
• Sunk Cost Bias: How It Hinders Your Life and 4 Ways to Overcome It

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Wow, more than 700 entries in our giveaway — thanks to all participants! Now it’s time to meet the lucky 12 who will receive their free ebooks… Here they are:

Derek Watson, Ashley Nielsen, Susan Blackman, Akila, Naz, Vicky Buckland, Olaia, Bhaskar Jha, Cary, coy, Mary Frances, Adrian Chira (full draw results)

Congratulations! I’ll get in touch with you today so you can start enjoying your ebooks as soon as possible!

What if I didn’t win?

Don’t let that stop you from getting the ebooks you want! These ebooks are premium guides that I know will make a difference to a lot of people. Their authors worked hard to create and compile information in a way that’s easy to read and understand and that — above anything else — is actionable. So, even if you didn’t get them for free, if you believe one or more of these ebooks will be useful to you, go get them right now!

Litemind Readers’ Top 5 Picks

[Update] Many of you asked me which ebooks were the most popular choices among participants. So, by popular request, here are Litemind Readers’ top picks listed first.

1. Learn More, Study Less

by Scott H. Young

What if I told you everything you know about how to learn, study and succeed in school was wrong? Through researching speed learners, school experts and pinpointing the hidden weaknesses most students face, I’ve been able to come up with my own system — holistic learning.

Holistic learning is the opposite of rote memorization. Instead of trying to pound information into your skull, you can weave it into existing understandings. By using these strategies you can actually “get” any subject you want to study.

Learn more about ‘Learn More, Study Less’

2. The Essential Motivation Handbook

by Leo Babauta and Eric Hamm

Are you in need of a motivational boost? The Essential Motivation Handbook was created to address those everyday motivation, productivity and self-improvement issues that seem to plague so many of us.

You can use this ebook as a handy reference any time you need motivation and as an easy way to find dozens of great motivation tips without having to spend time searching for them online and filtering out the useless stuff.

Learn more about ‘The Essential Motivation Handbook’

3. How to be More Creative

by Marelisa Fábrega

How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists is your guide to leading a more creative, inspired life. It shows that creativity is not the sole domain of the arts, but is important in any field.

The purpose of this ebook is not just to give you information, but to transform you into a more creative and innovative person. Get practical advice on how to be more creative in every life endeavor.

Learn more about ‘How to be More Creative’

4. The Personal Excellence Book

by Celestine Chua

The Personal Excellence Book is your essential handbook to help you live life to your best. At nearly 800 pages long, it contains 120 in-depth, self-exploratory articles and exercises.

Covering 9 key categories of personal growth — including Purpose & Meaning, Goals and Success, Cultivating Habits, Emotional Mastery, Relationships, Productivity and more — The Personal Excellence Book is a one-stop guide if you’re serious about living a life of your highest meaning and potential.

Learn more about ‘The Personal Excellence Book’

5. How to Change a Habit

by Scott H. Young

Do you have a habit you would like to change? This book is about learning the right strategies so you don’t need to constantly rely on willpower. Exercising, quitting television, cutting down e-mail, waking up earlier — which are normally painful and long processes. By practicing the right techniques you can learn how to do it with far less pain and much better results.

Learn more about ‘How to Change a Habit’

All Ebooks

How to Live Your Best Life

by Marelisa Fábrega

Imagine waking up each morning to a life that’s centered around your life goals, instead of trying to fit what’s most important to you into the nooks and crannies.

How To Live Your Best Life – The Essential Guide for Creating and Achieving Your Life List will show you how. By the time you finish reading this ebook you’ll know exactly what you want in each area of your life, and you’ll have defined exactly how you’re going to get it.

Learn more about ‘How to Live Your Best Life’

Doing with Less

by Daniel Richard

The fastest way to go broke is to spend on the things that you don’t love. In a society that had taught us to have more of everything — from junk to spending on the unnecessary — how can one go from funding dreams with debt to becoming debt-free, ending the addiction of overconsumption and start living again?

Doing With Less is written to guide you to make changes in your live, bringing out the minimalist in you, and making you thrive with less in a rush-rush society.

Learn more about ‘Doing with Less’

Regain Your Balance

by Ali Hale

Regain Your Balance is designed to help you get back in control of your life. Tackling six key areas – your time, creativity, focus, environment, recharging, and money – it’s packed with motivation, ideas and tips to help you find your balance again. With bonus worksheets and a two-minute questionnaire to get you started, you’ll feel calmer — and on top of things — straight away.

Learn more about ‘Regain Your Balance’

The Personality Puzzle

by Hunter Nuttall

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular personality assessment in the world. While simple on the surface, one’s four-letter type offers amazing insight into their personality. Solve the personality puzzle, and get a much deeper look into yourself and everyone you meet. Whether you’re a type theory newbie or a die-hard typewatcher, this ebook will give you a fresh and entertaining perspective on how to enjoy better relationships and a better life.

Learn more about ‘The Personality Puzzle’

The Power of Positivity

by Henrik Edberg

The Power of Positivity contains 22 chapters where we explore the tips and strategies that can help you to greatly improve your life in areas such as weight loss, confidence, social skills, productivity, self esteem and attitude. It’s a constructive and practical guide to living a more positive, happy and successful life.

Learn more about ‘The Power of Positivity’

Passionate Living

by Henri Juntilla

Passionate Living is a simple guide to getting you started on following your passion. There comes a time in each of our lives when we need to stop squandering our potential and start doing what we truly love.

Passionate Living is a book filled with my personal experiences on how to make that happen. It’s a simple and effective guide that deals with aspects ranging from fear and the lack of time to the specific steps I took to get to where I am now.

Learn more about ‘Passionate Living’

The Art of Being Minimalist

by Everett Bogue

The Art of Being Minimalist teaches you how to apply simplicity in your life to achieve your goals. Last year I quit my job, moved across the country with everything in my backpack and $3,000 in the bank — everyone said I’d starve, but instead I opted to live a minimalist life. This is what I learned: when you don’t have all of the junk, you can achieve the important.

Learn more about ‘The Art of Being Minimalist’

(Note: If you’re still on the fence about buying the ebooks, remember that nearly all of them have money-back guarantees — just in case you’re not 100% satisfied. So you have nothing to risk, really. All I ask from you is: if you’re serious about improving yourself, don’t let possible doubts hold you back.)

And, once again — thank you for participating in this commemorative giveaway. This has been really fun and I’ve been blown away by your response! I feel very lucky to be part of such a vibrant community!

Related Articles

• Personal Development Ebook Giveaway!
• One Year of Litemind
• Imperfect Start
• How Can I Make Litemind More Useful for You?
• Free Ebook: The Very Best of Litemind, 2 Years of Mind Explorations

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This weekend marked 3 years since the first post on Litemind! To celebrate the date, I have a special treat for you.

For the past few days I have been talking to many fellow personal development bloggers… Many of them, in addition to their blogs’ free articles, also sell ebooks with premium content. These ebooks are great and well worth the money (as their customers can attest) — and today you have the chance to get them for free!

Yes, each of these authors agreed to give away copies of their ebooks to a few lucky Litemind readers! And it’s really easy to join and participate.

How to Participate in the Giveaway

1. For a chance to win, all you have to do is leave a comment with the 3 ebooks that you would like to win, in order of preference, chosen from the list below. You have until August 2nd (next Monday) to post your comment. (One entry per person, please.)
2. I will publish the list of winners on Wednesday, August 4th. There will be 12 winners — each one getting one of the ebooks. (If two or more winners choose the same ebook as their top preference, I’ll use their second and third choices, giving preference to the winners who were drawn first.)

Personal Development Ebooks

Here is the list of personal development ebooks, in random order, for you to choose. The descriptions were provided by their authors. Many of the ebooks have free chapter previews, so make sure you visit the links to get more details.

Anyway, make your choices, pick the three you like best and let me know in the comments below.

1. The Essential Motivation Handbook

by Leo Babauta and Eric Hamm

Are you in need of a motivational boost? The Essential Motivation Handbook was created to address those everyday motivation, productivity and self-improvement issues that seem to plague so many of us.

You can use this ebook as a handy reference any time you need motivation and as an easy way to find dozens of great motivation tips without having to spend time searching for them online and filtering out the useless stuff.

Learn more about ‘The Essential Motivation Handbook’

2. How to Change a Habit

by Scott H. Young

Do you have a habit you would like to change? This book is about learning the right strategies so you don’t need to constantly rely on willpower. Exercising, quitting television, cutting down e-mail, waking up earlier — which are normally painful and long processes. By practicing the right techniques you can learn how to do it with far less pain and much better results.

Learn more about ‘How to Change a Habit’

3. How to Live Your Best Life

by Marelisa Fábrega

Imagine waking up each morning to a life that’s centered around your life goals, instead of trying to fit what’s most important to you into the nooks and crannies.

How To Live Your Best Life – The Essential Guide for Creating and Achieving Your Life List will show you how. By the time you finish reading this ebook you’ll know exactly what you want in each area of your life, and you’ll have defined exactly how you’re going to get it.

Learn more about ‘How to Live Your Best Life’

4. Doing with Less

by Daniel Richard

The fastest way to go broke is to spend on the things that you don’t love. In a society that had taught us to have more of everything — from junk to spending on the unnecessary — how can one go from funding dreams with debt to becoming debt-free, ending the addiction of overconsumption and start living again?

Doing With Less is written to guide you to make changes in your live, bringing out the minimalist in you, and making you thrive with less in a rush-rush society.

Learn more about ‘Doing with Less’

5. Regain Your Balance

by Ali Hale

Regain Your Balance is designed to help you get back in control of your life. Tackling six key areas – your time, creativity, focus, environment, recharging, and money – it’s packed with motivation, ideas and tips to help you find your balance again. With bonus worksheets and a two-minute questionnaire to get you started, you’ll feel calmer — and on top of things — straight away.

Learn more about ‘Regain Your Balance’

6. The Personality Puzzle

by Hunter Nuttall

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular personality assessment in the world. While simple on the surface, one’s four-letter type offers amazing insight into their personality. Solve the personality puzzle, and get a much deeper look into yourself and everyone you meet. Whether you’re a type theory newbie or a die-hard typewatcher, this ebook will give you a fresh and entertaining perspective on how to enjoy better relationships and a better life.

Learn more about ‘The Personality Puzzle’

7. The Power of Positivity

by Henrik Edberg

The Power of Positivity contains 22 chapters where we explore the tips and strategies that can help you to greatly improve your life in areas such as weight loss, confidence, social skills, productivity, self esteem and attitude. It’s a constructive and practical guide to living a more positive, happy and successful life.

Learn more about ‘The Power of Positivity’

8. The Personal Excellence Book

by Celestine Chua

The Personal Excellence Book is your essential handbook to help you live life to your best. At nearly 800 pages long, it contains 120 in-depth, self-exploratory articles and exercises.

Covering 9 key categories of personal growth — including Purpose & Meaning, Goals and Success, Cultivating Habits, Emotional Mastery, Relationships, Productivity and more — The Personal Excellence Book is a one-stop guide if you’re serious about living a life of your highest meaning and potential.

Learn more about ‘The Personal Excellence Book’

9. Passionate Living

by Henri Juntilla

Passionate Living is a simple guide to getting you started on following your passion. There comes a time in each of our lives when we need to stop squandering our potential and start doing what we truly love.

Passionate Living is a book filled with my personal experiences on how to make that happen. It’s a simple and effective guide that deals with aspects ranging from fear and the lack of time to the specific steps I took to get to where I am now.

Learn more about ‘Passionate Living’

10. The Art of Being Minimalist

by Everett Bogue

The Art of Being Minimalist teaches you how to apply simplicity in your life to achieve your goals. Last year I quit my job, moved across the country with everything in my backpack and $3,000 in the bank — everyone said I’d starve, but instead I opted to live a minimalist life. This is what I learned: when you don’t have all of the junk, you can achieve the important.

Learn more about ‘The Art of Being Minimalist’

11. Learn More, Study Less

by Scott H. Young

What if I told you everything you know about how to learn, study and succeed in school was wrong? Through researching speed learners, school experts and pinpointing the hidden weaknesses most students face, I’ve been able to come up with my own system — holistic learning.

Holistic learning is the opposite of rote memorization. Instead of trying to pound information into your skull, you can weave it into existing understandings. By using these strategies you can actually “get” any subject you want to study.

Learn more about ‘Learn More, Study Less’

12. How to be More Creative

by Marelisa Fábrega

How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists is your guide to leading a more creative, inspired life. It shows that creativity is not the sole domain of the arts, but is important in any field.

The purpose of this ebook is not just to give you information, but to transform you into a more creative and innovative person. Get practical advice on how to be more creative in every life endeavor.

Learn more about ‘How to be More Creative’

Whether you’re a newcomer or an old-time reader, thank you for being around during these 3 years — it means a lot to me. And good luck everyone!

PS1: Just like I did with the Personal Excellence Project, I want to make sure the random draw process is as transparent as possible. To pick the winners I’ll use a random sequence generator, numbering the comments (in chronological order) and using a public and yet unknown piece of data as the seed. I will use Amazon‘s stock last trading price for August 3rd. That makes sure the draw is fair and that its authenticity can be verified by anyone. (I know many people wouldn’t care about this kind of stuff, but I do.)

PS2: I’d like to spread the word to as many people as possible about this giveaway. So, if you’re feeling particularly generous, I would be very grateful if you tweeted it or shared it with your friends on Facebook (buttons right below). Thanks!

Related Articles

• Personal Development Ebook Winners
• One Year of Litemind
• Imperfect Start
• How Can I Make Litemind More Useful for You?
• Free Ebook: The Very Best of Litemind, 2 Years of Mind Explorations

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A while ago I laid out a small set of productivity principles that sum up what makes me really productive. Distilled from a million tips I read online on a daily basis, they’re the gems that make the most difference in my everyday life.

From the time I wrote that article, I had the chance to try many new principles that are probably as effective as those. So, there you go: the six tried and tested new productivity principles that have been working exceptionally well for me — and which can make you feel at your best too.

Principle 6: Goals are for today, not for the future.

I got this insight from Steve Pavlina‘s book Personal Development for Smart People, and it’s as simple as it’s powerful:

The point of goal-setting is to improve the quality of the present.

For a long time, I was setting goals that were like punishments: their only purpose was to serve as whips to get me to work. “Sacrifice yourself now to reap the benefits later” was the rationale. No wonder I have had a hate relationship with goals for a long time — I’m glad things have changed now.

Set goals that make you feel powerful, motivated, and driven when you focus on them, long before the final outcome is actually realized. So the debate about setting your goals on a daily, weekly or yearly basis doesn’t really matter much. What matters is that your goals create not only a better tomorrow but above all a better today for you.

How to Apply this Principle

• Ask “Will committing to this goal improve my present reality?” If you can’t find a good answer, either refine the goal or throw it away. For example: Suppose your goal is to ‘save money’. The goal is just not worth it if it makes you feel miserable. But if ‘saving money’ makes you feel more confident about what you could do tomorrow, empowered and in control, that’s a keeper.

Principle 5: Do you want to improve? Track it!

Do you want to exercise every day? Then track the days when you exercise on a calendar. Do you want to write the best book ever? Track how many words a day you actually write.

You can improve anything you do if you pay attention to it on a regular basis. When you track, you get cold, brutally honest data. That means, for example, realizing that you’re writing zero words for your novel, day in and day out, exactly as your blank calendar makes painfully clear. Nothing is more revealing (and shocking!) than real-world data — real data about your actual world.

And guess what: once you start tracking, you may not even need to do any conscious effort to improve. There’s a phenomenon called the Hawthorne effect: we change our behavior just by being aware that we’re being watched. This means that tracking, by itself, can set in motion the changes that you need without any further conscious effort!

How to Apply this Principle

• Use (simple) tracking systems. Take anything you want to improve and create a simple spreadsheet or table in your notebook. And since you may need to record data often, tracking should be fast and easy, otherwise it won’t work.

• Keep a journal. Writing regularly is a great way to track your thoughts in a more informal way; it helps clarify what you think about any topic you choose. An effective way to track the topics that matter to you is by using the Topics du Jour technique.

Principle 4: Treat upcoming decisions as regular tasks.

I firmly believe that taking commitments seriously is paramount for leading a productive life (as I’ve outlined in one of the principles in the original manifesto — “Honor Thy Commitments”). However, that raises a big issue: when we aim at honoring all our commitments, we tend to hesitate a lot before accepting any new ones into our lives to begin with.

And avoiding new commitments usually manifests itself as delayed decisions. After all, for every decision we make, it means that all tasks associated with it have been officially ‘welcomed into’ our lives, like it or not.

Those pending decisions are big energy drains and a major source of procrastination: we can’t afford to let them hang around for too long. They not only deplete our energy but, most importantly, delay meaningful, important action in our lives. And, perversely, decisions with the greatest payoffs are the ones that we tend to put off the most.

How to Apply this Principle

• Make upcoming decisions explicit. Don’t let important decisions drift aimlessly in your head: treat them exactly like any other of your tasks. Write them down and deal with them. Put them in your to-do list and allocate the amount of time necessary to make the decision.

• Set a time limit for making decisions. Oftentimes we have the illusion that if we just wait a bit longer, it will become easier to make the decision — but in fact that usually simply compounds the problem. Most of the time, it’s better to just decide (imperfectly), adjusting to the results of our choices as we go. Set a timer and commit to having the decision made by the time the alarm goes off.

Principle 3: Keep it simple, sweetie.

When creating to-do lists, setting goals and the like, I always assume that these things will be used by the dumbest person I can think of — me. And I’m right: although I usually feel very smart when setting goals and planning, the “doer” in me is indeed the dumbest person I know…

This “other me” (which is in control most of the time) is a procrastinator. He looks for any excuse to escape work. He wants things to be complicated — because it’s in complexity that he finds ways to avoid work without feeling guilty — while pretending to be very busy indeed.

So yes, we still want to plan, set goals, review; but let’s keep things simple — otherwise the doer in us will find ways to avoid the important stuff. Simple tasks lists, simple goals, simple reminders.

How to Apply this Principle

• Use simple tools and systems. Don’t make it complicated. Use pen and paper or other simple tools. Remember: your goals and plans are only support tools for action, and you shouldn’t spend any more time or effort than necessary on these things.

• Always look for ways to simplify things. This is more than an isolated act — it’s a mindset. Constantly look for opportunities to simplify routines and put time and effort streamlining them. To make things simple is one of the most difficult things there is, but it pays off!

Principle 2: Fresh starts, every day.

It’s impossible to be productive every single day. There will be setbacks. There will be times when you will succumb to distractions. It’s a fact of life, and that’s OK.

Don’t fret over lost time; don’t try to catch up with yesterday’s unfinished tasks. If yesterday was bad, just start afresh today. I like to think about this as a “productivity meditation”: if something sidetracks me, all I care about is getting focused again. Don’t analyze, don’t criticize, just focus on getting back on track again. Be forgiving with yourself and move on.

The flip side of the coin is that if you’re having many good days in a row this is no guarantee that you’ll have a good day next. So, treat each new day as a new personal mini-challenge: forget past successes and failures. Now is all that matters.

How to Apply this Principle

• Treat each day as “day zero”: Let go of sunk costs: act like all you have is today. Forget tomorrow and yesterday: focus on doing your best just for today.

• Don’t fail twice in a row. This is a technique I’ve been trying lately with success. It’s simply an ‘escape clause’: if you fail one time, make it your top priority not to fail for the second time at this task. So, if you missed today’s practice, no big deal. But tomorrow, make that your topmost priority. This guarantees you will get back on track quickly and make you feel terrific again in no time.

Principle 1: You already know what to do.

Let’s face it: most of the time you don’t need a “productivity system” to get stuff done. Although I believe that tools like task lists, goals and tracking sheets can be really useful, the fact is that they’re only that — tools. Just like any other tool, though, they can be misused or become an end in themselves.

Easy goals can distract us from what really matters. Long task lists can be merely a way to show how busy we are, when in fact we’re not sure what to do next. We like spinning our wheels and will go to great lengths to avoid tasks we find unpleasant.

It turns out that, most of the time — right in our guts — we already know what to do. And that’s usually not in our to-do lists or calendars.

No system can force you to do anything. You can “set priorities” and “get organized” but in the end, no matter how sophisticated your lists are, you’ll still need the courage to act on what matters.

How to Apply this Principle

• Listen to your fears. What are you avoiding? If you’re spending energy avoiding something, you should pay closer attention to it. Learn to identify your tendency to procrastinate and then act on what matters, even if you feel uncomfortable at first.

• Keep important things in front of you. What is the most important thing you need to do? Write it on a piece of paper and keep it in front of you. Make it hard to escape from it. Get used to making it go away by means of action, not by running away from it.

How do these principles apply to you?

Do these principles resonate with you? Do you have anything to add? What works and what doesn’t for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments!

Also, if you haven’t yet, make sure you check part I of this article, which I pompously called my “Personal Productivity Manifesto” (though, as you can see, is not a fixed set of values by any means…) Thanks!

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Our minds make sense of the world by making comparisons. For instance, how do you tell if something is cheap or expensive when shopping? It’s mostly by comparing it with other products, isn’t it? And so it happens for everything in our lives: we’re constantly comparing — everything, all the time.

It’s true that making comparisons is human nature, but judging everything only through comparisons can get us to think irrationally and make bad decisions. It eventually makes us feel miserable when we realize that our choices weren’t really that good, after all.

Learn how this mind trap works and how to escape it.

Relativity in Our Daily Lives: Pens and Suits

Picture yourself in the following situation: You have two errands to run today — buying a new pen and a new suit for work.

At an office supply store, you find a nice pen for $16. You are set to buy it, but you remember the exact same pen is on sale for only $1 on a closeout 15 minutes away. Do you buy the pen for $16 or go for the $1 one?

OK, on to your second errand: Let’s go get your suit. You just found a nice suit for $500 and while waiting for the cashier, another customer tells you that you can find the same suit for $485 on a store just 15 minutes away. Do you buy your suit for $500 or drive 15 minutes for the $485 one?

Take a moment to think about your choices. What would you have done?

A similar situation was presented to a group of people in a study (by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, the same brilliant guys from another great famous framing experiment). The results? They found that most people chose to drive to buy the cheaper pen, but happily parted with $500 for the more expensive suit.

What’s going on? Can you spot the contradiction here?

A Dollar is a Dollar is a Dollar — Or Is It?

Clearly, our minds are fooling us. In both situations your choice boils down to saving $15 or 15 minutes of your time: The absolute price of the item you’re buying has no importance whatsoever (and is the red herring used in the experiment to elicit the contradictory behavior the researchers were looking for).

Whether you save $15 from buying a pen, a suit, a car or a luxury yacht, the end result is the same: $15 in your pocket. The only question that matters here should be: “Is 15 minutes of my time to save $15 worth the $15 I’m saving?”

What’s happening here is that your mind can’t decide, without external aid, if a $15 discount is a good deal: it needs something else to compare the discount to (in this case, the total price of the item).

And this is the problem: we look at things in life relatively, comparing differences, instead of looking at each thing’s value on its own.

Making comparisons and evaluating things relative to each other is a many times a useful shortcut, but as demonstrated above, in many occasions it severely hinders our ability to make wise decisions.

Relativity Traps are Everywhere

Not surprisingly, relativity kicks in not only when buying pens and suits but in almost everything in life.

Relativity, along with the bad comparisons it entails, can make you feel bad about yourself, get you in debt, and lead you to make life-changing decisions that are just plain stupid. In short, it can make your life miserable.

The examples are countless; here are just a few.

• Comparing yourself with others. This is a biggie. If you assess your worth by comparing yourself with others (in any dimension you choose to use), you’re set for disappointment: there will always be people better than you in any measure you pick. I’ll further explore this theme in a subsequent article, but for now it suffices to repeat something you already know: avoid comparing yourself with others; it’s always a no-win situation.

• Keeping up the Joneses. The richest person in a poor neighborhood is usually happier about his net worth than the poorest person in a rich neighborhood — regardless of how much they actually have! In light of relativity, people compare themselves with their neighbors, and don’t like the feeling they’re behind “everyone else”. This is an endless cycle: the more people have, the higher they set the bar for the people they compare themselves with.

• Winning (and feeling like you lost). Isn’t it true that the silver medal usually tastes bitterer than the bronze medal? Despite the absolute value of the medals, earning the silver medal usually comes in the context of failing to win the gold one. The bronze medal, on the other hand, is earned in the context of getting any medal instead of no medal at all.

• Taking advantage of “great deals”. It’s a well-known sales technique to offer customers the most expensive products first. Those overpriced items establish the context for people to see the other products as being cheaper. Oftentimes those “cheap” products are not cheap at all, but thanks to relativity, you walk away thinking you made a great deal. (Note, though, that you paid the ‘absolute’ amount of money for your product! It may be relatively cheaper but you may have parted with a great deal of your hard-earned money, anyway.)

  On the flip side, people may go for the more expensive item because the difference in price to the less expensive one doesn’t look as big. People find it easy to spend $3,000 on leather seats for their new $25,000 cars (the $25,000 serves as the comparison number), but have a hard time spending the same amount on their living room sofas (that usually don’t have a clear figure to be used for comparison).

How to Overcome the Relativity Trap

Is it possible to escape the mind trap of relativity”? Dan Ariely, in his brilliant book Predictably Irrational (from which I got most of the inspiration to write this article) hints at the solution.

The way to escape thinking in terms of comparisons and relative terms, is — not surprisingly — thinking more in absolute terms: you got to escape the trap of doing local comparisons and think more broadly.

Going back to our example of buying the pen and the suit: Resist the temptation of looking at the $15 savings relatively to the item’s total price (the immediate, most salient comparison). Escape that local comparison and put the savings into a broader context instead. Ask yourself ‘What can I do with the $15 saved?‘ and see how that can better inform your choices.

Maybe you will buy a book? Save the money? Donate it to charity? Moreover, ask yourself: “Is $15 worth a drive downtown and 15 minutes of my time?” In short, see beyond the immediate situation.

In 15 minutes, maybe you can go back to work and earn more than $15? Or maybe a 15-minute break is what you need right now? Regardless of which way you decide, remember: this has nothing to do with the price of the pen or the suit, but with what you are actually saving (time? money? hassle?) means to you in a broader context.

This was an easy example, but if you think about it, you can apply it to just about everything in your life. How about stop comparing yourself with others and assess how you feel about your life broadly — on your own terms? How about focusing on the value of your silver medal instead of the other guy’s gold medal?

Think outside your immediate context, escape easy comparisons and start seeing things in a broader perspective. When you think about life this way, everything can be seen under a new — much more positive — light.

Try it: make notes of some of your important decisions (and some of the not-so important ones) then write down your impressions from a relative as well as an absolute perspective. Are your decisions better one way or another? Why? How?

While simple in theory, thinking in absolutes is not the way we’re wired to think, so doing it always takes a great deal of conscious effort and practice. But it’s absolutely worth it.

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A young priest asked his bishop, “May I smoke while praying?” The answer was an emphatic “No!”

Later, when he sees an older priest puffing on a cigarette while praying, the younger priest scolded him, “You shouldn’t be smoking while praying! I asked the bishop, and he said I couldn’t do it!”

“That’s odd,” the old priest replied. “I asked the bishop if I could pray while I’m smoking, and he told me that it was okay to pray at any time!”

As this joke shows, the way you frame a problem profoundly influences the solutions you get. The same problem, when seen from a different angle can lead to a directly opposite interpretation!

Skillfully framing problems is paramount for better problem solving and decision making.

On the flip side, it’s too easy to fall into thinking traps when it comes to framing. Let’s look at one of these traps — and offer some ideas on how to overcome it.

A Brief Pause for You to Save Some Lives

Let’s make a thought experiment, shall we?

Suppose the government is gearing for the outbreak of an unusual disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed, and you must choose which one you think is better. These are the estimates of the outcomes for each program:

• Program A: 200 people will be saved.

• Program B: There’s a 1/3 chance that 600 people will be saved, and a 2/3 chance that no people will be saved.

Make a note of your choice.

Now suppose that, instead of those two programs above, you’ve been presented with the following two programs instead. As in the previous situation, pick the one you think is better.

• Program C: 400 people will die.

• Program D: There’s a 1/3 chance that nobody will die, and a 2/3 chance that 600 people will die.

Are You Being Consistent?

Which programs did you pick for the two questions above? (Hint: Most people pick A and D.)

This question was asked in a famous experiment by Tversky and Kahneman (which led to a Nobel Prize for Kahneman), with 72% of participants choosing option A over B, and 78% choosing D over C.

Well, I don’t know about you, but for me these are astonishing results!

Why?

In case you didn’t notice, programs A and C are identical, as are programs B and D. They’re objectively the same — the same number of people live and die, with the same odds — but they’re presented — or framed — in different ways!

If people were to act consistently, it would be expected they would pick either A-C or B-D. But the change in wording alone was enough for people to shift their choices from the first option to the second. Many people chose inconsistently compared with their previous choice.

And that’s how powerful framing is.

No matter how “rational” we think we are, emotions and mental images play a large part in our decisions — many times preventing us from seeing the real content behind our options.

The Problem is Not Risk Aversion. It’s Loss Aversion.

Have you ever heard that people are in general averse to risk?

Well, the experiment we looked at strongly suggests that that statement may not be entirely true. When the programs were presented in terms of lives saved, the participants preferred the safe program (Program A). However, when the programs were presented in terms of expected deaths, participants chose the gamble (Program D). If people were risk averse, they’d always choose the safe option.

People are willing to gamble — but usually only when the gamble can avoid losses.

It turns out that in our minds losses are much stronger than gains. We feel much stronger negative emotions when losing than positive emotions when winning (about 2 times stronger according to some studies).

We feel much more disappointed losing $1000 than happy when earning $1000. Saving 200 lives is good, but it is not as appealing as the possibility — even if not that favorable — of avoiding the loss of 600.

Framing Tools

If framing has such an impact in how we decide and solve problems, what is the “correct way” of framing a problem? How can we protect ourselves from our biases? Here are four ideas.

1. Try multiple different perspectives.

Never accept the initial framing without at least some thought — whether it was formulated by you or by someone else.

Try different perspectives and look for distortions in thinking. Play with your problem definition.

Because our perceptual positions determine how we view things, it’s important to learn how to shift perspectives and look at a subject in different ways.

2. Make all-encompassing and neutral statements.

To avoid the biases of posing your problem as losses or gains, state the problem in a neutral way — one that combines both positive and negative perspectives. Make it in such a way that it is redundant, simultaneously encompassing multiple reference points as objectively as possible.

In our previous example with the disease programs, it could become:

• Program A: 200 people survive. 400 people die.

• Program B: 1/3 chance for 600 people to survive and 0 to die, and 2/3 for 0 people to survive and 600 to die.

Regardless of which of the options you end up choosing, you can now evaluate them in a much more balanced way.

3. Invert the situation.

Take your problem, invert it and see how you feel about it.

For example, if it’s about earning $1000, imagine that you already have it and now would lose it. In the same manner, if it’s about losing $1000, imagine that you’re $1000 behind and that you’ll earn it.

Check how that feels comparing to the original situation. If you notice a strong asymmetry between your feelings in both situations, this is a strong signal that you’re being affected by the framing of the question.

4. Detach yourself from it.

Check for elements in your problem that trigger disproportionally emotional responses. It’s always useful to be aware of the role our own emotions play when we make decisions. Acknowledge and express your emotions — it would be impossible not to, anyway — but don’t let them cloud your vision.

To separate the rational and the emotional components of the problem, detach yourself from it: Imagine the situation is happening to someone else, someone you don’t know. Conversely, get the opinion of other people who are not involved.

Tune the emotions down for a minute to add a new perspective to your problem. Then feel free to tune them back up.

What About You?

Now, it’s over to you… Have you ever been affected by misframing a situation? Were you able to reframe it? How did it work? Share in the comments!

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Do you want to be fully creative? To not only have wild ideas, but to actually create and bring remarkable things to life?

There are four distinct roles to be performed for the creative process to be as effective as possible. Each one requires that you play different characters, with different mindsets and skills.

The roles are: Explorer, Artist, Judge and Warrior.

Learn how they help unleash your creativity and how to master the skills each one requires.

1. The Explorer

Ideas do not come out of the blue. In order to build them you first need to gather the raw materials: facts, concepts, experiences, knowledge, feelings — that’s what ideas are made of. To get all of that, you need an attitude of ongoing curiosity and exploration.

The Explorer is always in search of new things. He is relentlessly curious and never limits himself to a particular area of experience and knowledge. To have ideas is to connect dots. First and foremost you need lots of dots to connect — you need fuel for the formation of new ideas.

How to Develop Your Explorer

• Be curious and alert. Poke around in unknown areas. Be like a child, by paying attention to the world and being receptive to it. Rediscover the fun in finding things out.

• Seek out as many inputs as possible. Do not limit yourself to the tried and true. Read different books and see different movies from the ones you like. Also, don’t mind going after information “you’ll never use”. Seek many different areas of knowledge.

• Talk to a lot of different people. Get to know many different perspectives. Talk to strangers. Don’t limit yourself to expert advice.

2. The Artist

The artist has ideas. He takes the raw materials from the Explorer and combines them in novel ways.

When people say someone’s “creative”, they’re usually referring to the Artist. The Artist has ideas mostly by trying new things. He applies his imagination by rearranging, turning things upside down, stirring things up. He pursues different approaches and finds unexpected connections. He’s playful; he doesn’t care about what people expect from him.

How to Develop Your Artist

• Flex your idea muscles. Write down new ideas as they come to you; it stimulates your brain to generate more and more ideas. Also, use idea-generation tools deliberately: Lists of 100, Idea Quota and SCAMPER just to name a few.

• Play! We all know it: the most efficient way to have new ideas is by having fun. Don’t always take problems too seriously. Entertain yourself and keep your brain fresh and ready.

• Use your imagination. Leave practicality aside; don’t be afraid to let your imagination run wild and visualize new possibilities. Dare to ask ‘what if’ and watch new realities unfold.

3. The Judge

The Judge is all about “getting real”. His job is to analyze the Artist’s wild ideas and assess if they’re practical — in the real world.

The judge questions assumptions; he compares and analyzes. He checks how feasible ideas are. No matter how much the Artist loves an idea, the Judge looks for counterarguments, checks evidence, and makes hard decisions. Combining gut feeling and analytical tools, the judge must only let through feasible ideas.

The Judge gets a bad reputation — but only because people usually invoke him too early. Killing an idea before the Artist can play with it is a pity; killing it later is oftentimes a necessity.

How to Develop Your Judge

• Develop critical thinking. Check your assumptions, experimenting with hypotheses, analyzing results and drawing conclusions. Master decision making.

• Be aware of thinking traps. Our minds deceive us. Be always aware and vigilant of your own biases. There are more ways than you can imagine that your thinking can go wrong. Really.

• Be real. Will the idea give you the return you want? Do you have the resources to make it happen? Are you willing to put the effort to make it happen? Be practical and down-to-earth.

4. The Warrior

As soon as you have an idea ready to be executed you’ll realize the world isn’t set up to accommodate every new idea that comes along. The enemies can be external: competition may be fierce, or people may just don’t “get” your beautiful ideas. Even harder than those, there are more than enough enemies already within you: think resistance, excuses and fear of failure.

The Warrior’s job is to make ideas happen. For that, you’ll need not only a strategy and plan of action but to put in the hours — fight the daily fight.

That means remaining productive, developing the resilience and courage to overcome obstacles and, of course, being able to sell your ideas — whatever’s necessary to materialize them.

How to Develop Your Warrior

• Overcome resistance. When you create something new, resistance inevitably creeps in. You need to find ways of overcoming procrastination and staying productive day in, day out.

• Be courageous. In order to make things happen, you’ll need to let go of self-doubt and conquer fear of failure.

• Market and sell your idea. Are you the only one who thinks your idea is great? Can you convince others of the merits of your idea? If you can’t sell your idea, it won’t get far.

Awareness and Timing are Critical Too

In reality, we all know the path to creativity is not that sequential — explorer-to-artist-to-judge-to-warrior. Usually, there’s a lot of switching back and forth between roles: The Judge may return an idea to the Artist for further development; the Artist may want more data from the Explorer to develop a certain idea, and so on.

This is fine. The main thing is to be aware of which role you’re performing at different points in time. We often get stuck in the Explorer role for too long. Or we may jump the gun and summon our Judge while our Artist is still working his magic. There are so many ways to spend too much or too little time in each role, or to overlap ineffectively.

The lesson is: make sure not only to develop the skill set for each role, but also to play each one at the appropriate time. Be aware of which phase of the creative process you’re in and what you’re trying to accomplish. All roles are equally important: make sure they’re playing well with each other.

Want to Know More? Here’s a Recommendation

These concepts above are not new. The idea of the four creativity roles comes from Roger Von Oech‘s classic work on creativity A Whack on the Side of the Head, as well as the Creative Whack Pack (which is a deck of cards where each of the four roles is a suit — very fun, do check it out too).

I have had this book for ages but only lately have been applying its principles and becoming more conscious of the steps of the creative process. There’s a myth that creativity needs to be wild and unplanned, that one cannot be trained to be creative. I’m increasingly convinced that that is not true and I will expand on this topic as I explore more. In the meantime, A Whack on the Side of the Head and Creative Whack Pack are two truly excellent resources I recommend for those interested in becoming more creative.

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You’re facing a big challenge at work and can’t come up with any innovative ideas. Maybe your business is flagging or a particular area in your personal life has stalled. Either way, you could really use fresh new ideas to spice things up.

In situations like these it’s tempting to go seek help from the experts. After all, someone much more knowledgeable should be the best source of ideas, right?

Well, maybe not.

The Problem with Experts

Experts need to specialize. They need to draw boundaries around their subjects so they can narrow their focus and be as effective as possible in their fields.

This ‘compartmentalization in thinking’ is immensely useful in speeding up problem solving. It also means experts usually fall short in stretching their thinking beyond their areas of expertise, and as such fail to see the big picture.

Michael Michalko puts it well in his book Thinkertoys: “It’s like brushing one tooth. You get to know that one tooth extremely well, but you lose the rest of them in the process.”

But it gets worse: experts may not only miss obvious solutions, but they may actually cause harm, forcing inadequate solutions that fall within their area of expertise. “To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail”, psychologist Abraham Maslow wisely remarked.

Although experts are often useful, when it comes to innovation you may actually be better off without them.

An Alternative: Embrace The Nonexperts Around You

The alternative to talking to experts is — drum roll — talking to nonexperts, of course.

Regular people around you. Your soccer buddies. The garbage collector. Uncle Bob. It doesn’t matter who: anyone outside your field, anyone who’s strange to the problem — anyone who “doesn’t know the rules” will do.

Regular people — nonexperts — don’t have enough experience to know where to draw boundaries: they’re unaware of limitations or “how things are supposed to work”. In their naïveté, they’ll miss many constraints and assumptions you take for granted — which is exactly the point. These are the people who will most likely spark fresh new ideas for you. They can genuinely think outside the box: for them, there’s no box.

We have a tendency to always go after more specialized people for getting help in our problems — and that works in many cases. But for creative endeavors, perhaps all you need is someone who knows less.

The great news is that there is no shortage of nonexperts around you. Everyone is a nonexpert at most things. All you need is to know how to tap into their non-expertise in the area you need help. Here are 3 tips to help.

1. Meet Different Kinds of People — Lots of Them!

To build a solid network of idea-generating friends, first and foremost you need to strive for diversity.

It doesn’t matter if you have 500 peers to draw ideas from if everybody else’s mind is the same: it’s not a matter of how many people you know, it’s how many kinds.

Resist the temptation to seek advice only from people who think alike: it’s comfortable, I know, but it hinders you from fully expanding your mind. Go out and mix with people with diverse interests for a change!

Getting in touch with many different perspectives is guaranteed to keep your creative juices flowing (and as a bonus you become a much more interesting person in the process!).

Find out how different people would tackle your problem. How would a nurse do it? A 5-year-old child? An economist? Your mom?

Never miss the opportunity to have casual conversations with strangers. The butcher, the old lady ahead of you in the line and the ice cream vendor are all sources of potentially useful ideas. Even if you don’t discuss your particular problem directly (which of course may not always be a sensible thing to do), discovering different perspectives about random life subjects is useful in itself to spark new ideas.

2. Seek Out Idea-Oriented People

Having an abundant circle of relationships always comes first, but after striving for quantity, you now need to make sure you have quality relationships too!

There’s a certain breed of people that you’ll always benefit from having around: it’s the kind of thinkers that spark your imagination whenever you talk to them. You know who they are:

• They love original ideas and use them in their businesses and lives.
• They are relentlessly curious and pay attention to the world around them.
• They may be naïve about your business, but are not stupid or ignorant of the things that matter.
• They have great wits and challenge the absurdity in things.

Make a list of people who you know have those traits and arrange to spend more time with them. Never let too much time pass without staying in touch with them. Discuss your challenges and ask for ideas — or just engage in idle chatting (which also sparks a torrent of ideas in itself).

Having such vibrant people around you is invaluable for your creativity and too fun to miss out.

3. Engage in “Fool Mode” (Assume Everybody’s a Genius)

This is a fun technique I use sometimes. I like to call it “Fool Mode”.

When I’m in “fool mode”, everybody knows the solutions to my problems. Everybody is a genius — except me. In fact, not only do they know the solution I’m looking for, but they may be already giving it away — the only caveat being they’re talking in riddles — so it’s my job to figure it out!

Adopting the fool’s mindset works great because it checks our tendency to kill ideas before giving them at least some thought.

Think about this: When someone presents us an idea we can’t see the use for, our tendency is to dismiss it immediately, labeling it a ‘stupid idea’. Now what if the other person were a well-known genius — like, say, Einstein? Would you not consider paying a little more attention to what he would have to say? Of course you would! It’s in that thinking — trying to force relationships between seemingly unrelated ideas — that your breakthrough idea may lie.

Being in “fool mode” is also fun and teaches important lessons: You open your mind to the world. You temporarily suspend judgment and let go of any intellectual arrogance you may have. You assume everybody has something to contribute — and what you come to realize, of course, is that they do.

In Closing

You shouldn’t expect random people to actually solve a complex problem they don’t know about. But, if you have an open mind and are willing to listen, they can spark off a torrent of fresh new ideas, which may be just enough for you to solve the problem yourself.

So, by all means don’t dismiss experts. They have more experience and can often help you. But don’t forget that the great innovative ideas are usually elsewhere. The solution you’re looking for may be with your neighbor or with weird uncle Bob — you just need to go get it.

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Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Even if you are not familiar with its name, I’m sure you’ve fallen prey to Parkinson’s Law countless times… what can we do to escape it?

Do You Recognize These Symptoms?

We all know the drill: when we have too much time to complete a task, we tend to slack off until the task becomes urgent. Then, when meeting the deadline gets nigh impossible, we become super-productive and miraculously pull it off — getting the job done just in time.

The quintessential example of Parkinson’s Law in action is school assignments: even with a full month to complete an assignment, most people work very unproductively (if at all) until the last few days — when they pull one or two all-nighters and manage to get it done right at the last minute.

If you are like one of those students, you know that ‘working’ on the assignment filled up the whole time available — even if only psychologically — despite the fact that you spent little time in actual, productive work. Had you invested this short amount of time right after the assignment was handed to you, you would have completed it much sooner and could have spent the remaining time much more joyfully (either truly resting or working more productively on other stuff).

Does that mean we’re doomed to work at our peak only when we’re faced with looming deadlines? How can we get rid of this unproductive behavior and beat Parkinson’s Law? It turns out there are a few things you can do. Read on.

6 Surefire Ways to Beat Parkinson’s Law

1. Break Down Your Tasks and Deadlines

Parkinson’s Law always strikes the hardest when you have enormous tasks with far-away deadlines. The best way to fix this is, of course, breaking those big, monolithic tasks into many smaller, bite-sized tasks, along with several intermediate deadlines to complete them.

In addition to showing how you are progressing, frequent, achievable deadlines create a mild sense of urgency during the whole duration of your work, keeping you naturally engaged and focused on what needs to be done.

This method works great indeed, but note that you still need to take those intermediate deadlines seriously — which is not always easy!

2. Know What ‘Done’ Means

It’s not always easy to know for sure when a task is finished. The more of a perfectionist you are, the most likely you’re a victim of Parkinson’s Law: there’s always one more little thing to add, one little refinement to be made, isn’t there?

Sure, I am all for aiming for greater quality: the hard part is knowing where to draw the line so we don’t spend a lot of time overdoing it.

If you suffer from this same problem, one thing that helps a lot is to precisely define the output of your tasks. The trick is to be as specific as you can about them — and then simply stop when you complete them.

For example, ‘write white paper draft’ allows too much room for interpretation by your inner perfectionist. ‘Write a 1000-word unedited stream-of-consciousness-style text’ works much better, doesn’t it? Being specific upfront helps keep our perfectionism in check.

3. Set Clear Boundaries

Most of the time, Parkinson’s Law kicks in when we’re doing too much stuff at the same time: our days become a jumble of tasks when hardly any ever gets completely finished. And, with the huge amount of distractions that tend to creep in, it only gets worse.

To avoid Parkinson’s Law’s effects and finish tasks sooner, we must work on them one at a time, focused and with as few distractions as possible.

The best way I know to do that is by corralling your tasks using time boxes. Get a countdown timer and set a time limit to work on them — a contiguous block without distractions to finish or at least make progress on those tasks.

Another great way of setting boundaries is by clearly separating between work and leisure. If you restrict the time available for work (and honor it, of course), you’ll learn to fit all your work into these boundaries. My favorite technique to keep work boundaries well-defined is the time budget (where you define how much time you spend on each area of your life).

4. Challenge Yourself

When you have a tight time limit or deadline, it forces your brain to figure out ways to get it done in the time available.

So, it’s time to stop adding hidden “safety buffers” when you estimate and allocate time for your tasks: if you pad your estimates, they will be wasted as a result of Parkinson’s Law kicking in.

What works here instead is to set challenging deadlines for yourself. Not too challenging — mildly challenging, I’d say. The trick here is that they must still be believable — otherwise you’ll just disregard them.

Take those time boxes you set for yourself (in item #3 above) and now shrink them! Can you do the same task 10% faster? Maybe 20%? A litttle more, perhaps? As soon as you set an expectation — an estimate for the duration of a task — the estimate becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The task will take the expected time, so take advantage of that!

The good thing about regularly challenging yourself that way is that you’ll improve your estimation skills very quickly, in addition to having fun finding creative ways to win these self-imposed challenges. If you practice (and your tasks are well-defined and small enough), it becomes increasingly easier to effectively set challenges for yourself.

5. Create Incentives to Finish Early

One reason Parkinson’s Law is so prevalent — especially in corporations — is that people rarely have the right incentives to finish early:

• —”Finished already? Here’s more work for you.”
• —”You’re fast! Guess we can bring the deadline forward next time!”

Even without pointy-haired bosses around, sticking to the current task as long as possible is often desirable, as it can act as a security blanket: maybe you’re avoiding your next task because it is too daunting, for example.

So if you finish early, give yourself mini-rewards: take a quick break, browse the web, go for a walk — do whatever takes your fancy — and enjoy the feeling of having deserved it. The key here is to associate rewards with results, not with time spent — so don’t fool yourself.

Of course, incentives for finishing early only work if the task is well-defined (i.e., you know exactly what ‘done’ means), otherwise most of us will just cheat (by doing a sloppy or incomplete job) in order to get the reward sooner.

6. Know What’s Next

Lastly, something that happens too often is hanging on too long to a task solely because we don’t know exactly what to do next.

Most of the time, the cognitive effort in planning tasks is much higher than that required to actually carry them out. That means that if we don’t have anything ready to be acted on, we may not have the required energy to stop, plan on-the-fly, and then get back to work. The easy way out is to stick to the current task for as long as we safely can.

One thing that I always strive to do is separate planning from doing, and make sure to always have a few next actions in the pipeline so you can keep the momentum going and avoid having to stop to reassess what you should be doing.

Over to You

Are you a victim of Parkinson’s Law? What works best for you in beating it? Share in the comments!

…and, while we’re still at it, writing this article reminded me of an oldie (but goodie) short video I enjoy. It’s not exactly about Parkinson’s Law, but it’s somewhat related and always makes me chuckle…

• Credit for intro photo: Robbert van der Steeg.

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• Overwhelmed by Your To-Do List? Go With a ‘Will-Do’ List Instead.
• Lifehacks vs. Lifestyle Design (And the Winner Is…)
• Do It Tomorrow: An Interview with Mark Forster
• 6 Productivity Principles to Live By (My Personal Productivity Manifesto)

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Here are six principles I strive to live by. This is my own “personal productivity manifesto”: it summarizes what works for me about personal productivity.

Whenever I follow these guidelines, I am at my very best, feeling productive and joyful. If I feel that I am doing things outside these guidelines, I know I can refer to them and quickly get back on track.

Since these principles work so well for me, I figured they might work for you, too. Here they are:

Principle 6: Devote Time

No matter how capable or gifted we may be, it’s an illusion to think we can do it all. As my favorite productivity adage goes, we can do anything, but not everything. At every moment, we’re presented with infinite possibilities — we really could be doing anything! But freedom to do whatever we set our sights on comes at a price, and the price is that we need to constantly make choices about what really matters to us.

These choices, at the most fundamental level, always boil down to how we allocate and spend our time. The value of our achievements is primarily determined by what we consistently invest our time in. We need to be aware of that every day, diligently investing the time in what matters and having the courage to let the unimportant stuff go.

How to Apply this Principle

• Use a time budget. In a time budget you define shares of time for the areas or goals you care about. It’s just like a money budget, but for time: it guarantees that you don’t overspend on things that don’t matter, so you can make the most out of the things that do.
  To learn more about setting up a time budget, check out Time Budget: An Easy Way to Avoid Prioritization Dilemmas and Keep Your Life Balanced.

Principle 5: Focus Your Attention

If the previous principle was about allocating time for the things that matter, this one is about how well you’re able to spend that time.

Very often it seems we just can’t concentrate, even though we know what we should be doing, right? Resistance, procrastination, allowing ourselves to get sidetracked by distractions: these are formidable obstacles even for the most resolute people. Developing a strategy for overcoming resistance and dealing with distractions, then, is essential for maximum productivity.

How to Apply this Principle

• Use time boxing. Time boxing is a technique I use every day to overcome procrastination, conquer perfectionism and maximize overall efficiency. The concept is really simple: delimit blocks of time to work on tasks. But don’t let the simplicity of the concept deceive you: you really got to try it to see how effective it is in overcoming resistance, focusing your attention and actually doing what needs to get done.
  To learn more about time boxing, check out 15 Time Boxing Strategies to Get Things Done.

Principle 4: Honor Thy Commitments

Personal productivity is not about cramming as much stuff as we possibly can in our days. Here is a situation that sometimes happens to me, and I am sure it must have happened to you too: in a given day we write down a gazillion tasks to do, cross a lot of them off but, at the end of the day, still feel anxious about the tasks we didn’t do. Why is that?

The feeling of being productive comes not from the quantity of tasks we do, but from honoring the commitments we set for ourselves. Doing what we said we would do is what we should primarily strive for. Tasks that keep being left undone in our to do lists are broken promises to ourselves, and are a sure recipe for frustration: no matter how much we do in our days, we’ll always look at them and feel bad about ourselves.

Before trying to get more stuff done, make sure you honor your current promises (to yourself and to others): Be clear about them, drop those that you know you won’t be able to honor and then ensure that you really complete the ones that remain.

How to Apply this Principle

• Use will-do lists. ‘Will do’ lists replace a bunch of intentions (the traditional to do’s) with a small set of commitments. It’s not only much shorter than a to-do list, but also doesn’t grow as your day progresses — and you feel just terrific when you cross off 100% of it day after day.
  To learn more about ‘will do’ lists, check out Overwhelmed by Your To-Do List? Go With a ‘Will-Do’ List Instead.

Principle 3: Develop a Sustainable Pace

We need to strike a balance between work and play — between engagement and rest, between creation and recreation. In the productivity game we should take our leisure time as seriously as our work time. Even if we feel energetic and motivated to work long hours, the most effective long-term strategy is to hold ourselves back when feeling too enthusiastic and follow a sustainable pace instead.

Also, defining clear boundaries between work and rest is very important: “Work when you’re working, rest when you’re resting”, I often say. Whenever I forget this, I end up in a very ineffective ‘not-quite-working/not-quite-resting’ zombie-like state.

How to Apply this Principle

The two tools I use for the previous principles also work wonders here:

• Will-do lists. As soon as I’m done with the will-do list for the day, I’m done: I must resist the urge to work longer. I admit that sometimes — especially when I’m feeling highly energetic — I still stretch and go “get the most out of the day”. However, I always regret it the day after, as I can’t sustain the pace for too long and end up much worse than if I had just stopped working at the right time instead.

• Time boxes. also help keep work activities together. That helps a lot in making the boundaries between work and recreation very clear.

Principle 2: Keep Moving On

More important than setting big goals is to just keep going. I know this goes against most of the “set bold goals for yourself” advice you see everywhere, but it’s what works for me. Going after a “big vision” is something that always felt awkward, and it always made me more anxious than it helped.

Now, what does work for me is to constantly think about how to improve my life and define little steps to make it happen. Think continuous improvement. Take small steps and see how things change. Experiment. Sure, it’s perfectly fine to have a general direction, but don’t get too obsessed about it: circumstances will change — you will change. It’s in each step that you learn and adjust your direction.

How to Apply this Principle

• Daily and Weekly Reviews. Assess your projects and tasks every day and make sure that you define next steps for all your projects. Make them small, but ensure you make progress every single day. Forget New Year’s Resolutions. Plan, review and adjust your steps every day and every week.

• Ask “How can I take a step so small that it is impossible to fail?” This is one of my favorite questions ever (I got it from the book One Small Step Can Change Your Life — summary here). I ask it every single day when reviewing my projects and task lists. It melts resistance away and, when asked frequently, keeps you on track and energetic to keep going.

Principle 1: Feel Good. Now.

“Being productive” only makes sense if you’re enjoying yourself as you work on the stuff that’s relevant. If you’re not, none of the things we discussed here really matters. Personal productivity is a state of mind: a feeling that you’re doing what you believe is important and that you’re happy about it — not that you’re making sacrifices day in, day out.

For me, a good rule of thumb is that we should feel tired at the end of the day. Yes, tired, but in a good way: that’s very different from feeling spent or drained: it’s feeling that we poured our energy into the stuff we care the most. The feeling that our energy was put to good use. Going to sleep looking forward to the next day is, in my opinion, the ultimate measure of personal productivity.

How to Apply this Principle

• Take a one-minute self-assessment at the end of the day. How was your day? Did you invest your time and energy doing what really matters? Forget for a minute about your goals, focus on your journey. After all, if you’re only making sacrifices and not enjoying your days, what’s the point of being productive?

What about You?

What do you think of these principles? Anything missing? Do you have your own productivity principles? Please share in the comments! I’m eager to know about what works for you!

Related Articles

• Time Budget: An Easy Way to Avoid Prioritization Dilemmas and Keep Your Life Balanced
• Overwhelmed by Your To-Do List? Go With a ‘Will-Do’ List Instead.
• Lifehacks vs. Lifestyle Design (And the Winner Is…)
• Do It Tomorrow: An Interview with Mark Forster
• Beat Parkinson’s Law and Supercharge Your Productivity

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