In the previous article on How Your Mind Really Works, we explored the key strengths of human intelligence, such as our ability to identify invariant patterns and to recognize specific instances of them. But these strengths don’t come without major drawbacks. The human mind certainly has its share of weaknesses, gaps, and blind spots.
It’s wise to cultivate an [...]
How is it that your mind is capable of handling new situations you’ve never previously encountered? How do you solve a problem you’ve never solved before? Is this just the magic of consciousness, or is there an underlying process — or algorithm — your mind uses behind the scenes to deal with the unique experiences you encounter each [...]
After posting the recent article on Copyright and Intellectual Property, I expected someone would question whether the whole notion of copyrights is fear-based. Sure enough someone did. It’s a very good question — is the whole notion of intellectual property inherently rooted in fear and scarcity thinking? Should we feel free to pirate whatever we desire? Or is [...]
As a blogger and a former software developer, I must frequently deal with copyright issues. For most of my adult life, intellectual property has been my primary source of livelihood and remains so to this day. While some people take issue with the concept of intellectual property and believe that all content should be free, I don’t count [...]
Virtually every time management system teaches that you must prioritize your projects to make sure you’re working on what’s truly important instead of getting caught up in minor things. However, few systems explain precisely how to do this. How do you decide which task is really the most important at any given time? Is it the one that’s most urgent, [...]
Since I receive many questions about this topic, I thought it would be fun to share a candid insider’s look at the reality of being an A-list blogger. These are my personal observations, so I’m not saying they’re true of other high-traffic bloggers, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some of these patterns held up. While I normally [...]
Testing ideas through direct experience is among the best ways to learn and grow. If you want to know if an idea really has merit, test it under real-world conditions. Then you’ll have your answer.
For example, suppose you want to ask someone out for a date. One simple test would be to go right up to the person and [...]
Here’s the third installment of 33 Rules to Boost Your Productivity (see Volume 1 and Volume 2).
These are a bit sillier and less politically correct than the first two volumes — I had to stretch to come up with more ideas – but many are still valid in certain situations. Just be sure to take them with a grain [...]
My last article on 33 Rules to Boost Your Productivity got a positive reception, so I decided to come up with 33 more.
A few of these are similar to the ones already posted, but most are new. Sometimes looking at the same idea from different angles can be beneficial.
So here are 33 more rules to boost your [...]
Heuristics are rules intended to help you solve problems. When a problem is large or complex, and the optimal solution is unclear, applying a heuristic allows you to begin making progress towards a solution even though you can’t visualize the entire path from your starting point.
Suppose your goal is to climb to the peak of a [...]
