Writing about Life in the digital age

Advice on how to improve one’s self is everywhere.  It accounts for about 2.5% of all book sales in the United States. Add in speeches, training programs, TV programs, online-products, coaches, yoga, and the like, self-help is a $10 billion industry per year, and that’s just in the U.S.

However, research shows that much of the advice extolled may be misleading or even wrong. Several myths about performance persist, despite research and practices that show they are half-truths at best. That might explain why the most likely purchasers of self-improvement books have bought another within the previous 18 months.  The first myth-riddled book didn’t work, so they bought another, and maybe another soon after.

A recent report in the Journal of Management noted that of nearly 25,000 academic articles on performance, only a fraction include what psychologists call within person variance, which describes ranges, such as that between individuals’ top, average and worst performances. Advice too often mistakenly assumes performance can be compared across people, using the same gauge. That’s absurd.

Our observation of hundreds of performance seekers largely confirms the report and has led to delineating a series of myths that hold people back when trying to improve. These assertions are based on a diverse set of fields, including psychology, sports, arts, and leadership. We hope that by dispelling these myths, explaining the reality and offering some sound advice instead, we can help move people toward more effective personal development.

Want to know one habit ultra-successful people have in common?

They read. A lot.

In fact, when Warren Buffett was once asked about the key to success, he pointed to a stack of nearby books and said, “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”

Buffett takes this habit to the extreme — he read between 600 and 1000 pages per day when he was beginning his investing career, and still devotes about 80% of each day to reading.

And he’s not alone. Here are just a few top business leaders and entrepreneurs who make reading a major part of their daily lifestyle

You'd be forgiven for feeling a little burned out from hearing about burnout. For years, experts have been sounding alarms that modern workers are struggling with career-sinking levels of chronic exhaustion and other issues.

So when Charlie DeWitt, vice president of business development at Kronos, a workforce management software company, declares that "employee burnout has reached epidemic proportions," you may think you've heard it all before. But according to new research by Kronos and Future Workplace, burnout really is getting even worse and more widespread, and so are the consequences of it. This time around, there are some surprising reasons why—and a few steps employers can take right away to turn things around.

You finally got approval to go to that pricey training seminar. Maybe you’ll be learning the secrets of entertainers or fishmongers. But do you know how you’re going to deliver a return on the training investment to your company?

"Organizations that send people out for training really need to have some type of a plan from beginning to end," says David Lewis, president and CEO of OperationsInc., a human resources consulting firm. And if your organization isn’t providing such a framework, it’s up to you to do so, so that you can not only prove that it was worthwhile, but also to open the door for future training.

Here is what you should be doing before, during, and after to maximize the return on investment.

Feeling stressed lately? Chances are you're not alone. We carry varying degrees of stress around with us all the time—sometimes more, sometimes less. Does that pressure make us more productive or less? As with so many aspects of human psychology, the answer is: It depends. But what it depends on is something called the Yerkes-Dodson curve, a theory that dates back to 1908. Here's how understanding it can help you channel the stress you may be feeling into energy to get things done.

The Yerkes-Dodson curve relates the amount of motivational energy, called "arousal," a person may possess to how well they'll perform at a given task. The basic idea is that at low levels of arousal, people don't perform particularly well. In this state, people aren't all that motivated to get much done. That helps explain why being totally stress-free can breed laziness or complacency, and also why some of your most productive days are those when the clock is ticking for you to wrap up a big projec

People often complain that their job is killing them, or that they’re working themselves to death, but new research suggests there may be more truth to those clichés than we realize.

A recent study conducted by Indiana University's Kelley School of Business found that those who work in high-stress jobs with little control are more likely to die sooner than those who have more control over and balance in their work.

The study, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Personnel Psychology, followed up with Wisconsin residents who had participated in a longitudinal study of 10,000 people that graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957. Participants were interviewed on their education, occupation, and emotional experiences at various intervals throughout their lives.

The way brainstorms are practiced in most companies today is still almost exactly the same way that was recommended by their inventor, advertising executive Alex Osborn, over 60 years ago. Business and our understanding of how the brain works have both moved on so much in that time, and yet we’re still hanging onto this old technique for so many of our idea-gathering sessions.

Here’s how to rethink your brainstorm so it goes for longer than you're used to, but proves much more productive once it’s over.

When the office is almost too much to stomach, music can deliver much-needed relief on the job. Before you press Play, however, have a handle on when your tunes will be most beneficial for you and your brain.

Learning = Stop

Learning requires your brain to analyze and remember instructions and facts. When music is on, however, your brain has to process auditory data on top of processing the instructions and facts. Because of this multitasking, the brain can interpret the instructions and facts improperly, either associating them in odd ways or making mistakes about what's important enough to store. Thus, if you have to learn something at work, it's best to turn off your music, especially if you're learning verbally or through reading and the music has lyrics.

Noisy = Play

If your workspace is noisy, the brain will try to handle all the individual pieces of data in the noise. All that data processing takes energy you otherwise could use to focus on your job. It also increases levels of the stress-hormone cortisol and decreases levels of dopamine. Those hormonal changes negatively affect the prefrontal cortex, hindering executive function. Thus, productivity can go down, even if doing your required task doesn't require you to learn. In this scenario, listening to music can actually help, because it blocks out the other excessive input that could overwhelm you and keeps you calm.

They said computers would make us all a lot more productive, and free up our personal lives.

Is it just me, or was that all a big, fat porkie?

The technology that was supposed to bring us this gift of freedom has entrapped us, eroding valuable time, energy and attention. Don't get me wrong, I love new technology. But let's take a reality check and go back to using it to help us do our jobs, not to dictate and distract every waking moment.

Here are seven key productivity traps to be mindful of:

When we think productivity, we rarely think of workplace design as a major contributor or detractor, but compelling ongoing research shows that it plays a much larger role than initially thought. According to research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, an empowered office environment can increase worker productivity on cognitive tasks by 25%, and possibly more.

Workspace design today is undergoing a major creative shift. We've gone from cubicles (people are productive in isolation) to open-plan spaces (collaboration leads to success) to what I believe is the next major step - integrated multi-function design which recognizes that people need multiple spaces based on their ongoing and changing needs within a business day.

Instead of looking out across rows of cubicles, today's office worker needs a mix of team meeting rooms, open lounge-like areas, and private workspaces.

How Multitasking is a Productivity Killer in your Business

How you spend your night can have a huge impact on the day that follows. Do you spend your time ruminating over issues? Or maybe you stress over something that didn't quite go right during the day. There's no doubt, how you think affects how you feel. This is particularly important at night as you try to unwind and prepare for rest. This sets you up for sleep which serves many vital purposes. When I look at my clients who achieve the most during their days and are happiest, they are the ones who have a healthy routine at night. They set themselves up for success the following day by thinking and acting in a particular way.

It’s helpful to be honest about why you’re reaching out (for example, you’re going through a job search or moving to a new city). It can combat nerves and help the process feel more genuine. In other words, it instantly solves two core issues many people stress about when told to network.

That said, as with anything else, you know there’s a difference between being straightforward and being overly blunt. For example, you know to write, "I was thinking of approaching the project from a different angle" over "I hate all of your ideas."

Aspiring to find this balance, many people begin networking emails with "Remember me?" or even, "You probably don’t remember me..." After all, why not begin with an honest admission so the other person knows you aren’t being fake? Well, unfortunately, this approach often backfires. While you’re coming from a sincere place, it’s pretty audacious to ask for something from someone whom you’re blatantly admitting you barely know.

“Multitasking is a survival strategy.”

“I’m an excellent multitasker!”

Science has told us that these conclusions are in fact delusions. Yet, they persist. Sure, it’s possible to drive to work and listen to a podcast, but that’s because only one of those tasks requires active cognitive engagement. When both tasks require simultaneous processing, 98% of us can’t do it. Have you noticed that if you get lost while driving, you turn off the radio? That’s because you now need your full cognitive horsepower to navigate.

The same is true at work. While you may only be browsing emails during a meeting, you’ve transferred your attention from the meeting to your inbox. You are present, but not cognitively engaged.

We like to know what’s going on. Eighty-seven percent of respondents to a December 2014 Pew Internet and American Life survey said that the internet and mobile phones help them learn new things, and 72% like having access to so much information.

But the information onslaught comes at a price, experts say. Information overload—trying to take in and respond to too much information—can cause forgetfulness, fatigue, and difficulty with focus, says psychologist and attention expert Lucy Jo Palladino, PhD, author of Find Your Focus Zone: An Effective New Plan to Defeat Distraction and Overload.

"We can listen to all of these motivational gurus who tell us we have unlimited potential, but the brain is a physical structure. It runs on biochemicals called neurotransmitters," she says. When those neurotransmitters are depleted because we overextend them, we run out of fuel.

What do you do for work? Not, what is your job title, or what’s written in your official job description? But what do you actually do?

It’s potentially the most important question you can ask yourself if you care about standing out, staying ahead of the change curve, and continuously elevating your performance to gain access to choice assignments and opportunities to advance.

This is because the value you deliver, the results you produce, and the impact you have on others come more often from the execution of unspoken intangibles that are not reflected in your title, job description, or the daily tasks and activities you’re responsible for. This severe mismatch is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the true demands of work.