The Morning Routine Experts Recommend For Peak Productivity
at's the best way to start your day so that you really get things done? Laura Vanderkam studied the schedules of high-achievers. What did she find? Almost all have a morning routine. I've interviewed a ton of top experts about their productivity secrets: Tim Ferriss, Cal Newport, Dan Ariely, Charles Duhigg, and others. But you're busy. You don't have time to read all that stuff. You need a plan. So many readers have written to me saying what my friend Jason always does:…
7 minutes
A Navy SEAL Explains 8 Secrets To Grit And Resilience
metimes you just want to quit. You know you shouldn't but nothing seems better than crawling back into bed and hiding under the covers. (I am there right now, actually, with my laptop.) The emerging science of grit and resilience is teaching us a lot about why some people redouble their efforts when the rest of us are heading for the door. Research is great, but it's always nice to talk to someone who's been there firsthand, and to see how…
12 minutes
How To Be Motivated: 4 New Insights From Research
metimes there is not enough coffee in universe to get you going. How to be motivated is something we all struggle with at some time or another. Or, um, daily. Motivation is such a mystery. It's a feeling and we understand it so poorly it feels impossible to do anything about it. Is there anyone who can unravel the science of how motivation works and tell us what to do? Yes. Dan Pink wrote the book on motivation. Literally. He's…
10 minutes
How To Stop Procrastinating: 4 New Steps Backed By Research
don't wanna. I don't wanna. I don't wanna. It's awful and horrible. I hear it causes cancer. I'll do it when I feel better. I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it when I'm taller. Procrastination plagues us all. We always think there will be more time tomorrow and research shows that's just not true. No, you won’t do better work by waiting. In fact, studies show leaving things unfinished makes you stupid. To be honest with you, dear reader, I…
11 minutes
How To Be Successful: 6 New Shortcuts Backed By Research
all want success. And we'd like it fast. But we can only work so long and so hard. The more-more-more ethos only goes so far. What to do? I decided to ask someone who knows about this stuff: Shane Snow. Shane's the bestselling author of Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success. He did the research and looked at how people and companies achieve success quickly by trying new things, breaking the rules and taking shortcuts -- or, as Shane calls them, smartcuts.…
9 minutes
How To Be Efficient: Dan Ariely’s 6 New Secrets To Managing Your Time
's hard to be efficient. Sometimes it feels like the world doesn't make any sense. Sometimes you don't make any sense. And sometimes it feels like it's all a conspiracy. As we'll see shortly, these are all, in a way, true. Dan Ariely is the king of irrational behavior. Not that he's more irrational than you or I, but he's studied an impressive amount of it. Dan is a behavioral economist at Duke University and the New York Times bestselling author of…
9 minutes
How To Go From Dreaming To Doing: 4 Steps To Motivation
u have stuff you know you should be doing. But it doesn’t get done. You need to go from dreaming to doing -- but it's hard. You want to accomplish more at work, hit the gym, get a new job or study harder at school… but it’s not happening. I’ve talked about strategies to make challenges easier like the 20 second rule. But what if you’re just not starting in the first place? What gets you going when you’re not motivated to reach those longer term…
6 minutes
Be More Successful: New Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Do It
e all want to be more successful. But everything you read probably sounds like a lot of work. Isn't there a scientifically proven method that's a little more... fun? There is. Shawn Achor is the bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage and for years at Harvard he studied exactly that: happiness. He gave an…
8 minutes
