Hey, can you remember a time when you heard somebody say, “I’m multitasking!” and they sounded excited about it, like they’d just mastered the unicycle? 

If you can’t think of anybody right off, it may have been you.

Somewhere along the way, multitasking got a good name.  It’s a Cube Farm Myth of epic proportion, and proof that any falsehood repeatedly heard over time will be regarded as truthful. 

The real deal on this one:  Contrary to common logic, multitasking isn’t a talent and it’s nothing to be proud of.

We’ve all tried it. 

It doesn’t work.

Heck, it’s not even fun.

The cruel part is, experience might seem to support the myth that multitasking equates to productivity:  Because we’re engaged in several things at once, we have the temporary (more…)

Expectations are a thing of duality:

1-Your expectations of what you’re capable of will actually determine what you’re capable of. 

So beware:  Your expectations of yourself will always be accurate—even when you have them too low.

2-But your expectations of what others are, or will be, won’t be so accurate.  In fact, we all routinely misjudge others when we have little to go on. 

And the real kicker?  The less we have to measure them by, the more inaccurate our assessment will be.  That’s because of a little thing called distraction that I wrote about a few weeks back—even before the emergence of Susan Boyle last week on Britain’s Got Talent.

Even if you’ve seen the video, you might want to watch it again now, because I’m going to call (more…)

Getting uncommon results in any conversation comes down to this very simple point:  Overcoming distractions, and maintaining focus—on what’s being said and what we’ll say next.

We often miss the subtleties of what’s being said in conversation simply because we’re focusing on other things.  Irrelevant things. 

Like where we’re going to eat tonight.

Or we’re focusing on the person’s clothing. 

Or on what’s going on around us.

There’s an interesting story this week at the Daily Express that touches on this very powerful phenomenon of human nature, and it’s this:  When we’re not focused on what matters, by default, we’ll be focused on what does not matter.

The article cites a study by British psychologists that found women are more attracted to a man in a “fancy motor than in an old banger”.  Women paid more attention to a guy driving a (more…)