It’s time to think right. Yes, while everyone is good at thinking, there are some people who think in the right way at the right moment and outdo others in various ways – job, management, work-life balance, and maintaining relationships. Unlike other aspects related to human psychology, right thinking is applicable to every human being at any age. It is more significant in the heavily competitive corporate world where each decision of yours is instrumental in carving your career. Good decisions are the result of effective thinking. A good thinker is original, resourceful, perceptive, practical, and logical. Here are some normal thinking hats that form the basis behind all our actions and reactions and can help become a good thinker.
Objective thinking is appropriate when things look confusing and you need facts to arrive at a conclusion. A neutral attitude develops with the help of this thinking. Managers often handle interpersonal relationships between subordinates with the help of this thinking. People skills are mastered easily by people who have an objective outlook towards solving problems and understanding people.
Emotional thinking is necessary when things are going out of your control. It is not good waiting for the events to unfold when you are sure of disastrous consequences. Listen to your emotions and trust your intuition and you might also want to show anger if nothing else can help solve the matters. Remember the importance of gut instinct and deal harshly wherever necessary.
Negative thinking is essential when you are geared to move ahead with a highly risky proposition. You need to spend time to understand why things might fail and plan fool proof measures to prevent blunders. While most of us are against the gloomy and negative attitude, we need to understand that it saves from many dangers. Remember the adage that a stitch in time saves nine.
Positive thinking helps when you are filled with hopes and you must go ahead with an optimistic outlook. You cannot always fear that something wrong is about to happen. Likewise, you cannot restrict growth by refraining from experimenting and trying out new things. A positive thinking attitude will be of great help under such situations. Mostly, when you have taken all the necessary steps and things are beyond your reach, thinking positively prevents pressure and tension from building up in your mind.
Creative thinking comes to your aid when you discover that contemporary and traditional practices impede your growth and things seem to be dragging. Cultivate new ideas that help solve problems. Make use of techniques such as brainstorming and mind-mapping to enhance your creativity. It is not always necessary that existing practices need to fail to let your creative juices flow. Some people employ creative thinking to stay ahead in the race and have an edge over others. Increasingly, the focus is shifting towards innovation everywhere across the globe.
Finally, thinking from a wider perspective is the most important type of thinking. Look at the broader picture and try to understand the problem at hand in relation to other systems in your organization. Project managers in charge of cross-functional teams often don this hat to build and manage such teams without any hassles.
These thinking types don’t often go alone. They mostly go in pairs depending upon the situation. You can be objective and critical at the same time when you have to reprimand a subordinate for being irresponsible. Likewise, creative thinking syncs well with looking at things from the broader perspective. Many other factors, such as risk, consequences, and the people involved play an important role in determining the apt thinking hat for you at any moment. Hence, focus on the outcomes while donning the right thinking hat. Balance your criteria and consider the effects of external pressures. Begin with testing the different types of thinking in different situations to arrive at the best combinations that suit your personality, goals and aspirations.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Ways to think out of the box
Whether you are predominantly left-brained or right-brained, there is some basic creativity innate in every human being. You need to enhance your creativity for various reasons – to improve your performance and withstand competition among peers; to break free from the monotony of daily work; to come up with interesting solutions to existing problems; to improve standards using your experience and insight; and manage work-life balance effectively. Here are some basic ways in which you can work hard to add to the flow of creative juices in your mind that are necessary for everyone.
Step out of your comfort zone. The first thing that you need to do is to take risk and do things differently. Only when you are ready to take risks and mistakes, you can learn from your experiences. If you stick to your regular mode of operation, you might end up with monotony. Begin making small changes to your daily routine and including things that you are not so comfortable doing. You might sometimes be alarmed at your own capabilities by indulging in activities that you always ignored. Then, calculate your risks and tread cautiously to experiment and gain from your experiments. Thus, you sharpen your judgment skills thereby adding to your existing set of decision making abilities.
Practice the art of thinking from different viewpoints. How often have you been asked to get into the shoes of the customer? Yes, you need to get into the shoes of not just the customer, but all the stakeholders who are involved. Interact with the different stakeholders to understand their own perceptions about the existing process and note down any improvements that they can suggest to make things better or to come up with something anew. Combine the assumptions and suggestions that you draw from the various quarters and there will be a new source of knowledge that you can apply while carrying your work.
Learn more from the varied sources that you can get in touch. It is not just enough if you learn from all your stakeholders about their perceptions and expectations. You must have a keen sense of the industry trends. Keep a tab on all the technological advancements that are related to your field. Adopt the new technological advances in your regular chores. Likewise, stay updated on any papers and reports that experts publish in your field of operation. The Internet acts as a great source of information and you can certainly gain more by reading all the literature available.
Break the traditions and pine for change. Question the traditional practices if you want to really begin change from your direction. You can achieve this by identifying the least important activities that contribute very less to reaching your personal goals. Once you get into the habit of breaking traditional habits in your personal life, apply the same techniques at work to learn more and benefit more. To do so, first break your tasks into sub-tasks and assign priorities to them on the basis of their usefulness to your overall goals. Thus you arrive at activities that are more important and assign more priority to them. It is quite obvious that you have been very good at prioritizing things at work. The problem lies in the fact that you have never tried to prioritize your activities that are not related to work. You get to learn more and apply these rules to your work related activities also.
Try to analyze, infer, and assume. To conclude is to make a mistake. Analyze and benefit from learning the logic behind how things happen. Infer and understand the significance of orderliness of processes. Assume and learn the key role played by different people. Be wary before coming to any conclusion. You are likely to slip into a habit of illogical conclusions that serve no purpose. If you realize that you have just made and assumption, there are many great chances that you can change it as soon as you get new information that might be contradictory. However, you tend to hurt your judgmental abilities if you try to question your own conclusions. Hence, identify the thin line of difference between inferring, analyzing, assuming, and concluding regarding situations, people, and things. You can always conclude when there are enough facts to support your information. Yet, you should be ready to face any exceptions as you go along.
Challenge your beliefs before you set to change other’s beliefs. Highly creative people have the great task of altering others’ beliefs and changing the way they understand things. Even before you set to change others, you must change your belief system to accept newness. Flexibility plays a key role in such a situation. Look at things with a very open mind and refrain from having preconceived notions about any person or issue. Get into the habit of looking every problem on a fresh canvas to come up with your masterpiece solution.
Step out of your comfort zone. The first thing that you need to do is to take risk and do things differently. Only when you are ready to take risks and mistakes, you can learn from your experiences. If you stick to your regular mode of operation, you might end up with monotony. Begin making small changes to your daily routine and including things that you are not so comfortable doing. You might sometimes be alarmed at your own capabilities by indulging in activities that you always ignored. Then, calculate your risks and tread cautiously to experiment and gain from your experiments. Thus, you sharpen your judgment skills thereby adding to your existing set of decision making abilities.
Practice the art of thinking from different viewpoints. How often have you been asked to get into the shoes of the customer? Yes, you need to get into the shoes of not just the customer, but all the stakeholders who are involved. Interact with the different stakeholders to understand their own perceptions about the existing process and note down any improvements that they can suggest to make things better or to come up with something anew. Combine the assumptions and suggestions that you draw from the various quarters and there will be a new source of knowledge that you can apply while carrying your work.
Learn more from the varied sources that you can get in touch. It is not just enough if you learn from all your stakeholders about their perceptions and expectations. You must have a keen sense of the industry trends. Keep a tab on all the technological advancements that are related to your field. Adopt the new technological advances in your regular chores. Likewise, stay updated on any papers and reports that experts publish in your field of operation. The Internet acts as a great source of information and you can certainly gain more by reading all the literature available.
Break the traditions and pine for change. Question the traditional practices if you want to really begin change from your direction. You can achieve this by identifying the least important activities that contribute very less to reaching your personal goals. Once you get into the habit of breaking traditional habits in your personal life, apply the same techniques at work to learn more and benefit more. To do so, first break your tasks into sub-tasks and assign priorities to them on the basis of their usefulness to your overall goals. Thus you arrive at activities that are more important and assign more priority to them. It is quite obvious that you have been very good at prioritizing things at work. The problem lies in the fact that you have never tried to prioritize your activities that are not related to work. You get to learn more and apply these rules to your work related activities also.
Try to analyze, infer, and assume. To conclude is to make a mistake. Analyze and benefit from learning the logic behind how things happen. Infer and understand the significance of orderliness of processes. Assume and learn the key role played by different people. Be wary before coming to any conclusion. You are likely to slip into a habit of illogical conclusions that serve no purpose. If you realize that you have just made and assumption, there are many great chances that you can change it as soon as you get new information that might be contradictory. However, you tend to hurt your judgmental abilities if you try to question your own conclusions. Hence, identify the thin line of difference between inferring, analyzing, assuming, and concluding regarding situations, people, and things. You can always conclude when there are enough facts to support your information. Yet, you should be ready to face any exceptions as you go along.
Challenge your beliefs before you set to change other’s beliefs. Highly creative people have the great task of altering others’ beliefs and changing the way they understand things. Even before you set to change others, you must change your belief system to accept newness. Flexibility plays a key role in such a situation. Look at things with a very open mind and refrain from having preconceived notions about any person or issue. Get into the habit of looking every problem on a fresh canvas to come up with your masterpiece solution.
Ways to avoid procrastination
To procrastinate is to put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness. We hurry up in the last minute to deliver a half-baked task. Procrastination can negatively impact both work life and personal life. Here are some simple tips to prevent these problems.
First, understand that you are not compelled to do things. Recollect all the situations in life when you do not procrastinate. Reading your favorite novel, watching the scam report on the television and playing tennis in the weekend are some examples. You never miss these activities because you want to do them. Your mind is not under the impression that you are compelled to do them. So, replace your compulsion of "have-to" with willingness of "want-to". Do not compel yourself to do a task; just build the interest to do the task.
Never get troubled by the magnitude of the task. The bigger it is, there are more chances for a task to get postponed. You plan to finish a task even before you begin it. If you do not know how to complete the task, the pressure mounts. Hence, break the task into pieces and start with a small piece instead of trying to finish the entire thing. Focus on what you can do immediately. By doing so a good number of times, you will reach the final piece of the task and finish it with ease. Remember the fact that you tend to get perfect through practice. Likewise, stress gets associated with the task and you will start avoiding the task if you do not practice it with concentration. It is always better to complete a job than to delay it for want of perfection in the first instance. As a writer, you can begin with a rough draft. You can always revise it later to attain the desired state of perfection.
Avoid the habit of sacrificing pleasure for work. To undertake a project, you need not forego pleasure. People tend to work long hours with no time for fun. It might become demoralizing sometimes. To avoid these problems, you must mix fun with your work and begin enjoying your work. Ensure that all your leisure activities are well placed in your routine. Exceptional performers tend to take vacation quite often and work shorter hours than others. You will be more focused and attentive if you have a limited work time. Program your brain in such a way that it should pine for work.
Reward yourself for your achievements. Divide your task into sub-tasks that can be completed in a short frame of time. Choose a reward for yourself after completing each sub-task. Most often, you will work for more than the specified time limit and sub-task. The presence of a reward lures you into working more effectively. You attention is drifted from the difficulty of completion of the work to finishing the task for the reward. Enjoy your rewards and repeat the same exercise until you reach your destination. Procrastination is the result of stress or pain associated with a task. Reduce pain and associate pleasure with the task to move forward with a positive attitude.
First, understand that you are not compelled to do things. Recollect all the situations in life when you do not procrastinate. Reading your favorite novel, watching the scam report on the television and playing tennis in the weekend are some examples. You never miss these activities because you want to do them. Your mind is not under the impression that you are compelled to do them. So, replace your compulsion of "have-to" with willingness of "want-to". Do not compel yourself to do a task; just build the interest to do the task.
Never get troubled by the magnitude of the task. The bigger it is, there are more chances for a task to get postponed. You plan to finish a task even before you begin it. If you do not know how to complete the task, the pressure mounts. Hence, break the task into pieces and start with a small piece instead of trying to finish the entire thing. Focus on what you can do immediately. By doing so a good number of times, you will reach the final piece of the task and finish it with ease. Remember the fact that you tend to get perfect through practice. Likewise, stress gets associated with the task and you will start avoiding the task if you do not practice it with concentration. It is always better to complete a job than to delay it for want of perfection in the first instance. As a writer, you can begin with a rough draft. You can always revise it later to attain the desired state of perfection.
Avoid the habit of sacrificing pleasure for work. To undertake a project, you need not forego pleasure. People tend to work long hours with no time for fun. It might become demoralizing sometimes. To avoid these problems, you must mix fun with your work and begin enjoying your work. Ensure that all your leisure activities are well placed in your routine. Exceptional performers tend to take vacation quite often and work shorter hours than others. You will be more focused and attentive if you have a limited work time. Program your brain in such a way that it should pine for work.
Reward yourself for your achievements. Divide your task into sub-tasks that can be completed in a short frame of time. Choose a reward for yourself after completing each sub-task. Most often, you will work for more than the specified time limit and sub-task. The presence of a reward lures you into working more effectively. You attention is drifted from the difficulty of completion of the work to finishing the task for the reward. Enjoy your rewards and repeat the same exercise until you reach your destination. Procrastination is the result of stress or pain associated with a task. Reduce pain and associate pleasure with the task to move forward with a positive attitude.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)