According to a number of clever studies that were discussed in the January 22nd Print Edition of the Economist it just might.

In each of three studies conducted by a team led by Sean McCrea of the University of Konstanz, in Germany, researchers found that groups that were asked to perform concrete tasks and to provide specific information tended quite significantly to respond within the allotted time whereas groups that were given tasks where the answers were not as defined and which required more abstract rather than linear reasoning skills tended to respond after the proscribed time frame or to not respond at all.

While on one level these results are not suprising I think it is important not to draw too many conclusions from this sort of seriously limited study.  For one thing studies such as this suffer quite significantly from the fact that the researchers have little control over many hundreds of extraneous factors that can influence the results of their research.

Further it is important to be certain that what they are seeing is truly a cause and effect relationship between the type of task each participant was asked to perform and the way in which the participant responded.  How, do the researchers know, for example, that there isn’t someone within the group that is self medicating with procrastination induced fear rather then because of some abstract question they were asked to answer?

While I am reasonably sure that the conclusions of the study point towards a relationship between abstract thought and procrastination in some people I suspect that this is only a very small part of the complete picture.  A lot more research in this area is needed before any valid conclusions can be drawn in my opinion - after all- it may be that procrastination is more likely to cause abstract thinking than to be caused by it; just ask anyone that knows me well.  They’ll tell you…

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Back in college I, like so many students, took an introductory psychology course.  Unlike most students, however, I still remember exactly what the professor said first in the first lecture of that course.  He said:

“Psychology is unique amongst the sciences for one particular reason.  That which we strive to comprehend - the brain, and that which we use to comprehend it - the brain, are of equal complexity.”

Perhaps to other students this revelation was less insightful or more stupefying or perhaps I was the only one in the hall insufficiently hungover to have failed to grasp what was said, but regardless of the reason, this simple opening statement made an indelible impression upon my brain such that two decades later I can conjure up in my minds eye nearly every detail imaginable about this moment in time.  I may never know why those words said at that precise moment had such an impact on me, but for the first time I have a clearer idea of what was happening in my head to make such a recollection possible.

That is the beauty of John Medina’s Brain Rules, a work of such scope and clarity that I believe you’ll feel, as I do now, that for the first time ever I’ve had a glimpse into the inner workings of my own mind and gained a new level of understanding for much of what is happening inside my thick skull.  Even for those of us that don’t have a science background this work is exceptionally accessible.  Medina brushes aside the typically incomprehensible words and the dozens of insider acronyms common to the language of neurologists, molecular biologists and other learned individuals with lots of letters after their names.  Medina synthesizes the jargon and the science and brings it down to a level where it is understandable to the layman.  More importantly, from this information he distills  practical concepts that can be put to use to help us maximize our individual intellectual capabilities.

To say I enjoyed this book is to put it mildly.  The truth is that I lost all feeling in both feet I was so wrapped up in reading I didn’t notice that the way I was seated was cutting off the circulation to my lower extremities for the better part of 200 pages!  (which I am certain will form an indelible memory of its own)

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As an editor, one of my great pleasures of my work is getting the opportunity to work with other writers.  It’s even better when I get to introduce a fellow author to an audience that I am confident will find the new author’s work to be interesting, informative, useful and sometimes of profound personal relevance.  Such is the case with the author I’m introducing here today.  Please meet GTDtimes’ newest contributor Michael Gorsline, M.A.

Michael has spent the last 15 years helping parents, children and individuals make life more rewarding. He holds a masters degree in counseling psychology, and has a private practice called Enjoy Parenting Again, where he’s a Parent Coach and Child and Family Therapist. Beyond practicing parent coaching and family therapy, he assists parents and other clients in reducing stressor spillover from areas such as work, bill paying, and household management into the parts of their lives they enjoy most; their relationships and their passions. It goes without saying that road-tested GTD skills are what he draws on most frequently in this work. He is an avid reader in the areas of neuroscience and cognitive psychology. Michael also does frequent speaking engagements, and is an avid blogger at Awareness  Connection. He lives with his wife and daughter in Portland, Oregon.

Michael will be writing primarily about the cognitive aspects of GTD as well as the ways in which the application of GTD principals can help families to work together more effectively, accomplish more in less time,  and as a result find more time to do the things they enjoy most of all.  I am pleased to welcome Michael to our distinguished list of GTDtimes contributors and hope that you’ll join me in welcoming Michael on board.  Be sure to check out his inaugural post: Life’s Second Task which will be posted to the site shortly.

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We all feel shy at times.  Some of us find groups intimidating, others feel self conscious one on one, still others can’t stand to be the focus of attention for fear that people will see something wrong with them.  The truth is that everyone has insecurities and everyone has faults.  While we’re busy worrying that everyone else is secretly noticing how badly we suck at something, chances are they are really worrying about everyone noticing how badly they suck at exactly the same thing.  For all but the truly exceptionally self-assurred among us a few tips on how to feel less shy would probably come in very handy.

If you agree, check out  ThinkSImpleNow.com .  They got as a great article on how to overcome shyness as well as a ton of other content that will lift your spirits, improve your self esteem and help you remember that everyone is unique and special and also that we’re all just human. I’ll be that our two resident cognitive scientists, Jennifer George and Lynn O’Connor have even more helpful tools and enlightened commentary on shyness and how to fight it.  Perhaps one of them will weigh in on this post?

As a bonus you might want to check out another article from  ThinkSImpleNow.com that covers all the stuff we collect and some helpful methods for getting it under control.  Do you have any tips on decluttering your life that you’d like to share?  Please do in the comments.

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This came in from one of our contributors, Dr. Lynn O’Connor.

I’m one of those unfortunate people who loves trying out new software for my GTD system. So far, I’ve always gone back to the online, tried and true, Vitalist (www.vitalist.com ) for contexts/next action lists (projects too if needed).  But that hasn’t stopped me from doing that experimenting or “tweaking” as some optimists call the time I waste fooling around with new organization/GTD programs. I’ve made this lame excuse: “Every time I enter my next action data into a new program it allows me to review everything in greater detail than I do in a weekly review.” That was as far as I got in explaining my sneaky kind of procrastination behavior. It began to feel even shameful to wile away a whole afternoon exploring some new program.

I felt a lot better about my “try new software”  habit when I read a report from the latest issue of Neuron, as described in New Scientist. In an experiment, researchers demonstrated that our love of adventure and novel objects, is based upon our hard wiring, we could say on our basic nature.  It seems that every time we explore, investigate, try out or learn something new, the reward center of our brain starts firing, much as it would if we were expecting to win a lottery, a card game, a horse race  or any kind of competition. My guess is trying out new GTD software is yet another way I flood my restless brain with dopamine.

This fact about how we’re naturally wired is long known in business and advertising. It’s why companies may put out a product with absolutely no changes, except for the packaging. People buy the new, even if it is more expensive and less convenient. We all fall for something novel. So now, maybe I can get off my case about trying out every new GTD program.

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