Conquer Overthinking in Decisions

Can't make a decision? Got a major problem at work you need to solve? When critical matters weigh heavily, many folks tend to overthink, Ap Dijksterhuis at the University of Amsterdam discovered. Thinking hard about a complex decision, that rests on multiple factors, can bamboozle the conscious mind and lead to final choices that aren't satisfactory.

Joanna Young requested some tips to get past overthinking. Here's how to launch...

1. Trust your instincts - You're more likely to perform well if you do not think too hard and just trust your intuition. Snap decisions are more reliable in many cases, according to a University College London study, than decisions made using higher-level cognitive processes.

Dr Li Zhaoping, of the UCL Department of Psychology, said: "This finding seems counter-intuitive. You would expect people to make more accurate decisions when given the time to look properly. Instead they performed better when given almost no time to think. The conscious or top-level function of the brain, when active, vetoes our initial subconscious decision -- even when it is correct -- leaving us unaware or distrustful of our instincts and at an immediate disadvantage. Falling back on our inbuilt, involuntary subconscious processes for certain tasks is actually more effective than using our higher-level cognitive functions."

If you've ever second guessed yourself on a test, you'll see the wisdom in this.

2. Keep expectations in mind - Know what's expected and what you want to see or what your company expects as a result. Your target is clear then.

3. Ask a two-footed question A two-footed question, links your personal interests to the best car to buy or which new hire candidate will best do the job, leads to more satisfactory results. And if you want to engage more of your mind in the whole decision, ask the question when you put your head on the pillow at night. The question directs your mind during sleep.

4. Sleep on it -- while you're sleeping, your unconscious mind appears able to ponder all the information and produce a decision that most people remain satisfied with. You'll awake with the best choice...and it will be apparent.

If you've tended to get bogged down in decision making, why not give these a try?

Right Side of Blogging Brains - The W-List

Seems we need both the right brain and left brain mix in the blogosphere. Though we humans obviously have both, gals tend to show more of the right brain qualities - intuitive, holistic, concrete, analogic, nonverbal nontemporal, nonrational, spatial and synthetic. In this light, many gals want to see even more visibility in the blogosphere to make a truly whole rountable.

Valeria Maltoni at Conversation Agent shared the list of Women’s PR blogs that was originally pulled from ToddAnd ’s list by Kami Huyse at Communications Overtones.

Valeria's bright idea was to start a W-List to help us all discover great blogs authored by women...the kind with high quality.

Liz Strauss from Successful blog is in search for Outstanding Women Bloggers. I'm honored that Liz Strauss added me to the list! She wanted each of us to add names of quality women bloggers. Cat added a few from the field of art and design so I've included her additions to Liz's list.

Here're my additions...

Confident Writing by Joanna Young
Priscilla Palmer: Personal Development Demands Success by Priscilla Palmer
Customers Are Always by Maria Palma

Here's the W-List as compiled by Liz Strauss and Cat with my additions:

45 Things by Anita Bruzzese
A Look at Art & Design: Lisa Mikulski
angiemckaig.com: still a great pair of legs Angie McKaig
Ask Dr. Kirk
The Artsy Asylum by Susan Reynolds
Back in Skinny Jeans by Stephanie Quilao
BlogWrite for CEOs Debbie Weil
Biz Growth News by Krishna De
Brain Based Biz by Dr. Robyn McMaster
Brain Based Business by Dr. Ellen Weber
Brand Sizzle Anne Simons
Branding & Marketing Chris Brown
Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk
Build a Solo Practice, LLC by Susan Cartier Liebel
Christine Kane by Christine Kane
CK’s Blog CK (Christina Kerley)
Communication Overtones Kami Huyse
Confident Writing by Joanna Young
Conscious Business by Anne Libby
Conversation Agent Valeria Maltoni
Corporate PR Elizabeth Albrycht
Customers Are Always by Maria Palma
Customers Rock! Becky Carroll
CustServ by Meikah David
Creative Curio by Lauren Marie
Debbie Millman by Debbie Millman
Deborah Schultz by Deborah Schultz
Designers Who Blog by Cat Morley
Design Your Life Ellen and Julia Lupton, identical twins
Design Your Writing Life by Lisa Gates
Diary of Claudine Hellmuth Claudine Hellmuth
Diva Marketing Blog Toby Bloomberg
Do It Myself Blog by Glenda Watson Hyatt
Dooce by Heather B. Armstrong
Email Marketing Best Practices Tamara Gielen
Emily Chang - Strategic Designer Emily Chang
Enter the Laughter by Marti Lawrence
Escape Blog by Melissa Petri
Escape from Cubicle Nation by Pamela Slim
eSoup by Sharon Sarmiento
Essential Keystrokes by Char
Every Dot Connects by Connie Reece
Fish Creek House by GP
Flooring The Consumer CB Whittemore
Forrester’s Marketing Blog Shar, Charlene, Chloe, Christine Elana, Laura and Lisa
Franke James by Franke James
Get Fresh Minds by Katie Konrath
Great Presentations Mean Business by Laura Athavale Fitton
Hey Marci by Marci Alboher
Get Shouty by Katie Chatfield
ifelse by Phu Ly
Illustration Friday Penelope Dullaghan
Inspired Business Growth by Wendy Piersall
J.T. O’Donnell Career Insights by J.T. O’Donnell
Joyful, Jubilant Learning by Rosa Say
Kinetic Ideas Wendy Maynard
Learned on Women by Andrea Learned
Lindsay Pollak by Lindsay Polla
Liz Strauss at Successful Blog by Liz Strauss
Lorelle on WordPress by Lorelle VanFossen
Making Life Work for You by April Groves
Manage to Change by Ann Michael
Management Craft by Lisa Haneberg
Mandarin Design Daily:The MEG Blog Michelle Goodrich
Marketing Roadmaps Susan Getgood
Moda di Magno by Lori Magno
Modite by Rebecca Thorman
molly.com Molly E. Holzschlag
Narrative Assets by Karen Hegman
Netdiver Carole Guevin
On My Desk Linzie Hunter
Presto Vivace Blog Alice Marshall
Priscilla Palmer: Personal Development Demands Success by Priscilla Palmer
Productivity Goal by Carolyn Manning
Purse Lip Square Jaw Anne Galloway
Small Biz Survival by Becky McCray
Small Failures: Sustainability for the Rest of Us Jess Sand
swissmiss Tina Roth Eisenberg
The Brand Dame by Lyn Chamberlin
this is rachelandrew.co.uk Rachel Andrew
Sheriar Designs Mani Sheriar
Spare Change Nedra Kline Weinreich
Talk It Up Heidi Miller
Tech Kitten by Trisha Miller
The Copywriting Maven Roberta Rosenberg
The Blog Angel by Claire Raikes
The Engaging Brand by Anna Farmery
The Floozy Blog by Kate Coote
The Kiss Business Too by Karin H.
The Origin of Brands Laura Ries
The Parody by Sasha Manuel
The Podcast Sisters by Krishna De, Anna Farmery and Heather Gorringe
Veerle’s blog 2.0 Veerle
Water Cooler Wisdom by Alexandra Levit
Wealth Strategy Secrets by Nicola Cairncross
What’s Next Blog B L Ochman
That’s What She Said by Julie Elgar
Ypulse by Anastasia Goodstein

To find fresh voices with amazing ideas for us all let's get to know a few more quality women bloggers and make the most of both sides of the brain in our roundtable conversations!

Men Don't Think - Women Think Too Much?

When you think about thinkers does Roudin's sculpture of The Thinker come to mind? Traditionally men, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, signified the field of philosophy, the art of reflecting on the world through logic. But what's the other side of that, when men don't think and women think too much or vise versa?

Alvaro at Sharp Brains posted Top Ten Tips for Women Who Lead Men in response to Ellen Weber's challenge for a man to show the other view of her post Top Ten Tips for Men Who Lead Women. His list, especially tip number 2, piqued my curiosity...

"Don’t think too much-we don’t. If we do, we try to find ways to self-talk us out of that uncomfortable state."

Hmmm... What pops into your head? Here's the scene I see... the Cortisol Crank boss at work comes in and takes everyone's head off! He did and said that without thinking, People who work for him are really stressed and yes, emotions taxed. But in some cases, emotions can run rampant...

Interestingly University of Michigan reasearcher, Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, dug into Women Overthink and uncovered fascinating findings...

1. Overthinking is a national epidemic among young and middle aged adults but is relatively rare among older adults: 73 percent of 25-35 year-olds overthink compared to 52 percent of 45-55 year-olds and just 20 percent of 65-75 year-olds.

2. Women are significantly more likely than men to fall into overthinking and to be immobilized by it: 57 percent of women and 43 percent of men are overthinkers.

If overthinking is bad for us why do we fall into the trap of doing it? Nolen-Hoeksema shows why...

The organization of our brain sets us up for overthinking. The thoughts and memories stored in our brains don't sit there in isolation; they are woven together in intricate networks of associations.

When you are in a bad mood of some type—depressed, anxious, just altogether upset—your bad mood tends to trigger a cascade of thoughts associated with your mood. These thoughts may have nothing to do with the incident that put you into a bad mood in the first place, as when a poor job performance causes you to think about your aunt who died last year.

Men and women do think differently, where the anatomy of the brain is concerned. Men think more with their gray matter and women with white matter... Here's why... men have nearly 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, whereas women have 10 times the white matter realted to intelligence according to University of California research. Their findings suggest that there're two different types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior by pinpointing these gender-based intelligence areas. Here's how they're different...

In human brains, gray matter represents information processing centers, whereas white matter works to network these processing centers. Men and women typically excel at different types of tasks. For example, men tend to do better with tasks requiring more localized processing, such as mathematics, while women are better at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions of the brain, which aids language skills. So you see why men are more apt to tunnel down into logic and women see more how ideas relate.

Now if the boss could tame his flaring temper and the senior assistant could reign in emotional tsunami's, what's left in the soup?

Wink, Wink!

Pamela found a new passion in life, a very Southern one: sitting on the back porch, rocking the day away. With the two ceiling fans, the face-melting heat is manageable. Lately, to respect her wishes, we do whatever lessons we can outdoors. We both find it a peaceful place to learn.

Yesterday, we were reading the speech therapy script ala the Association Method. To make sure she is listening, I will occasionally say the wrong word and she finds it funny. Pamela turned the tables on me by winking as if to tell me nonverbally, "Make a mistake, Mom, because I like it when you are silly." Of course, I played a long and thought of some whoppers to put in the story.

Today's story for speech therapy involved a lamb and a blind girl. Pamela did a wonderful job of connecting the story to her memory of lambs and blind people. Then, when we headed over to my parents house, I noticed her carrying something with her. She had rummaged through her toys in her room and pulled out this sheep to take with her!

What Are You Doing?

You might be asking that about the Glasers. . . The computer is dead for good, and the Geek Squad was unable to perform the hoped-for miracle. Yesterday, we took advantage of South Carolina's Sales Tax Holiday in which school supplies are exempt from sales tax. We were delighted to discover that computers are on the list of approved items and purchased a new Dell Inspiron 1720, which is due on or about August 21. I plan to get my blogs back on track once we adjust to Vista.

I have one exciting story to share about Pamela. Last Saturday, Steve and Pamela went to Charleston (I had a prior commitment and could not go). They ran errands, ate a nice lunch, and were heading home when Steve stopped to gas up the car. He peeked in the window of the car and spotted Pamela nonchalantly making a phone call. She has never called someone on her own initiative. In fact, prior to starting RDI last March, I could barely get her to sit through, "Hi", two answers, and "Good-bye". In the past couple of months, she has gradually improving in having phone conversations.

Who was Pamela calling? Me! I picked up the phone and heard, "What are you doing?" So, I told her that I had gone to a meeting with Oma and was answering email. Then, I asked her what she was doing, and she told me the events of her day! She did not ask me what was for dinner, nor did Pamela have an ulterior motive in mind. She called simply to call and share her day!

For gentle readers without an autistic child to brighten their lives, that was a WOW moment worthy of Snoopy dancing and deep pressure hugs!

Bloggers' Multiple Intelligences Sizzle!

What are you doing with your talents as you blog? When you engage your multiple intelligences to achieve your targets, you'll engage creativity with zest. Here're bloggers who sizzle by tapping their gifts...

Naturalistic Intelligence Sara Noel shares the pure pleasures of birding. Discover the pleasure and benefits it brings to family...

Birdwatching is a frugal activity that can be a great way to connect with your family. It’s fun and builds values of appreciation and respect for nature. It’s more than simply watching birds. Birdwatching can include learning or knowing bird names and their category, range of habitat, activities, field markings, patterns, and songs too.

Interpersonal Intelligence Here's a great way to bring more laughter to your life - Laughter Clubs. Joey Guse, a former comedian, turned psychotherapist zeroes in on belly laughs as benefits! He describes his initial experience at a Laughter Club...

I left that day a true believer in the power of the laughter club, and plan to return often whenever I feel I am in need of an energizing workout, as the exercise I got that day was more than I had gotten in months. That whole next week I thought about what I had seen and done that day, and often found myself chuckling for no reason at all thinking of some silly little thing I had remembered. My experience that day had left me wanting more, and I was now reawakened to the everyday silliness of life that exists everywhere if we just take a little time to recognize it. I promised myself I would never again be "too busy" to see it, and penciled in the time slot at the laughter club as a new weekly activity.

Hey, how about starting a chapter if there's not one near you!

Bodily-kinesthetic Intelligence Bob Hruzek shares a unique story about walking to exercise and muse and to tell you the truth, I'm impressed that he does 12.5 minutes a mile. That's a target I want to hit this summer! But, one day while Bob mused during his walk, he heard a tinkling sound. This is an hilarious read and I'll include just a bit to entice you to see what happens...

Gradually, the sound got louder and louder, still sounding exactly like a small tinkling bell. It slowly got louder. I kept walking. It got even louder. Now I’m starting to wonder what the heck it was, but I didn’t want to break my pace to turn around and look. Louder. Ah, I knew what it was now – a set of tags from some jogger’s dog (a jogdog? Er, sorry.)

Well, whatever it was, it would pass me within a few minutes; by now I could hardly wait to see what the dog looked like. I pictured in my mind a German shepherd, or possibly a Beagle (both of which I’d seen before on other mornings).

I need insprations like 12.5 minutes per mile and fun encounters to pick up my speed, Bob!...

Spatial Intelligence The Artful Life blog shows why Flickr can add some sizzle to your blog. Want inspiration? Check out amazing images in Flickr groups that'll inspire you. Here's two to start...

The collage group

art studio groups

Musical Intelligence Would you believe that Steve Roesler attended Chubby Checker's wedding and that he was Duke of Doo-Wop? Steve sang doo-wop on the streets of Philly in the 60's. Take time to listen... dukesofdoowop.mp3. All Things Workplace is a great site for smart leaders and managers to find practical ways to be extraordinary! Steve, do you build on music as you help folks discover practical ways to be extraordinary? Just curious...

Logical-Mathematical Intelligence Counting how much sleep you get? If you're not getting enough, you could be depriving your brain... Ellen Weber tells how the number of zzzz's nightly impacts your ability to "Connect the Dots" at work!

Interpersonal Intelligence Ever considered interviewing an expert for your blog? One of the ways we grow smarter is to ask other folks questions that'll bring out their best. Then you'll get the chance to share their wisdom with your readers. Phil Gerbyshank's recent interview with Penelope Trunk shows how he zeroed in on his blogging interests to learn more. Penelope's recent book, Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success

blows up many of the old thoughts for success and turns today's new workforce thinking on its ear. She's been through a LOT of change in her life, and has some amazing ideas we can all use to improve our lives and make it great.

How might interviews build more community and added value to your blog?

Verbal Linguistic What would it take to build a better blog? Darren Rowse advises bloggers to review their "About Me" text. Just think...

One of the key pages on a blog is the about page. This page is often used by new readers to a blog to gather information about you and your blog and based upon what they find on this page they could be making a decision as to whether they’ll subscribe to your blog or not.

As a result, your About Page is a key conversion page on your blog and it therefore needs to be reworked regularly.

Have you reviewed yours since you created your blog? If not, Darren's post offers tips to update plus a link describing exactly what to include. You'll find a major toolbox to build a better blog in the next 31 days in ProBlogger's new series!

Are you moving your talents in blogging? If not, you're wasting a valuable resource that helps distinguish your site. Ellen Weber shows how new solutions can come through your multiple intelligences...

Throughout the process of simply doing something you have not done, you begin to use and grow your stronger gifts creatively. It’s actually quite simple.

Why not approach your blog by tapping into a "smart" you've neglected? Check out Ellen's tactics! Don't waste your gifts and stagnate.

Intuition's Unwieldy!

Had any experiences when you realized first impressions were way off target? David G. Myers concludes that "while intuition can provide us with useful—and often amazing—insights, it can also dangerously mislead us." Here's just one example...

In July 2002, a Russian airliner's computer-guidance system instructed its pilot to ascend as another jet approached in the sky over Switzerland. At the same time, a Swiss air-traffic controller—whose computerized system was down—offered a human judgment: descend. Faced with conflicting advice, the pilot's intuitive response was to trust another human's intuition. Tragically, the two planes collided midair, killing everyone onboard.

And there's even more to this... Consider former President, Warren Harding, a man extraordinarily handsome and distinguished looking. People's appearance, their size or shape or color or sex, can trigger powerful associations, according to Malcom Gladwell author of Blink. Stereotyping, then, can shape first impressions. Not too surprisingly, Harding's looks led many to believe he was a man of integrity, intelligence and courage. Gladwell claims, "The way he looked carried so many powerful connotations that it stopped the normal process of thinking dead in its tracks." Could that enter in to your decisions about a new hire? Let's take this one step further since it greatly affects your intuitions...

Psychologists have developed IAT [Implicit Association Tests] to determine how past associations stored in the unconscious affect our beliefs and behavior. We sort out connections faster that're already stored in our brain than those new and unfamiliar. Speed is key. Here's how it works... "When there's a strong prior association, people answer in between four hundred and six hundred milliseconds," test developers discovered. "When there isn't, they might take two hundred to three hundred milliseconds longer than that -- which in the realm of these kinds of effects is huge."

For example, most of us think we are not racist, but is that really true? Try a demonstration IAT at the Harvard University Research site and see how you fare. Malcom Gladwell, author of Blink concludes that "our unconscious attitudes may be utterly incompatible with our stated conscious values." Would you agree?

Now you can see why you need the logical side of your brain, the left brain, to help you sort out your "gut feelings." That’s where the left brain organizer steps in. You could see it as a mental master of sorts – equipped to corral and tame.

Leaders' left brains help them analyze, judge, organize and choose between one good and another.

After all you might miss hiring that once in a lifetime "genius" for your position if past associations wrongly influence you.

"I'm a great believer in the power of using intuition as a powerful analysis tool and support to decision making," Dean Bennett commented in Question Train for Brain and Mind. "In this context I am interested in your thoughts on developing and actively using our intuition." Now you can see why it's necessary for leaders to consider the logic, too.

I think we might conclude then, Dean, that intuition's unwieldy since past associations influence it. Managers might want to include logic in decision making for best results. Pays to look deeper... Agree?

How does intuition affect your choices as you manage? I'd like to hear from your experiences...