How to Think More Effectively: A guide to greater productivity, insight and creativity (Work series)

It’s easy to say vague things: we mention that something is lovely or terrible, nice or annoying. But we don’t really explore why we feel this way.

Being a good listener is one of the most important and enchanting life skills anyone can have.

For the sceptics, understanding that we may be repeatedly hoodwinked by our own minds is the start of the only type of intelligence of which we are ever capable; just as we are never as foolish as when we fail to suspect we might be so.

We should accept that our brains are strange, delicate instruments that evade our direct commands and are perplexingly talented at warding off the very ideas that might save us or help us flourish.

about…’ The good listener (paradoxically) is a skilled interrupter. But they don’t interrupt to intrude their own ideas; they interrupt to help the other get back to their original, more sincere, yet elusive concerns.

Moralistic thinkers reach their certainties swiftly; love thinkers take their time. They remain serene in the face of obviously unimpressive behaviour:

There may not be an immediate solution to many of our sorrows, but it helps immeasurably to know their contours.

Yet envy, while uncomfortable, provides us with a message from confused but important parts of our personality about what we should be doing.

In every case, we prefer to zero in on the mechanics, on the means and the tools rather than on the guiding question of ends. We are almost allergic to the large first-order enquiries: what are we ultimately trying to do here? What would best serve our happiness? Why should we bother? How is this aligned with real value?