Posts filled under:Stress

How to use exercise to boost focus, upgrade willpower & enhance your memory

(3.5 minute read) Many of us know that exercise is an effective way to improve cognitive performance, but the next obvious questions are “why, what type, how hard, and for how long?”. Read on to find out why exercise provides […]

3 powerful ways that conflict can improve your team performance

(4 minute read) Two colleagues, screaming at each other across the conference room, are unlikely to generate good professional or personal outcomes. However, in certain conditions, conflict can improve decision making, energise employees and enhance team performance. Read on to […]

The Unpalatable Truth About A Balanced Life

(3.5 minute read) Many of us aspire to lead a ‘balanced life’, but do you know anyone who has achieved it? Personally, I’ve given up. I think it may be time to abandon the premises of ‘balance’. I don’t profess […]

Why Are Entrepreneurs & High Performers At Greater Risk Of Burnout?

Why are entrepreneurs, founders and, in fact, high-performers in general, at greater risk of burnout? Perhaps more importantly, what can we do about it? Entrepreneurship (if you’re successful), or even reaching a senior position as a high-performer in an established […]

The Energy Scale: When Are You At Your Best?

On average, human performance can vary by around 20% during the average day, but when are we at our best? While some researchers have found that performance improves through the day; others suggest that it decreases. Some investigators describe how […]

How To Measure Recovery

Recovery is a key to sustainable high-performance in the workplace, but how can we measure and improve it? I spent many years working with endurance athletes, from amateur to professional level. Often, people would ask me what differentiated the top […]

Knowledge Work Is An Endurance Activity

Have you ever thought about planning your effort, and the type and timing of your cognitive activities, to optimise your wellbeing and performance? As life expectancy increases, and retirement age is delayed, maintaining and even enhancing performance, over the long-haul, […]

Punctuating The Digital Age

We are accelerating into the age of ‘connected everything’. There are almost three million apps in one of the world’s leading app stores, many of us check our smart-phones once every 6 minutes and most of us carry our digital […]

Podcast: Avoiding Cognitive ‘Middle Gear’

Think about your average day. Do you feel time pressure? How complex are your tasks? How often do you switch between tasks in a given time period? These three components aggregate to describe the cognitive load of almost any activity […]

The Attention Paradox

Many human jobs are likely to be replaced in whole, or in part (1). The workplace of the future will place greater demands on our ability to focus, solve complex problems, think critically and generate creative insights (2), but does […]