Meditation is in the news these days. Oprah meditates. So whats the big deal?

Because it helps you do a whole lot better with your life. The pressure is driving us all nuts.  So where do we go for answers?

Here are 5 reasons why meditation classes are a good idea.

Mind Mapping for Problem Solving and more

I just put up a great little video on how to do mindmapping. 

The gist of it is Mindmapping is a great tool for Problem Solving. It uses the brain the way it is designed to work. Traditional linear noting does not use the full potential of the brain. Mind maps use the brain's ability to handle colours and shapes, which is why the technique works so well. Discover how to do mindmapping with this short video from Richard Broome.

Creativity, routine work and abstract thinking skills

My friend Brian just sent me a story about the Blackbird SR 71 jet. I once sat next to a Blackbird pilot on the bus coming home from Oshkosh Airventure - the world's greatest airshow. So when I opened my email I could relate to what Brian Shul, another Blackbird pilot, had to say. Here it is:

One moonless night, while flying a routine training mission over the Pacific, I wondered what the sky would look like from 84,000 feet if the cockpit lighting were dark. While heading home on a straight course, I slowly turned down all of the lighting, reducing the glare and revealing the night sky. Within seconds, I turned the lights back up, fearful that the jet would know and somehow punish me. But my desire to see the sky overruled my caution, I dimmed the lighting again.

To my amazement, I saw a bright light outside my window. As my eyes adjusted to the view, I realized that the brilliance was the broad expanse of the Milky Way, now a gleaming stripe across the sky. Where dark spaces in the sky had usually existed, there were now dense clusters of sparkling stars. stars flashed across the canvas every few seconds. It was like a fireworks display with no sound.

I knew I had to get my eyes back on the instruments, and reluctantly I brought my attention back inside. To my surprise, with the cockpit lighting still off, I could see every gauge, lit by starlight. In the plane's mirrors, I could see the eerie shine of my gold spacesuit incandescently illuminated in a celestial glow. I stole one last glance out the window. Despite our speed, we seemed still before the heavens, humbled in the radiance of a much greater power. For those few moments, I felt a part of something far more significant than anything we were doing in the plane. The sharp sound of Walt's voice on the radio brought me back to the tasks at hand as I prepared for our descent.

I had a very similar experience in the cockpit of a B707 many years ago over Africa in the middle of the night. I was in the First Officer's seat and the captain was doing crossword puzzles. I looked outside and saw the glory of creation before me. There was St Elmo's fire twinkling on the windscreen wipers and radiating out from the bulbous nose of the plane. Cumulus clouds of the inter-tropic convergence zone were towering above us - right up to about 45 00 feet, and they were illuminated like flickering fluorescent lamps with almost continuous lightning discharges. The sky was like black velvet with millions of laser pointed stars spiking through it. I was awestruck in that timeless moment. I beckoned to the Captain. He looked up but he didn't see it at all. There was a kind of skin on his eyes - like the nictitating membrane that protects some birds' eyes. And that was the moment I decided that airline flying was not for me. If that was where I was going - to be so dulled by routine that I would no longer see ...

A wise man once warned me about the dangers of routine work. Its efficient but it extracts a price. That price is the dulling of creativity. Fortunately we have ways of avoiding this fate. We need to take our awareness daily to the field of the transcendent - to stop time and experience pure abstraction. This blesses, refreshes and glorifies the boundaries of time and space we choose to live in.

And improves our health.

WRITE STUFF FOR A LIVING? DO YOU PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH?

HERE'S A GREAT TOOL TO HELP YOUR WRITING

Which paragraph is easier to read?

1. The ability to write clearly and effectively is a critical professional skill. This program will assist participants to plan, organise and structure their writing to achieve better results with written communications. Through the practical application of writing and editing skills, participants will learn to write documents that are reader-oriented and communicate clearly and effectively.

Now try this one:

2. Clear and effective writing is a top professional skill. This program will help you to plan and structure your writing to get better results. You will learn the skills needed to write and edit papers that are oriented to the reader and get your message across clearly.

Para 1 is from a popular two-day course: Business Writing Skills

Gunning Fog index 18.7. 18 years of education needed to figure out the meaning on first pass.

The second says the same in about half the words - Fog Index is 8.8. Much easier!

I would not sign up for that course!!!

In the Thinking Skills workshop I try to practice what I preach. For instance, go here for a superb tool to calculate the fog index of your latest masterpiece.

Improve your business writing. Join us!

Perth 20-22 April

Joburg 8-10 June.

Cheers

Richard

Are your kids top of their class??

Some of my friends have been bugging me for a session to boost their childrens' school results. We don't do this much but if it would help you we'll run Friday 19th and also Sat 20th March. Its a long weekend, so it may suit you.

2 PowerLearning courses for Teens

For those who would like to have 4 hours of intensive coaching for their teenagers with Richard. They desperately need to know:

* How to study

* how to concentrate

* How to remember

* Tips on Tony Buzan's Mind Mapping®, dumping, exam planning, how to meditate and much more!

A seriously cool and fun session. Typical feedback is: "I actually learned a lot!."

Venue: Houghton TM Centre. Map here

Date: Either Friday 19 March 3 - 7 pm.

OR Saturday 20 March 9 am - 1 pm.

Cost: R597 inc VAT. R47 discount for cash

Call 01 483 0685 - leave a voicemail

Nine Best Time Management Tips

The holidays are behind us and 2011 is almost done. How many projects have we started and how many will we finish? Julie Morgenstern, author of Time Management inside out opines the best way to get organised is to channge your perception of time-and I agree.

Here are a few things that work for me:

1. Never start the day without a plan on paper.
2. Chunk related tasks together.
3. Try to do your routine, mindless tasks after lunch when creativity is lower than in mid-morning.
4. When working with telephone calls always have a call list and work the numbers say six calls per hour and just do it.
5. Try to keep your e-mail answering to 3 short sessions, say first thing, then half an hour after lunch and just before closing.
6. Try not to work on computers after eight o'clock at night.
7. Practice Transcendental Meditation, it keeps your brain waves orderly and you're thinking coherent.
8. Learn to say “no.”
9. Try to find good assistance—I know of the existence of VWorker and other online services, but use them very little. Except that I do my programming in Bangalore. So there are many writers that rave about outsourcing everything. You have to be quite clever to do this but it works.

Your Best Time Management Tip

The hols are well behind us and the year is underway. So many projects started! How many will we finish? So I was interested to get news of a time-management approach by Julie Morgenstern, author of Time Management Inside Out. She opines the single most important way of organising your life is to change your perception of time. And I agree.

So I want to share with you the most important single time management idea I ever received. Get yourself a shorthand notebook. The one with a line down the middle. Head one side of the page "TO DO" and the other "TO CALL." Jot your tasks in. Use colour. Prioritise. And be about your goals! Here is a pic for you. Sometimes the list is preceded by a mindmap - mind maps help me see the bigger picture.

Work out your own way to prioritise - I like using bullets. Bigger means more important. Fill according to urgency. This way things that start out important but not urgent have big empty circles which get filled in as the deadline approaches. Try it - its fun!

All the most successful people I ever met are terrific list-makers.

And here is the gang from the December

Thinking Skills session in Houghton, South Africa. Hi all!

Our next session is next Tuesday, and, yes, there are a few seats open. Click HERE for info.

Later this year the programme is Perth 20-22 April, Houghton 8-10 June, and 14-16 Sep. Perth 26-28 Oct and and Houghton 7-9 Dec.