Severe Trauma does NOT Lead to Mental Disorders: The Case of Child Soldiers In Africa

An article in New Scientist, May 10, 2008, written by Peter Aldhous, reports on research on the fate of children in Uganda and other African war zones, who went through horrendous experiences, such as being kidnapped and abducted, being beaten, taken from their families, and forced to fight, kill people and even commit atrocities. Instead being a 'lost generation" as has been predicted, many seem to reintegrate into their home environments after the immediate warfare was over. Furthermore these child soldiers seem to often turn out in better shape when compared to those who remained at home and didn't have to fight at all. They were more likely to be politically active and to function well in society in terms of being able to earn a living and being otherwise productive. This certainly casts doubt on the trauma theory of psychopathology.

But what is really the dynamic that would influence these child soldiers to do better ultimately than those who were far less traumatized? Perhaps the child soldiers who were not forced to passively watch the violence but instead actively participated, suffer from lower levels of survivor guilt. Perhaps being beaten oneself has far less effect than watching others being beaten. Perhaps being a witness to violence rather than participating in it is the trauma that leads to a psychologically poor outcome.

The report of data coming out of these extreme war situations has to have implications for the trauma theory of psychopathology.

Conducting Research: How to Write the Introduction to Your Dissertation Proposal

A dissertation proposal (the the final dissertation) begins with the chapter titled: "Introduction". Students have asked me: "How do I write the introduction?" The question deserves an answer. Writing the introduction to a dissertation is no more magical than writing any other part of the work. While students have different styles, and professors have different demands and requirements, the opening chapter is literally what it is called, the introduction. I learned long ago that this chapter is designed to answer a simple question: "What is this study about?" I often recommend that my students use this as their opening sentence..."This study is about...." and succinctly in the first sentence, tell us, the readers, what the whole thing is about. When you are ready to do that, you are ready to write the rest of your dissertation proposal.

After stating in clear language what your study is about, a few more sentences to elaborate the opening sentence should provide the reader with the big picture. Then you are on to the rest of the introduction. I ask my students to lay out the big picture in the paragraphs following. Let me use an example. Lets take an example, and say that a student is studying levels of survivor guilt in adult children in alcoholics. The dissertation proposal begins with "This study is about levels of survivor guilt in adult children of alcoholics." Adult children of alcoholics are known to take a great deal of responsibility within their families, and some appear to have difficulties that relate to feeling overly responsible for others, and that give rise to feelings of guilt. (Here we make a few unsubstantiated statements that will be developed in detail, with numerous references to the literature in the literature review). Understanding the role of guilt in this population may contribute to our knowledge related to treatment, when treatment is needed.

From here the story is expanded greatly, and we, the readers, are told why it is important to discover this information --namely, how pervasive is this problem potentially, how many people are we talking about? How many alcoholic families are there in the United States (or Europe, or any specific country, or within any specific population, ethnicity, gender etc, depending on the focus of the study). In other words, the student lays a wider net for the story, describing the bigger issue, providing the context for the study. If the population overall has a very low rate of alcoholism, the reader wants to know that. That would tell us that not many people would be affected by whatever you find out in the study. If there is a large alcoholic population, we want to know that as it would imply there may be many people walking around with this specific problem. You go from the broad figures, demographics of alcoholism, to the more detailed picture, perhaps getting into the rates of alcoholism within sub-populations within the larger culture. How many disadvantaged people compared to how many higher socioeconomic class people suffer from alcoholism? Is this a problem that exists across class, race, ethnicity, gender? Or is it particularly relevant for sub-populations.

You might address some common myths about alcoholism and being the child of alcoholics. You don't get heavily in to the literature, except to reference perhaps a few major studies. You get all the government statistics possible, related to your study. You might give a few examples, to bring a story element to light. While you make the text meaningful, avoid any polemics or hyperbolic writing. You only get to polemicize at the end, if in fact your data, once its collected, confirms whatever hypotheses you might hold. This said, the whole introduction in a sense, is telling a big story. "Here is why I am doing this study, this is why it is important, meaningful," is what what you are saying. If there is a history to the story, a sociopolitical context, here is where we write about it. If there is a biological component to your study, you broadly describe that. You are using broad brush strokes so to speak, so by the end of the introduction the reader is into the story, and wants to find out the answer to the question that the dissertation is posing.

In the study of levels of survivor guilt in adult children of alcoholics, part of establishing the big context might involve discussing guilt in general and the history of knowledge about guilt, or excessive responsibility for others. You might get into the whole issue of dysfunctional families, families where communications are altered by the presence of alcohol or other substances; you might discuss the importance of communication in general, in creating functional family life. You might discuss family communication across cultures. You might suggest an evolutionary aspect to your topic. From telling the reader about rates of alcoholism in the nation, or in the world for that matter, in developed nations and developing nations, and in describing big issues involved, the larger context, you get us, your reader involved. This is your aim.

Towards the end of the introduction, you move in again, to the specific study, and you describe briefly what you are going to do. You might briefly describe your over all design, giving the name to the kind of research design you're using. You end the introduction by a restatement of the first question "What is this study about?" with the hopes that your reader knows a great deal more about your study, why you are doing it, what are the major issues involved, and why it is important. Hopefully, you will have your reader with you, eager to go on, and eager to find out what you discover when you collect your data.

I need to blog again

What happened to my blogging?
My blogging waned over the year, from my daily posting to at best, once a month, when I had a specific message to send to my students. I would like to recommit myself to blogging. I find it the most rewarding kind of writing and since I write everyday in numerous emails, I write academic articles and notes to students and opinion pieces on news in psychology and psychiatry, I want to (note I say "I want to" not "I will" pick up blogging again. I am not sure what discouraged me. Perhaps it was a problem presented to me by some readers "I tried to write a comment, but failed each time I tried." Rather than going in there, figuring out the problem, and fixing it, I just left it alone. After a while of no responses, even in "private" I lost interest. I have lots of readers on my various listsesrvs, why not write to them, instead of to no one, here. Well one reason is that I can write more personally here. And I can put my commitments in public, something I would not dare to do on my academic listservs.

The anti-medication frenzy needs to be analyzed
I am in a spin about the anti-psychiatry, anti-medication tear the press and even the professionals are on now. In response to one of those articles declaring that medication doesn't work, the British government decided to pour money into training 10,000 new cognitive behavioral psychotherapists. My main collaborator and statistician Jack Berry, upon hearing about this , said in his driest tone "Awfully impulsive, don't you think?" Yes I do think.

So expect an upcoming piece about the state of the medication debate (hysteria would be a more precise way of describing teh current atmosphere.

Bottom line, a new in-box called "bedroom" is screaming out for help
I may think its time to resume blogging because I have a new 'inbox" taking over a bed room. The "inbox" has turned out to be a bottle next in my GTS system. I wrote to David Allen's people to see if they might direct me. I told them to get Allen back out here to San Francisco, I need a booster shot right now. The whole point of mentioning this is I need some kind of accountability, and I am hoping that by writing about this, even if I am downplaying it, may help me deal wiht the situation. So if I do nothing but what I started doing here a year ago, I have to do at least that. Track my progress on GTD and resume getting things done.

From Dustin Wax: A Great Summary

50 Tricks to Get Things Done Faster, Better, and More Easily

We all want to get stuff done, whether it’s the work we have to do so we can get on with what we want to do, or indeed, the projects we feel are our purpose in life. To that end, here’s a collection of 50 hacks, tips, tricks, and mnemonic devices I’ve collected that can help you work better.

1. Most Important Tasks (MITs): At the start of each day (or the night before) highlight the three or four most important things you have to do in the coming day. Do them first. If you get nothing else accomplished aside from your MITs, you’ve still had a pretty productive day.
2. Big Rocks: The big projects you’re working on at any given moment. Set aside time every day or week to move your big rocks forward.
3. Inbox Zero: Decide what to do with every email you get, the moment you read it. If there’s something you need to do, either do it or add it to your todo list and delete or file the email. If it’s something you need for reference, file it. Empty your email inbox every day.
4. Wake up earlier: Add a productive hour to your day by getting up an hour earlier — before everyone else starts imposing on your time.
5. One In, One Out: Avoid clutter by adopting a replacement-only standard. Every time you but something new, you throw out or donate something old. For example, you buy a new shirt, you get rid of an old one. (Variation: One in, Two Out — useful when you begin to feel overwhelmed by your possessions.)
6. Brainstorming: The act of generating dozens of ideas without editing or censoring yourself. Lots of people use mindmaps for this: stick the thing you want to think about in the middle (a problem you need to solve, a theme you want to write about, etc.) and start writing whatever you think of. Build off of each of the sub-topics, and each of their sub-topics. Don’t worry about whether the ideas are any good or not — you don’t have to follow through on them, just get them out of your head. After a while, you’ll start surprising yourself with some really creative concepts.
7. Ubiquitous Capture: Always carry something to take notes with — a pen and paper, a PDA, a stack of index cards. Capture every thought that comes into your mind, whether it’s an idea for a project you’d like to do, an appointment you need to make, something you need to pick up next time you’re at the store, whatever. Review it regularly and transfer everything to where it belongs: a todo list, a filing system, a journal, etc.
8. Get more sleep: Sleep is essential to health, learning, and awareness. Research shows the body goes through a complete sleep cycle in about 90 minutes, so napping for less than that doesn’t have the same effect that real sleep does (although it does make you feel better). Get 8 hours a night, at least. Learn to see sleep as a pleasure, not a necessary evil or a luxury.
9. 10+2*5: Work in short spurts of 10 minutes, interrupted by 2 minute breaks. Use a timer. Do this 5 times an hour to stay on target without over-taxing your physical and mental resources. Spend those 2 minutes getting a drink, going to the bathroom, or staring out a window.
10. SMART goals: A rubric for creating and pursuing your goals, helping to avoid setting goals that are simply unattainable. Stands for: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.
11. SUCCES: From Chip and Dan Heath’s book, Made to Stick, SUCCES is a set of characteristics that make ideas memorable (”sticky”): sticky ideas are Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional Stories.
12. Eat the Frog: Do your most unpleasant task first. Based on the saying that if the first thing you do in the morning is eat a frog, the day can only get better from then on.
13. 80/20 Rule/Pareto Principle: Generally speaking, the 80/20 Principle says that most of our results come from a small portion of our actual work, and conversely, that we spend most of our energy doing things that aren’t ultimately all that important. Figure out which part of your work has the greatest results and focus as much of your energy as you can on that part.
14. What’s the Next Action?: Don’t plan out everything you need to do to finish a project, just focus on the very next thing you need to do to move it forward. Usually doing the next, little thing will lead to another, and another, until we’re either done or we run into a block: we need more information, we need someone else to catch up, etc. Be as concrete and discrete as possible: you can’t “install cable”, all you can do is “call the cable company to request cable installation”.
15. The Secret: There is no secret.
16. Slow Down: Make time for yourself. Eat slowly. Enjoy a lazy weekend day. Take the time to do things right, and keep a balance between the rush-rush world of work and the rest of your life.
17. Time Boxing: Assign a set amount of time per day to work on a task or project. Focus entirely on that one thing during that time. Don’t worry about finishing it, just worry about giving that amount of undivided attention to the project. (Variation: fixed goals. For example, you don’t get up until you’ve written 1,000 words, or processed 10 orders, or whatever.)
18. Batch Process: Do all your similar tasks together. For example, don’t deal with emails sporadically throughout the day; instead, set aside an hour to go through your email inbox and respond to emails. Do the same with voice mail, phone calls, responding to letters, filing, and so on — any routine, repetitive tasks.
19. Covey Quadrants: A system for assigning priorities. Two axes, one for importance, the other for urgency, intersect. Tasks are assigned to one of the four quadrants: not important, not urgent; not important, urgent; important, not urgent; and important and urgent. Purge the tasks that are neither important nor urgent, defer the unimportant but urgent ones, try to avoid letting the important ones become urgent, and as much as possible work on the tasks in the important but not urgent quadrant.
20. Handle Everything Once: Don’t set things aside hoping you’ll have time to deal with them later. Ask yourself “What do I need to do with this” every time you pick up something from your email list, and either do it, schedule it for later, defer it to someone else, or file it.
21. Don’t Break the Chain: Use a calendar to track your daily goals. Every day you do something, like working out or writing 1,000 words, make a big red “X”. Every day the chain will grow longer. Don’t break the chain! That is, don’t let any non-X days interrupt your chain of successful days.
22. Review: Schedule a time with yourself every week to look over what you’ve done that week and what you want to do the next week. Ask yourself if there are any new projects you should be starting, and if what you’re working on is moving you closer to your goals for your life.
23. Roles: Everyone fills several different roles in their life. For instance, I’m a teacher, a student, a writer, a step-father, a partner, a brother, a son, an uncle, an anthropologist, and so on. Understanding your different roles and learning to keep them distinct when necessary can help you keep some sense of balance between them. Make goals around the various roles you fill, and make sure that your goals fit with your goals in other roles.
24. Flow: The flow state happens when you’re so absorbed in whatever you’re doing that you have no awareness of the passing of time and the work just happens automatically. It’s hard to trigger consciously, but you can create the conditions for it by allowing yourself a block of uninterrupted time, minimizing distractions, and calming yourself.
25. Do It Now: Fight procrastination by adopting “do it now!” as your mantra. Limit yourself to 60 seconds when making a decision, decide what you’re going to do with every input in your life as soon as you encounter it, learn to make bold decisions even when you’re not really sure. Keep moving forward.
26. Time Log: Lawyers have to track everything they do in the day and how long they do it so they can bill their clients and remain accountable. You need to be accountable to yourself, so keep track of how much time you really spend on the things that are important to you by tracking your time.
27. Structured Procrastination: A strategy of recognizing and using one’s procrastinating tendencies to get stuff done. Items at the top of top of the list are avoided by doing seemingly less difficult and less important tasks further down the list — making the procrastinator highly productive. The trick is to make sure the items at the top are apparently urgent — with pressing deadlines and apparently large consequences. But, of course, they aren’t really all that urgent. Structured procrastination requires a masterful skill at self-deception, which fortunately bigtime procrastinators excel at.
28. Personal Mission Statement: Write a personal mission statement, and use it as a guide to set goals. Ask if each goal or activity moves you closer to achieving your mission. If it doesn’t, eliminate it. Periodically review and revise your mission statement.
29. Backwards Planning: A planning strategy that works from the goal back to your next action. Start with the end goal in mind. What do you have to have in place to accomplish it? OK, now what do you have to have in place to accomplish what you have to have in place to accomplish your end goal? And what do you have to have in place to accomplish that? And so on, back to something you already have in place and/or can put in place immediately. That’s your next action.
30. Tune Out: Create a personal privacy zone by wearing headphones. People are much more hesitant to interrupt someone wearing headphones. Note: actually listening to music through your headphones is optional — nobody knows but you.
31. Write It Down: Don’t rely on your memory as your system. Write down the things you need to do, your schedule, anything you might need to refer to, and every passing thought so you can relax, knowing you won’t forget. Use your brain for thinking, use paper or your computer for keeping track of stuff.
32. Gap Time: The little blocks of time we have during the day while waiting for the bus, standing in line, waiting for a meeting to start, etc. Have a list of small, 5-minute tasks that you can do in these moments, or carry something to read or work on to make the most of these spare minutes.
33. Monotasking: We like to think of ourselves as great multitaskers, but we aren’t. What we do when we multitask is devote tiny slices of time to several tasks in rapid succession. Since it takes more than a few minutes (research suggests as long as 20) to really get into a task, we end up working worse and more slowly than if we devoted longer blocks of time to each task, worked until it was done, and moved on to the next one.
34. Habits: Habits are as much about the way we see and respond to the world as about the actions we routinely take. Examine your own habits and ask what they say about your relation to the world — and what would have to change to create a worldview in which your goals were attainable.
35. Triggers: Place meaningful reminders around you to help you remember, as well as to help create better habits. For example, put the books you need to take back to the library in front of the door, so you can’t leave the house without seeing them and remembering they need to go back.
36. Unclutter: Clutter is anything that’s out of place and in the way. IT’s not necessarily neatness — someone can have a rigorously neat workspace and not be able to get anything done. It’s being able to access what you need, when you need it, without breaking the flow of your work to find it. Figure out what is “clutter” in your working and living spaces, and fix that.
37. Visualize: Imagine yourself having accomplished your goals. What is your life like? Are you who you want to be? If not, rethink your goals. If so, then visualize yourself taking the steps you need to take to get there. You’ve got yourself a plan; write it down and do it.
38. Tickler File: A set of 43 folders, labeled 1 - 31 and January - December, used to remind us of tasks we need to do on a specific day. For instance, if you have a trip on March 23rd, you’d put your itinerary, tickets, and other material in the “March” folder. At the start of each month, you move the previous month’s folder to the back. On March 1st, you’d transfer your travel information into the “23″ folder. Each day, you move the previous day’s folder to the back. On the 23rd, the “23″ folder will be at the front, and everything you need that day will be there for you.
39. ToDon’t List: A list of things not to do — useful for keeping track of habits that lead you to be unproductive, like playing online flash games.
40. Templates: Create templates for repetitive tasks, like letters, customer reply emails, blog posts, etc.
41. Checklists: When planning any big task, make a checklist so you don’t forget the steps while in the busy middle part of doing it. Keep your checklists so you can use them next time you have to do the same task.
42. No: Learning to say “no” — to new commitments, to interruptions, to anything — is one of the most valuable skills you can develop to keep you focused on your own commitments and give you time to work on them.
43. Unschedule: Schedule all your fun activities and personal life stuff (the stuff you want to do) first. Fill in whatever time’s left over with uninterrupted blocks of work. Write those into your schedule after you’ve completed them. Reward yourself after every block of quality, focused work.
44. Purge: Regularly go through your existing commitments and get rid of anything that is either not helping you advance your own goals or is a regular “sink” of time or energy.
45. One Bucket: Minimize the places you collect new inputs in your life, your “buckets”. Ideally have one “bucket” where everything goes. Lots of people experience an incredible sense of relief when everything they need to think about is collected in one place in front of them, no matter how big the pile.
46. 50-30-20: Spend 50% of your working day on tasks that advance your long-term, life goals, spend 30% on tasks that advance your middle-term (2-years or so) goals, and the remaining 20% on things that affect only the next 90 days or so.
47. Timer: Tell yourself you will work on a project or task, and only that project or task, for a set amount of time. Set a timer (use a kitchen timer, or use a countdown timer on your computer), and plug away at your work. When the timer goes off, you’re done — move on to the next project or task.
48. Do Your Worst: Give yourself permission to suck. Relieve the pressure of needing to achieve perfection in every task on the first run. Promise yourself you’ll go back and fix any problems later, but for now, just run wild.
49. Make an Appointment with Yourself: Schedule time every week or so just for you. Consider the state of your life: what’s working? What isn’t working? what mistakes are you making? what could you change? Give yourself a chance to get to know you.
50. [This space left intentionally blank]: This is a big list, sure, but it’s not an exhaustive one. The last space is left for you to fill in. What works for you? What would you like to share with the rest of the lifehack.org community? Let us know in the comments — or write your own list and link back to us!

What is Beauty? Is it really the most "average?"

I just ran into (was directed to, from World Science) a fascinating experiment trying to determine what beauty consists of. One theory is that an average of faces is going to be considered most beautiful, based on the brain being most comfortable with the most average.

Here's a link to go play with this idea yourself, I found it quite intriguing.

http://www.faceresearch.org/demos/average

From Zen Habits: 7 Powerful Steps to Overcoming Resistance and Actually Getting Stuff Done

Over at Zen Habits http://zenhabits.net/ Leo has written a simple and rather brilliant analysis of what he calls "resistance" meaning, procrastinating on going to work on what you should be going to work on. Many psychologists (and other mental health workers) use the concept of resistance to suggest clients are unconsciously gratified by their problems, and they deliberately resist the therapists efforts to help them. They remain blind to reality and ignorant about their lack of motivation because they want to. I don't agree at all with this perspective. It suggests that cure is in the hands of the therapist, that clients are not motivated to resolve their problems. This is simply untrue. Clients are highly motivated to recover from whatever harms them. If clients appear to resist the help of therapists, it is either because therapists are frightening them, or on the wrong track, or because clients are inhibited in doing what they really want to do, for one or another reason. Something gets in their way, it is not that they resist deliberately, or don't want to get better.

Taken into the world of how to get things done, the Zen Habits post is certainly not unfriendly like the traditional psychologist's concept of resistance. But it too leaves out the underlying reason for stopping oneself from moving forward. I think as in the case of psychological problems, the s0-called resistance represents an internal inhibition, often some form of survivor guilt, or fearing that if you become highly active, efficient and successful, you risk making someone close to you feel inadequate simply by comparison. So you stop yourself from moving ahead effectively, the way you really want to. The source of inhibition may lie elsewhere, but whatever it is, it might be worth while to think about your resistance to getting things done as a kind of inhibition.

This said, here's the post, its well worth reading (I still don't exactly know the etiquette here, about putting someone else's blog inside mine. I think as long as I put the link, it may be ok. If not, forgive the breach of good behavior). In any case, getting into Zen Habits http://zenhabits.net/ on a regular basis is well worth while.

http://zenhabits.net/2008/01/7-powerful-steps-to-overcoming-resistance-and-actually-getting-stuff-done/#more-620

Photo courtesy of Pikaluk

7 Powerful Steps to Overcoming Resistance and Actually Getting Stuff Done

There are a slew of popular books and systems, from favorites of mine such as Getting Things Done to the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to the Now Habit and more, all designed to get us more productive and effective.

But getting things done is really about one thing, and one thing only: overcoming the resistance to doing what we need to do.

OK, I would add a couple more steps to that, to ensure that we’re managing our tasks correctly:

1. Have all our projects and tasks stored in an external system (out of our heads), such as a to-do list or lists.

2. Pick the tasks and projects that are most important to work on.

3. Overcome the resistance to actually doing those important tasks.

And I would submit it’s the last step that’s the most important (although I wouldn’t ignore the other two). Unfortunately, because we’re not very good at overcoming resistance, we procrastinate on this third step by fiddling with the external system — the tools we use to organize our tasks, coming up with new and better systems, tweaking them until they’re near perfect, and so on.

That’s Resistance.

As Stephen Pressfield writes in his excellent book on this topic, The War of Art:

“There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.

What’s keeping us from sitting down is Resistance.”

The War of Art is all about Resistance, not only for writers and other artists, but for anyone trying to pursue their dreams or become what they’re meant to be. I highly recommend it. This, of course, is also a topic that is central to Zen Habits: overcoming Resistance to create new and better habits, to find happiness and simplicity, to do what you need to do and love to do.

I fight Resistance every single day, and I thought you might be interested in some of the ways I fight and beat Resistance, daily.

1. Become aware. The problem usually is that we don’t think about Resistance. We don’t understand it or even realize it’s there most of the time. We just think, “Oh, I better straighten out my desk … or get my to-do lists in order” or we get distracted by something on the web, or we feel that we have to check our email, or we’re just going to watch this one TV show, or any of a limitless amount of distractions.

Combat this by realizing that you are facing Resistance. Once you become aware of it, you can fight it, and beat it. It can be difficult to become more aware, but the key is to focus on it for a couple of days. Print out the words “Defeat Resistance” and put it somewhere visible as you work. That will help remind you to be aware of Resistance. Every time you do something that isn’t the most important thing you could be doing right now, be aware of what you’re doing.

2. Become a pro. This is the main technique that Pressfield outlines in The War of Art: combating Resistance by turning pro. The professional, unlike the amateur, comes to work ready to work. He’s doing it for a living (and loves what he does) and knows that as long as he shows up and starts working, the rest will come. Approach the work like a pro, and you’ll get the work done.

3. Be very clear, and focus. Before you start the day, be very clear about what you want to accomplish. You won’t be able to finish 10 major projects, but maybe you can finish one important project, or at least move it along to a certain point. Set three Most Important Tasks you want to accomplish today. Once you have those things defined, you’ve got to focus on them to the exclusion of all else (at least, during your prime work time). Do them first. Focus, finish, then move on to the smaller tasks you need to complete today. If you find yourself being lured to do something that’s not on that short list of three things, bring yourself back and focus.

4. Clear away distractions. Don’t spend a lot of time on this, because eliminating distractions can be a distraction itself. Instead, take one minute: close your email program and IM program and turn off all notifications. Shut down the Internet if at all possible. Close all programs except the one you need to do the important task in front of you. Clear your desk quickly (stuff everything in a drawer or something — you can organize it later) and turn off the phones if possible. Put on headphones or alert your coworkers (or family, if you’re at home) that you’re not to be disturbed for the next hour (or however long you plan to work on this task). Then get to work.

5. Have a set time and place. Make your first important task a daily appointment. For me, that’s writing. I always start the day with a writing task (such as writing this post, for example). For you, that might be different. Have a set start time, and possibly a set ending time — you’ll have to see what works for you, but the important thing is the set starting time. And when that time comes, you have to start. No exceptions.

6. Know your motivation. Why are you doing this? Why is this task important? What is it working towards? And how important is that end goal to you? Why is it important? You need to know these things to build up the motivation to overcome Resistance.

7. Just start. In the end, all the tips in the world won’t make as much a difference as this simple (and timeless) instruction. Just sit down and start. Feel Resistance to doing that? There’s no way to overcome it than to just start. Reading more about Resistance won’t help. Going to an online Procrastinator’s Forum won’t help. Working on your to-do lists won’t help. Only doing actually helps. And the only way to do something is to just start.

So how do you start, when you feel resistance? You just start. Feeling the need to do something else? Stop yourself from getting distracted. Remind yourself what you need to be doing, and why. Sit down and the set time and place. And just start.

For me, that means opening up a blank text file and writing the title of whatever I’m writing. Then I start brainstorming and outlining ideas. This gets me over the initial Resistance. And once I’ve started on that, I can usually get into the flow. But the important thing is to get started.

So stop reading this. And just start!

Update: See another great article on this topic just published over at LifeDev.net: Keeping Focus While Beating Back Distractions.

It's All in the Eyes

Its been a month and a half since I posted here. There's no better way to drive people away, but that was not my intention, although I continue to keep this forum rather private for now and sporadic writing may be the way I make sure of that.

That said, a few days ago I read about a study so compelling that I feel I have to post it here. In a study involving rating the intensity of emotion expression on faces, the subjects --people who were to be the "raters"-- were shown photographs of faces and asked to rate the intensity of the emotion shown on the face. The emotions were common ones (at least for experiments), like happiness, anger and sadness. Then the experimenters manipulated nothing but the pupil of the eye, that was visible in the photograph. Now how big or how small one's pupils are are NOT under our conscious control. Meaning no matter how much I want to fake this or that emotion, I couldn't use the size of my pupils to do it. I might be able to fake a smile, but not pupil size.

Three photographs of the same face were shown. Each of the three faces differed, only by pupil size. In one it was big, in one medium, and in one small. Then the raters were asked to estimate the emotion and intensity of the emotion. In sadness (and only in sadness) the raters significantly rated the photo with the face with smaller pupils as more intensly sad.

Additionally the experimenters got a general empathy score for each rather, using a standard empathy measure. They found that those who were more empathic in general, were more often rating the smaller pupil as sadder, meaning they were more tuned in to this signal of intensity than other raters.

This study got my head spinning. For many years, whenever questioned, Paul Ekman, a leading emotion researcher, had insisted that guilt was not a pure emotion, because there was no, clear and cross cultural muscular display of guilt, that would be systematically identified by raters. This he took to mean that guilt was a composite of different emotions. This didn't make sense to me, but who was I to argue with a major authority. Lets face it, I argued anyway, but had no evidence for my own conclusion, that guilt is indeed a pure and universal emotion. Upon reading this article this week, the light dawned --guilt might be conveyed in the eyes, by pupil size or some other special feature of which we are entirely unaware, as experiencers, or as raters, those responding to the gestures of emotions. And what else is communicated by our pupils, over which we have no control. We know that people make instantaneous snap decisions about people they meet for the first time. How does that happen? We can read book after book telling us how to make a good first impression, but something is always missing. Of course it is. Our pupils change without conscious awareness, and we read faces, also without conscious awareness.

It's all in the eyes.

Harrison, N.A., Wilson, C. E., & Critchely, H.D. (2007). Processing of Observed Pupil Size Modulates Perception of Sadness and Predicts Empathy. Emotion, vol 7, #4, 724-729.