Readin', Writin', and... Self Control?

A wrathful Khan, yes.
But, not the Khan I'm writing about. 

One of the most exciting things that has happened to education in recent memory is the founding of the Khan Academy.

If you don't know the story, Sal Khan is a highly educated, non-educator who was once a hedge fund analyst.  However, his life took an unexpected turn when the video-based math tutorials he made for his nieces became increasingly popular on YouTube.  This unexpected response inspired him to create an online "academy" where anyone can learn any topic for free.

The idea (and execution) of the Khan Academy is awesome.  Check out this TED talk to get a sense of the applications and implications of this type of learning system.  Watching this gave me goose-bumps of the "I've glimpsed the future" variety.  But, I also had one criticism; not of Khan Academy per se, but that most educational strategies fail to acknowledge the essential cognitive skills that kids need to succeed both in the Khan Academy and in the regular academies around the world.

At Khan Academy, kids can progressively watch videos on topics of increasing complexity and can also take quizzes to measure understanding.  However, even with an incredible resource like Khan Academy, kids must possess a few cognitive skills to fully benefit.  For example, without focus or diligence, kids will not return to the site again and again to reap the full benefit. Without resilience, kids may quit after a period of failure before the inevitable breakthrough can be made.

While merging education with technology is a fantastic thing, and is sure to improve education for millions, we must not ignore the fact that essential, metacognitive skills must be in place for our children, and us, to reach full potential.  How technology can be brought to bear on this challenge remains a major hurdle.  Until then, teachers in the trenches and parents at home are the only people who can ensure our kids develop these essential characteristics.

Is working hard a talent?

Working hard, or hardly working?

Being the best: is it hard-work or talent...  The topic seems to make internet-blogger-types get all giddy with excitement.  O!  The back and forth; the opinions and convictions.  So dramatic, who is right?

Of course, after all that, some wise-ass chimes-in and states the obvious: "everyone is right!"  Buzz-kill; but, true.

Aha! But I have a new, totally fantastic way of thinking about the issue that is certain to make the "Hard Work is King" crowd cringe.  I raise this question: what if the ability to work hard is a talent?

The problem is that all the talking heads out there look at working-hard as something independent of our brains; like hard work isn't a behavior that happens because our brains/minds make it happen.  Whoa, are we saying that our souls have to get involved now and whip up a frothy batch of free-will so that we can work hard and become a bad-ass?  We aren't becoming dualists here are we?

The ability to work hard is just that, an ability.  Working hard takes a ton of cognitive awesomeness, much of which is influenced by both genetics and our environment.  Let's enumerate some of the metacognitive ninja-skillz necessary to work hard, shall we?

First, we must exert significant impulse control, because we can't be distracted by extraneous information and influences.  Second, we must have the ability to recognize errors as they happen and generate creative solutions.  Third, we must demonstrate resilience and optimism so we can overcome our failures and keep working.  Fourth, we must know when and how to seek out the advice and feedback of others so that we don't fall into repeated patterns of behavior.  Fifth, we must have some motivation to work hard, otherwise, working hard is just dumb.

I'm worried about my genes.

Wow, when I spell it all out like that, the simple dichotomy of hard-work vs. talent breaks down.  Instead, hard-work becomes an ability all it's own that is not easily dissociated from a number of underlying cognitive capacities.  Isn't this fun?  Now we can start to ask more specific questions: is impulse control learned or innate?  Is optimism learned or innate?  Yes, the answer to questions like these will be "both", but at least then we can start to tease out strategies for working with what we have.

Maybe one day the debate will end.  Mr. Science will send me a nice letter indicating that I don't have "that gene" and I should give up science and become a monkey-trainer because, by way of some Gattica-like sorting process, that's what I'm programmed to do.  Until then, I can't change my genes, so worrying about "talent" is a waste of my time.  Instead, I'm going to work as hard as I can to improve my ability to work hard, because that's all I can do.

Keep your mouth shut

It's on.

My sympathetic nervous system switches gears and revs.  Chest goes tight, constricts like a squeezed fist.  My neck flushes with heat, and blood.  My nerves tingle and prickle.

My hands go numb. My face goes numb. Like feet falling asleep, but in reverse: normal, through pins and needles, to lead balloons, rather than the other way around.

My jaw: it grinds and contorts and pulses.  Perhaps my inner Jeckyl and Hyde are discussing the merits of an outburst:  one part fighting back the rush to speak.  Don't say a word.  Keep your mouth shut.  The other part doesn't want to negotiate.

I'm angry.

Criticism frequently comes from a place of anger.  Often, when we do get some feedback, it is because the person on the other end has become frustrated.  They've been able to deal with our idiosyncrasies, but only for so long.  Then, things reach a point when that person just can't take it any more, and their opinion bubbles up and out as anger.

Our inner monkey starts to throw poo.  It meets anger head-on, anger for anger.  Yelling for yelling.  But, of course, a vicious feedback loop ensues, because if anger begets anger, then getting angry is the opposite of the right reaction.  The situation elevates.  Boom.

It's perfectly normal.

So, in the spirit of seeking feedback from every one around us, I propose the following thought experiment. The goal for this Mind Game is to practice receiving criticism gracefully by first observing the sensations of anger that accompany being criticized.  When we find ourselves reacting to angry criticism with anger, the goal is to keep our mouth shut.

Keep your mouth shut

Task: Watch for feelings of an angry reaction following criticism.  Do not speak until the initial physical sensations subside.

Info: What does it feel like to be angry?  This thought experiment encourages us to become more self-aware with regard to the mental and physical process of becoming angry in the face of aggressive criticism.  After we become more in tune with the sensations of anger, we will be more likely to control an impulsive outburst.  In the few moments it takes to pause and consider the situation, we are very likely to develop a more thoughtful and effective response.

Goal: Don't react until you've processed the opinion of the other person.  Determine if their criticisms have merit.  Thank the person who criticized you.

Missing gorillas. What?

What gorilla?

Back in my younger days, as an impressionable undergraduate, I was exposed to a now-famous experiment in attention.  Sitting in a lecture hall at Yale University, my Introduction to Cognitive Science professor, Brian Scholl, played the class this video.  Watch the video, do the task, then read on.

The task was simple.  Watch the ball, count the passes.  Don't be distracted by the players in the black uniforms, watch the players in the white uniforms. And, like most of my fellow over-achievers at Yale, I wanted to do this right.  So, I got really focused and did the task.

The task ended, and the results were summarized.  Thankfully, I thought, I did it right - I counted the correct number of passes for the white team.  Hooray!  However, the video soon prompted: "But, did you see the gorilla?" An audible murmur vibrated from the audience: a group equivalent of "WTF"?  Soon, the murmur was followed by gasps and giggles as the video was replayed in slow motion.  There, walking right through the scene, was some dude in a gorilla suit.  Almost everybody in the audience had missed him.

Oh, that gorilla.

In the video, the task was clearly defined: count the passes for the white team.  And, for that task, I did very well - a perfect score.  However, in life, our tasks are usually less well-defined.  In life, picking up new information, being observant and open-minded, is just as valuable as extreme focus.  This relates back to my recent thesis regarding attention: for some tasks, we need to be very focused; but for others, we need to be open-minded.  In other words, if we reframe the task of the video above to "be observant", then I failed miserably.

What does this mean at a practical level?  My interpretation is that we must consciously select a level of intensity for our focus depending on the task.  In addition, since life's challenges are often so poorly defined, we must be sure to get into an open-minded state from time-to-time.  Otherwise, we might miss a gorilla.

Fruit Ninja and flavors of focus

Slice that bananna!

Recently, my wife and I have been obsessed with the game Fruit Ninja.  And, having been simultaneously obsessed with the idea of focus and obtaining metacognitive control over my intensity of focus, I couldn't help but start to analyze Fruit Ninja as a tool for fine-tuning my already ninja-like ability to focus.  Let me explain. (Also, I'm not getting paid to write this, I just like Fruit Ninja).

For those of you who don't know, Fruit Ninja is a game that originally became popular on the iphone and has since expanded to the Android platform, the iPad and (I think) to an online game.

The game is simple, grasshopper.  But not easy.  The goal is to slice up fruit by swiping your finger across the screen of your touchscreen device.  That's the easy part.  The hard part is that, in addition to fruit, there are bombs that fly into the scene and occlude your target fruit.  Hitting the bombs earns a point penalty in some versions of the game, and in other versions of the game can lead to instant failure. Check out some video footage.

What does this silly game have to do with flavors of focus?  Well, cynical adult, the game offers three "modes" of play: classic, arcade, and zen.  Ooooh, zen!

Just one more game, please?

Each mode places different cognitive demands on the player.  In classic, the number of fruit slowly increases over time and if you miss three fruit in total, your game ends.  In addition, hitting a bomb results in instant failure.  For these reasons, classic mode require intense focus and precision.

Flexibility of focus: what and how much?

Multitasking?

Attention deficit: another modern malady of excess.  Too much food, and we became larger.  A surfeit of sitting, and we grew softer.  Now, with the information revolution, we wrestle with an excess of ideas, and we grow distracted.

Recently, science has begun to unearth the pitfalls of poor focus.  In one study, researchers at Stanford examined the cognitive consequences of multitasking and found that the chronically distracted lost the ability to control attention.  Cognitive performance suffered as a result.  Gross.

But regulating our attention is more interesting, and complicated, than focusing on one task at a time.  Yes, we must choose where to place our attention. However, we must also decide how much to focus.

A recent article in the Journal of Neuroscience, emphasizes the importance of intensity of attention as it relates to cognitive performance.  In this fascinating study, the authors rely on recordings from a group of neurons in the monkey brain that correlate with attention: the more neurons firing in this brain region, the more focused the monkey.  Intriguingly, the authors found that as the focus of the monkeys increased, so did performance on a visual discrimination task... To a point.  Surprisingly, when the monkeys were most focused, they often performed poorly when the task demanded recognition of large changes.  In these cases, focused monkeys were very good at detecting minute changes, yet large visual changes resulted in more errors for dialed-in monkeys.  Did the monkeys miss the forest for the trees?

Question and Question

This week at The Happy Homunculus, it's all about feedback for us and our homunculi, and if we're ever going to get and use quality feedback to be awesome, then we need to work on a few mental-ninja-skillz.  Yesterday, we practiced not speaking and used our aural acumen as a first step to learning something new.  Today, we're going to take things a step further and prompt for more information: forget Q&A, today is all about Q&Q.

Passive

I can't sleep!

OK, today's the day: we've dedicated a whole week to crafting the ultimate pre-sleep routine.  We've got all the elements we need to get to sleep faster and stay asleep longer.  However, we actually haven't talked about the most critical step of all: falling asleep.  Our routine prepares us to sleep, but what do we do in that final, critical moment when it's just us and our thoughts?  Well, we actually want to do nothing at all; but that can sometimes be very hard.

Previously on The Happy Homunculus, we tried a series of relaxation challenges during the Week of Relaxation.  On the second day, we went through the exercise of being as "Passive" as possible.  In that post, I argued that the last thing we should try to do when we're trying to relax is to, well, try at all. Phew.  Trying is the most counter-productive thing we can do during relaxation.  Similarly, trying to sleep is a contradiction - trying requires energy, effort and focus.  To sleep, we must let go.

So, today, let's revisit the Passive challenge and apply that mindset in the minutes leading up to sleep.

Passive

Task: Lie passively in bed in the moments leading up to sleep.

Info: Close your eyes and let go. Thoughts will come in and out of your mind - this is fine! But, whenever you find yourself wandering, gently return to a more passive state. The key is to not try but to let go.  If your problem is too much thinking, gently label the process "thinking" and move slowly to observing your breathing or the smoothness of the sheets.  Be mindful of your surroundings as an alternative to thought.  If thoughts keep creeping in, be patient and continue to return to a more passive state.  Finally, if you start to get frustrated with your lack of sleepiness, get up and start your bedtime routine again.  Return to bed when you feel sleepy again.

Goal: Maximize the feeling of passivity.

I find that practicing mindfulness meditations help me develop the state of mind needed to let go.  Check out these great guided meditations from UCLA's Mindfulness Education Program for some tips on how to approach passivity.  Good luck!

Further Reading
- Who needs The Happy Homunculus when we have Yahoo Answers' guide to sleep?
- Listen to the Mayo Clinic: Don't try too hard!
- It's not just me: other people think thinking is over-rated.
- Finally, thinking: bad for sleep and feeling good!

Week of Calm

According to Google Image Search,
this is a "Calm Monkey"

Emotions are cool, right?  I mean, they make us feel all weird, sometimes good, sometimes bad.   Occasionally, they come out of nowhere.  They make our bodies do strange stuff: flush, feel tight, feel warm, put butterflies places.  Those are all incredible experiences.  However, that doesn't mean we need to let everyone else in the world know how we're feeling right?

Hence, The Happy Homunculus has sponsored a Week of Calm.  A whole week dedicated to regulating our adult temper-tantrums.  It was a trip!  If you missed out, here it is again:

Week of Calm

Day 1: Feeling - Strange vibrations.
Day 2: Commute of Calm - Drive happy.
Day 3: Cool Off - Get out of there.
Day 4: Poker Face - No tells.
Day 5: Turn the Other Cheek - Empathy, big time.
Day 6: Off the Brakes - Let it out.

Next week, The Happy Homunculus is going to be all about my second favorite thing in the world: sleeping.  I'm going to cobble together a bunch of Daily Mind Games that are going to be soporific to the extreme.  Metacognitive control isn't just about analyzing our own thinking, it's about giving our brain what it needs and craves.  Like some rest.  And I need some rest.

Until then, why not check out the following fun links for some extra credit.  I'd like to make it a weekly habit to share the recent articles that make Homunky the happiest...

Homunky's Hot Hits:

First off, it's always good to get a refresher on what metacognition is all about.  And if that wasn't enough, check out this article for more.

Next up, here is a recent article from the prolific Jonah Leher about making decisions.  It reminded me that it's not always smart to over-think things!  Hungry for more decision-making research?  Here's another article discussing the relative value of emotions and intentional thinking when making decisions. Cool!

Finally, here's a recent piece about memory that reminds me a lot of our discussions during the Week of Memory.  Some good tips there for making concepts stick.

Off the Brakes

Let it out.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Week of Calm is coming to an end.  Hopefully y'all had fun playing with your emotional awareness and control.  I know I did, but my homunculus?  Not so much.  Like the rambunctious monkey he is, he's all tuckered out from being forced to sit quietly and patiently while I take care of business.  However, a tame homunculus is not always a good thing.  Sometimes you have the let the monkey out of the cage.

Emotional control comes in two flavors.  On the one hand, we don't want uncontrolled outbursts to undermine important relationships.  On the other, exposing emotions to others is an important form of communication.  In many cases, showing some emotion is the only way to communicate the importance of something.

In any case, the name of the game is to modulate the intensity of our emotions.  Really intense emotional outbursts are rarely an effective way to communicate.  Instead, talking calmly about emotions with some small outward signs is the best way to go.  That's today's DMG:

Off the Brakes

Task: Communicate your emotions to someone else.

Info: It's ok to get emotional.  It's ok to let others see our emotions.  We don't need to feel like we can't have emotions; that's impossible.  But, we will be better off if we don't go ballistic.  Today, when you have some emotion and when you think communicating that emotion is important, let off the brakes and talk about your emotions.  The goal is to do it in a calm, measured way so you don't freak out the other party.

Goal: Remain calm while talking about your emotions.

Turn the Other Cheek

Can't you read the sign?!

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling totally zen monk today: I am regulating my emotions like a champion.  A metacognitive champion.  If you've been following along this week, hopefully you feel the same.  Let's review: we've tracked our emotions, made it to work without flipping out, escaped a bad situation, and kept our cards close to the vest.  That's right, we know how to control our emotions.  But, guess what?  Other people suck at it.

Time to empathize.  Just because we are awesome and amazing self-regulators doesn't mean the rest of the world is, right?  Metacognition doesn't exactly seem to be the most popular twitter hash-tag (I've checked).  So, we shouldn't expect the rest of the world to be zen monks like us.

That means that you may come in contact with someone flippin' his lid.  He may scream, cry, brood, or rock back and forth.  Whatever it is, just realize that emotional regulation is difficult.  Because life is difficult. And, if a person doesn't think he has to, needs to, or can control his emotions, he won't.

Turn the Other Cheek

Task: Maintain calm while someone else loses emotional control.

Info: Why should the emotions of someone else modify our emotions?  They are thoughts in someone else's mind - they aren't "real".  Even if that person starts showing their emotions big-time, there is no reason we need to escalate our own.  Instead, let's adopt an empathetic stance: "this person is having a hard time, and I am going to let them take it out on me, because that's what they need right now."  Controlling a natural tendency to "retaliate" may take some effort, but it's worth it.  There's nothing dumber than yelling at someone to stop yelling.  Except maybe yelling at someone to relax... or sleep.

Goal:  Find fulfillment being a rock for someone else.

If you've been paying close attention, this DMG is very close to the Week of Empathy's "Dependent".  Today's game looks at the same challenge of helping someone cope from the perspective of self-regulation of emotion.  However, using a desire to empathize can be a handy mental trick for making self-control easier.

How is the Week of Calm going for you?  If you've been enjoying these challenges, please consider sharing The Happy Homunculus with your friends... Thanks!

Poker Face

Don't let 'em know what you're thinkin'.

My homunculus is powerful: he lives in my mind, is composed of only thoughts, but yet he wields massive control over my behavior.  Sometimes, he makes me not work.  Sometimes, he makes me not exercise.  Sometimes, he makes me yell at people.  These are significant behaviors.  So, if my homunculus can exert power over very important, far-reaching behaviors, certainly he can control something simple, like my facial expression.

I've been arguing this week that emotions cannot be controlled.  Over time, with practice, we can change how our minds react to events, but in the heat of the moment we really don't have too much control over how we feel.  After an emotion creeps in, though, we can decide how we will react to the emotion.

For me, the very first thing that happens when an emotion creeps in is my facial expression changes.  I'm very expressive in that way.  However, many times I realize that allowing the initial, reactionary facial expression to creep in can be deterimental: I don't want people to know what I'm thinking all the time.  Especially if someone says something I don't agree with, by showing a negative facial expression, it may put the person on the defensive and make it difficult for me to be able to influence the interaction in a positive way.

So, for today's Daily Mind Game, let's practice controlling our facial expressions.  Specifically, let's focus on curbing the impulsive frown that accompanies most negative emotions.  By preventing the sour-puss face, we will make other people feel better, even during difficult interactions.  In addition, I've found that doing this makes me feel better!  By not looking angry, I actually become less angry.  You may have heard of the inverse effect happening for smiling: simply smiling can improve mood.

Poker Face

Task: Prevent negative facial expressions.

Info: The goal is to not "show your hand" emotionally.  Even if someone gives you crappy news, don't immediately show your emotions with a negative facial expression.  Keep your cool, and maintain a slightly bemused look (or some other expression that you prefer).  You don't want to look like you are forcing a smile, because that could be just as bad.  Instead, focus on a natural, neutral, but slightly positive facial expression.  Maintain it for the duration of a negative interaction.  The purpose of this is to practice control of our outward display of emotion.  With practice, you'll become better at deciding when and how to communicate your feelings on an issue.

Goal: Allow positive emotions to shine through; use a poker face to hide negative reactions.

Post your thoughts, feelings, and experiences with the DMG in the comments!

Cool Off

Chill out.

Anger happens.  Bad things happen, irritating things happen, mean people happen, stupid people happen.  And, when those things happen, getting angry is a normal, natural response.  In order to not allow a negative emotion to cause havoc we must decide how to react when the emotion creeps in.  We may not be able to control when we experience an emotion, but we can control what we do next.

This approach to anger management is not to prevent anger.  Instead, we can get angry whenever we want.  But there are healthy ways to handle the emotion of anger and there are unhealthy ways.  An unhealthy way would be to show that anger to people that would think negatively of your anger.  Exposing anger to a boss, a significant other, a colleague, normally doesn't accomplish anything.  In the cases when showing anger is impossible, one strategy is to hold the anger in until we can get to a safe spot to be angry alone.

That's what cooling off is all about.  When something bad happens that makes you angry or frustrated, leave the situation as soon as possible to be alone and let the anger work itself out of your system.  Once you've cooled off, you'll be ready to interact with the offending person in a more effective and productive way.

Cool Off

Task: Escape a situation that provokes anger without displaying anger.

Info: Just get out of there ASAP: head to your meditation spot, head to a bathroom stall, head outside for a walk.  Don't reveal to others just how angry you are until you've had some time to cool off and consider the situation with a level head.  Then, feel free to communicate any remaining issues with the people who caused the problem in a more constructive way.  This isn't about holding emotion in, it's about allowing emotion to fade before addressing the problem.

Goal: Temper your temper with some time alone.

What do you think?  Is this a good way to manage anger?  Are you in the "don't hold it in" camp?

Commute of Calm

Cut me off, I dare you.

I'm a pretty nice guy.  I'm not outwardly mean, usually (except when I don't get my beauty sleep).  I normally empathize well and try to be there to support people.  I work hard to be a good team-member, to make things fun, and be professional.  Except when I'm driving.  When I get into a car, I turn into a total monkey's-arse.  I swear, I honk, I tail-gate, I glance menacingly.  I become a baboon.  But not today!

Road rage.  It happens to almost everyone who drives regularly.  I wonder why it's so easy?  I bet it's because we feel insulated from other people.  We're in our metal box, all closed-up and protected.  We can do whatever we want: yell, curse, sing, cry, whatevs.  No one can hear us or see us.  Awesome!

The problem is that every time we let our negative emotions out, we're missing an opportunity to practice emotion regulation.  Yes, the person in front of us is driving too slow.  But, by yelling and tail-gating, we're unlikely to make any difference.  More than anything, we'll raise our own blood pressure and get better at becoming impulsive and angry.

Today, the goal is to regulate the negative aspects of our commute and try to maintain calm during the drive. Again, preventing emotions isn't the goal.  We're going to simply not act on the emotions (don't yell, honk, etc.)  In addition, let's do our best to distract ourselves from the other commuters that make us mad: listen to the radio, think about pleasant stuff, etc.

Commute of Calm

Task: Maintain calm during today's commute.

Info: Two things to do today.  One, if you do get mad, don't act on it.  Control your own behavior.  Just remember: the other drivers can't see you well - they have no idea that you're yelling at them.  So, don't do it!  It's dumb!  You're basically talking to yourself...  Second, distract yourself so that irritation don't have first dibs on your attention.  Listen to music, a book on tape, NPR, your own breathing. Don't focus on the boat-like Olds in front of you going 15 in a 35mph zone.  Don't.

Goal: Make your commute pleasant.

Isn't emotion regulation fun?  Share the love with the buttons at the top of the page!  Thanks :)

Sixty Days of Cognitive Fitness

Thanks for stopping by!  Please considering subscribing to The Happy Homunculus by RSS, email, or twitter to get all my latest musings on metacognition.

Normally, when I hear "mental fitness" I think word-puzzles, sudoku, and sequences of numbers. Basically, I think about the SAT and my homunculus gets a little queasy.

Homunky loves metacognition!

However, life is more complicated than word games. I have to motivate myself, interact with people, process new information, and stay calm enough so my friends and family don't disown me.  Instead, I need skills for dealing with life: mental toughness, optimism, self-awareness, self-control, people-skills and more. I need some metacognition up in here.

Week of Memory

Let us join virtual hands and remember The Week of Memory.  We have explored the most powerful and proven memory tricks; now, nothing can stop us from remembering anything that comes our way.  Names? Nothing.  Complex systems?  Done.  Lists of random stuff?  Of course.  Whole textbooks? BRING IT ON.

Wait, actually I can't remember what we went over this week...  You too?  That's cool.  Here it is again:

Week of Memory

Day 1: Childhood Home - A palace of memories.
Day 2: Lewd, Crude, and Rude - Because boring isn't memorable.
Day 3: Name Game - Time to rhyme.
Day 4: Mental Model - Details are good.
Day 5: Pretty Pictures - Worth a whole lot of words.
Day 6: Smell, Taste, Feel, and Sound - Close your eyes.

Ah, that jogs the ol' memory!  What a great week.  I'm very excited to continue to apply these memory tricks in the weeks to come.  Hopefully I'll remember to do so...

As for next week, I'm thinking it might be fun to play around with our emotions a bit.  Specifically, I want to see what sort of control we can exert on how we feel and, more importantly, how we react to how we feel.

Oh, noble Monkey of Calm: what is your secret?

I think all of us can relate to the experience of letting our emotions get the best of us.  We blow-up in anger at a loved one and say things we regret.  We get upset at a colleague and let it impede our ability to work in a team.  We feel sad about some event and let that sadness seep into other areas, preventing engagement.  In all of these examples, we would be much better off if we could only reign in our emotions a bit.

So, in honor of emotional regulation, next week will be the "Week of Calm".  We'll try some fun Daily Mind Games that will test our ability to maintain a cool head no matter what happens.  Personally, this is one of the main cognitive skills I wish I was better at, so I'm really looking forward to the week.

Solitary Confinement

I need some alone time.

How's the Week of Productivity going for you?  My tasks seem easy, and my motivation is really high.  But I can't seem to resist the temptations around me to not work.  People to chat with, intrawebs to surf, distances to stare out into...  What are we to do?  Answer: run away and hide.

In other words, sometimes we have to physically remove ourselves from all the distractions.  The closer and more in-our-face our triggers, the more likely we will give in to temptation.  Just like the distant future seems fuzzy, unimportant and distant, the objects feeding our impulsiveness seem more important when they are right in front of us.  Sooo, the theme for today's DMG is "Out of sight, out of mind."

Solitary Confinement

Task: Work in a place free of distractions and temptations.

Info: When you procrastinate, what do you do instead of working?  Do you compulsively check email? Facebook? Watch TV? Chat with co-workers?  Whatever it is, your job today is to put yourself in a position that is away from your main distractions and get some work done.  If your main distractions are online, try to bring work with you that is not computer-related.  If you must use your computer, do not open any programs (including a browser) that could trigger procrastination.  Do what it takes, but hide from temptation!

Goal: Work for 2 solid hours in solitary confinement.

What do you think?  Does this strategy work for you?  Post your thoughts in the comments!

Stream of Consciousness

Feeling the Flow. 

The Week of Flow is coming to a close, and to celebrate another productive Week of Metacognition, we're going to get a bit philosophical.  We've been slowly challenging our assumptions about the types of activities that can get us into the zone.  Today, we're going to look within, and turn the very act of introspection into a Flow Experience.  It's time to open a can of Flow on your Homunculus.

I know I've been like a broken record this week, each day rehashing the three critical components that produce flow.  But I'm going to do it one last time.  The requirements for a flow-experience are: a well-defined goal, feedback, skill-appropriate challenge.  I also know that I've been a broken record this week for another reason, pushing the notion that any activity can be a flow activity.  We've progressed from squeezing flow from a chore, to wringing flow from our to-do list, to crafting an entire day as one, long flow-experience.  Let's push this point even more, shall we?

I'm not trying to be clever here, I really believe that any task can be thought of as a "game" and, in this way, can be magically transformed into a flow experience.  All we need to do is be creative about setting some clear, skill-appropriate goals and paying attention to our progress.  We can do it with chores, we can do it with work, and... 

...dramatic pause...

...We can do it with our own thinking.  You read me right: the act of metacognition itself can be a flow experience.  If you can convince yourself of this, and actually apply the principles of flow to your thinking, you will never be bored again!  Really, this is what meditation is all about - looking at the act of sitting and thinking as a new challenge.  But, it doesn't stop with meditation.  We can set metacognitive goals for ourselves each day (which is what The Happy Homunculus is all about *wink) and we can self-monitor to get a sense of our progress.  Instant flow!

That is your challenge for today.  Craft a "thinking goal" for yourself today and get after it!

Stream of Consciousness

Task: Decide on a metacognitive goal for today.

Info: Don't forget the critical requirements for flow!  The most important thing to do is pick an appropriate goal. If you are a chronic worrier, then it probably isn't a reasonable goal to not worry at all for the entire day.  Instead, make your goal something you can achieve: "Monitor my own thinking and recognize times when I am worrying automatically."  You have the best sense of what an appropriate thinking goal is for yourself.  Be honest with yourself about the state of your thinking-patterns and pick something fun but challenging to change about your thinking today.

Goal: Feel the flow during thought.

Good luck - post your reaction in the comments!

Week of Self-Control

Control yourself.

Another Week of Metacognition in the books - the Week of Self-Control is complete.  The challenges last week touched on a number of different behaviors that significantly impact our health, mood, and productivity. If you completed each of the Self-Control challenges, you should be feeling pretty good: you can easily control your own behavior. So, when impulses start to bubble up in the future (and they will), just think back to all the times you were able to steer your own behavior.

Did you miss last week's challenges?  Try the full Week of Self-Control for yourself:

Day 1: Reset - Calm down.
Day 2: Meal Plan - Eat with a strategy.
Day 3: Show Up - Go through the motions.
Day 4: Day of Doing - Don't plan, do.
Day 5: Play Date - Force some fun.
Day 6: Fave Five - Call your peeps.

Next week, your humble author is going on vacation, so the Daily Mind Games are going to be paused for one week (this is a one man show).  But don't fear!  I've got some fun weeks planned.  In the coming weeks, I'm planning Weeks of Flow, Productivity, Memory, and Calm.  Sound good?  Are there any topics you'd like to see?  Post your thoughts in the comments :)

Also, stop by near the end of next week - I'll be posting about the three critical cognitive characteristics of top performers.  Do you want to be awesome?  This post is for you.  So stay tuned!

Not satisfied?  Mad that I'm going to be gone?  Check out all the ways you can Support The Happy Homunculus, and you'll make me feel guilty.  But, don't stay mad for long, stay happy!

Links: Check out other Weeks of Metacognition

Fave Five

Choose your five favorites.

Congrats mental magicians, you've nearly completed another Week of Metacognition at The Happy Homunculus - only one challenge remains.  As a reminder, this week has been about self-control, and we've been playing a bunch of Mind Games to exercise those self-control muscles.  So far, we've calmed ourselves down, made a meal plan, went to the gym, did some work, and did some non-work.  Today, we're going to make contact.

We've talked about it before, but the strength of our social support network has a major influence on both the quality and the length of our lives.  One disease that is very strongly correlated with social support is heart disease: both the probability of having a heart attack and the probability of surviving a hear attack are correlated with strong social ties.  This is probably due to the power of positive social interactions in mitigating stress and triggering relaxation.  We've discussed both of these topics before, but you should also check out The Heart Mind Connection and The Relaxation Response if you want more specific evidence linking social interactions, stress and heart disease.

Unfortunately, in modern societies where families are often separated by great distances, it is easy to neglect our important relationships.  Today, we're going to push ourselves out of our normal, day-to-day routine of limited social interaction and reach out to those people that give us the most joy.

Fave Five

Task: Contact your five favorite people.

Info: Different types of contact earn you different amount of points.  Send an email to a favorite person: +1 point.  Talk to a favorite person on the phone: +5 points.  See a favorite person face-to-face: 10 points.  Skype a favorite person: I dunno, +6.3 points?

Goal: Earn more than 30 metacognition points by contacting your fave five.

Check out the top of the page: I've added some new, spiffy options for sharing The Happy Homunculus.  Maybe you should send this post to one of your favorite people?  Just a suggestion...