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The psychology of the to-do list
BBC: If your daily schedule and email inbox are anything like mine, you’re often left a state of paralysis by the sheer bulk of outstanding tasks weighing on your mind. In this respect, David Allen's book Getting Things Done is a phenomenon. An international best-seller and a personal productivity system known merely as GTD, it’s been hailed as being a “new cult for the info age”. ... So what’s the psychology that backs this up? Roy Baumeister and EJ Masicampo at Florida State University were interested in an old phenomenon called the Zeigarnik Effect, which is what psychologists call our mind's tendency to get fixated on unfinished tasks and forget those we’ve completed.
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Marriage Research: Happy Teenage Years Lead To Happier Marriages
The Huffington Post: A new study suggests that teens who get along well with their families are more likely to have successful future marriages. The study, published in the journal Psychological Science found that 7th graders who experienced more positive engagement with their families also showed more positive engagement in their marriages 17 years later. Their spouses also demonstrated more positive behavior, and both partners experienced more relationship satisfaction than those who experienced a more negative family environment as teens. The study did not specify whether or not the teenagers were raised with married or divorced parents. Read the whole story: The Huffington Post
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Happiness Increases with Age, Across Generations
Longitudinal research reveals that self-reported feelings of well-being tend to increase with age, but that a person’s overall level of well-being depends on when he or she was born. Visit Page
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Budgets and Biases: Summing Up American Values
Our lawmakers may have averted the fiscal cliff on the first of the year, but the threat of sequestration still looms over the nation. If the Congress and the White House cannot agree on the particulars of deficit reduction by March, draconian across-the-board cuts will slash both national security spending and core domestic programs, ranging from education to public health to environmental protection. Every federal budget is, underneath those numbers, a set of values—many related to protecting Americans from harm. But the mandate to cut spending means choosing among those values and safeguards.
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Happy Home in Adolescence Tied to Good Marriages Later
LiveScience: Having a warm and supportive home during one's teenage years may make for more satisfying marriages later on, new research suggests. Those who come from a family where people can talk positively through conflicts tend to bring the same supportive communication style to their marriages. And they tend to be more satisfied with their marriages, according to the research. "The overall family climate seems to matter," said study author Robert Ackerman, a psychologist at the University of Texas at Dallas. "A positive family climate is related to individuals being more positively engaged with their spouses." Read the whole story: LiveScience
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Why extroverts fail, introverts flounder and you probably succeed
The Washington Post: Spend a day with any leader in any organization, and you’ll quickly discover that the person you’re shadowing, whatever his or her official title or formal position, is actually in sales. These leaders are often pitching customers and clients, of course. But they’re also persuading employees, convincing suppliers, sweet-talking funders or cajoling a board. At the core of their exalted work is a less glamorous truth: Leaders sell. So what kind of personality makes the best salesperson — and therefore, presumably, the most effective leader? Does this mean instead that introverts, the soft-spoken souls more at home in a study carrel than on a sales call,are more effective?
