Note-Taking & Knowledge Management
A Single Source of Truth: What It Means and How to Get There
A single source of truth gives each key fact one home and one owner. What it means, how it differs from a system of record, and 5 steps for a small team.
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Leadership & Management Skills
How to Manage Managers: What Changes When You Lead Leaders
How to manage managers: 5 changes for skip-level leaders, from delegating problems to judging yourself by your managers' teams. Practitioner evidence.
Burnout Prevention & Recovery
The Maslach Burnout Inventory Explained: What It Measures and Its Limits
The Maslach Burnout Inventory scores 3 parts of burnout separately. How scoring works, which of 5 versions fits, and why no score is a diagnosis.
Productivity Systems & Methods
Hoshin Kanri Explained: Aligning Company Goals the Lean Way
Hoshin Kanri explained: Akao's 6 planning steps, catchball, the X-matrix, how it differs from OKRs, and a worked example for a 50-person company.
AI at Work & AI Literacy
How to Get Useful Results From Copilot in Excel
How to get useful results from Copilot in Excel: set up the data, then 5 everyday jobs, each with a worked prompt and a quick way to check the answer.
Process Improvement & Business Efficiency
Statistical Process Control (SPC) for Non-Statisticians
Statistical process control for managers: common and special causes, a run chart, then an XmR chart with limits worked out on 21 days of help-desk data.
Money Mindset & Financial Psychology
Why Automation Works: The Psychology of Paying Yourself First
Pay yourself first means saving on payday, before bills and spending. Why automation beats willpower, from UK auto-enrollment to a 2001 US study.
Goal Setting & Planning
Goal-Setting Worksheets and Templates
A goal setting worksheet in 7 boxes, from the goal to a review date, with the research behind each box and three shorter variants for different needs.
Learning How to Learn
Comprehensible Input Explained: Can You Learn a Language by Listening?
Comprehensible input, Krashen's 1982 idea, builds vocabulary and listening skill, but speaking with feedback adds what input alone rarely gives.
Process Improvement & Business Efficiency
How to Run a Kaizen Event: A Five-Day Format
How to run a kaizen event: two to four weeks of preparation, a five-day agenda for a team of 6 to 12, and the 30-day follow-up that decides if gains last.
Stress & Anxiety Management
Stress vs. Anxiety: What's the Difference and Why It Matters
Stress vs anxiety: stress follows a cause and eases when it ends; anxiety can last with no threat. When worry lasting 6 months or more may be a disorder.
Habits & Routines
30-Day Challenges: Do They Create Lasting Habits?
A 30-day challenge can start a habit, but a 2024 review says new health habits take two to five months. What fades after day 30, and how to plan day 31.
Creativity & Problem Solving
How to Solve It: George Pólya's Four Steps, Still Useful Today
Pólya's How to Solve It in 4 steps: understand, plan, carry out, look back. The key questions, two worked examples and what later research adds.
Procrastination & Motivation
When Rewards Backfire: The Overjustification Effect
The overjustification effect: expected prizes for things people already enjoy can cut their interest. What a 1973 study and a review of 128 studies found.
Sleep & Rest
How to Sleep on a Plane, a Train, or in an Unfamiliar Hotel Room
How to sleep on a plane, train or hotel: 6 steps on timing, light, noise, seats and alcohol, plus why long seated trips raise clot risk and what to do.
Focus & Concentration
Ultradian Rhythms: Working With Your Brain's Natural Cycles
Ultradian rhythms repeat many times a day. The 90-minute sleep cycle is well documented; a 90-minute focus cycle while awake is not. How to test your own.
Creativity & Problem Solving
Functional Fixedness: Why You Can't See the Obvious Solution
Functional fixedness explained: Duncker's candle problem step by step, 4 classic follow-up studies, everyday examples and ways to loosen it.
Focus & Concentration
How to Increase Your Attention Span: The Five-More Rule and Other Small Stretches
How to increase attention span in 6 small steps: time your baseline, do five more when you want to stop, hide the phone, move on breaks, protect sleep.
Investing for Beginners
Market Orders vs. Limit Orders: A Beginner's Guide
Market order vs limit order: one fills now at an uncertain price, the other only at your price or better. 3 worked examples, plus stop orders and time limits.
Networking & Personal Branding
Informational Interviews: How to Ask for One and What to Ask
How to ask for an informational interview, with 3 request templates, 10 questions grouped by purpose, and how to run 20-30 minutes and follow up.
Mindset, Discipline & Resilience
Mental Toughness Explained: The Four Cs Model and Its Limits
The 4 Cs of mental toughness are control, commitment, challenge and confidence. Where the model came from, how it is measured and what critics found.