Leading a team of 20 people and being responsible for many projects, Maggie joined Optimize Your Brain to improve in many areas. Including overwhelm, prioritizing, making decisions, creating realistic plans and more.
One thing she didn’t realize was an issue until she joined the program, was how many extra details her communication had.
When she would share or ask questions there would be a lot of details and background, her emails were very long even her comments in the Zoom chat were paragraphs long.
While Maggie didn’t share completely irrelevant information, there was a lot being said every time she communicated and this not only took a long time, but also made it challenging for people on the receiving end to really understand what she wanted from them.
While you are doing any task, you (without even realizing it!) are using your 28 thinking skills.
When the thinking skills you need to use are strong, doing the task happens easily.
If the thinking skill you need to use is weak, doing the task will be a challenge.
The struggle that Maggie had, came from a weak thinking skill of using relevant cues.
Understanding relevant cues is just what it sounds like - understanding what is relevant to this situation.
There are 2 ways people can struggle with understanding relevant cues:
In Maggie’s case, it was a challenge with the latter. She had a hard time figuring out what was relevant to this situation.
Often, simply being aware of the relevant cues helps a lot with improvement.
You’ll want to understand in which way your brain has a challenge with relevant cues and be aware of it to make change.
If your challenge is not picking up cues at all, you’ll want to keep the follow question top of mind in any conversation or new situation:
Are there any cues or details that can be helpful here?
If your challenge is like Maggie’s, you pick up all the cues but struggle with figuring out what’s relevant to the situation, the question you want to keep top of mind is:
How is this relevant to the other person you are communicating to?
Remember, it can be relevant to you, not the other person.
Often, people share more details than necessary as a way of processing the information.
This is okay when you’re just having a friendly chat but can be very confusing when giving over instructions or asking an important question.
If you find that is the case, you may want to take some time journaling your thoughts before going into meeting or communicating important information.
Another way you can practice sharing just what is relevant is having a conversation with a loved one, where after you share a thought, you repeat it while sharing just what is relevant.
You can do the same when sending an email.
Type the email, but before you hit send, reread it line by line and ask yourself, is this relevant to the other person.
While this is really not fun, over time, you’ll start noticing WHILE you type the email, you’ll be asking yourself, what is relevant to this situation?
Bonus factor: If you’ve listened to episode 438 or episode 472 you’ve heard about the concept of Zooming in and Zooming out. You can use this information to zoom in or out to the level of the person or the situation to give the right information
We covered a lot today around the concept of using relevant cues.
The first step is to understand, is your challenge not finding cues at all or is it not identifying what is relevant to the situation?
Your challenge this week is to pick one of the following, bonus points for doing more:
1) On a sticky note, write the question you need to keep top of mind.
Are there any cues or details that can be helpful here?
OR
How is this relevant to you the other person I am communicating to?
Put the sticky note near your screen so you see it when you're sending emails or in a Zoom meeting.
2) Have a conversation with a loved one where after you share a thought, you repeat back sharing just what is relevant
3) Before you send an email, reread it line by line to ask yourself if this is relevant to the other person.
If your struggle is not picking up the relevant cues, ask yourself if there are any other details this person needs to know so they can understand you better.
Cheers to Peak Brain Performance!
Most entrepreneurs want to grow their business but already got a lot of stress.
At LifePix University we help you rewire your brain to become more efficient and effective while experiencing more inner peace.
Learn more here.
This guide will give you all you need to start improving your cognitive functions. Learn what all 28 thinking skills are, how they apply to you and what you can do today to begin improving them.
Thinking is not one big thing. Thinking is made up of 28 parts, called cognitive functions.
Take the FREE assessment to see where each of your cognitive functions are currently at.
Can you help us reach our goal?
Share this podcast with someone you love!
Leading a team of 20 people and being responsible for many projects, Maggie joined Optimize Your Brain to improve in many areas. Including overwhelm, prioritizing, making decisions, creating realistic plans and more.
One thing she didn’t realize was an issue until she joined the program, was how many extra details her communication had.
When she would share or ask questions there would be a lot of details and background, her emails were very long even her comments in the Zoom chat were paragraphs long.
While Maggie didn’t share completely irrelevant information, there was a lot being said every time she communicated and this not only took a long time, but also made it challenging for people on the receiving end to really understand what she wanted from them.
While you are doing any task, you (without even realizing it!) are using your 28 thinking skills.
When the thinking skills you need to use are strong, doing the task happens easily.
If the thinking skill you need to use is weak, doing the task will be a challenge.
The struggle that Maggie had, came from a weak thinking skill of using relevant cues.
Understanding relevant cues is just what it sounds like - understanding what is relevant to this situation.
There are 2 ways people can struggle with understanding relevant cues:
In Maggie’s case, it was a challenge with the latter. She had a hard time figuring out what was relevant to this situation.
Often, simply being aware of the relevant cues helps a lot with improvement.
You’ll want to understand in which way your brain has a challenge with relevant cues and be aware of it to make change.
If your challenge is not picking up cues at all, you’ll want to keep the follow question top of mind in any conversation or new situation:
Are there any cues or details that can be helpful here?
If your challenge is like Maggie’s, you pick up all the cues but struggle with figuring out what’s relevant to the situation, the question you want to keep top of mind is:
How is this relevant to the other person you are communicating to?
Remember, it can be relevant to you, not the other person.
Often, people share more details than necessary as a way of processing the information.
This is okay when you’re just having a friendly chat but can be very confusing when giving over instructions or asking an important question.
If you find that is the case, you may want to take some time journaling your thoughts before going into meeting or communicating important information.
Another way you can practice sharing just what is relevant is having a conversation with a loved one, where after you share a thought, you repeat it while sharing just what is relevant.
You can do the same when sending an email.
Type the email, but before you hit send, reread it line by line and ask yourself, is this relevant to the other person.
While this is really not fun, over time, you’ll start noticing WHILE you type the email, you’ll be asking yourself, what is relevant to this situation?
Bonus factor: If you’ve listened to episode 438 or episode 472 you’ve heard about the concept of Zooming in and Zooming out. You can use this information to zoom in or out to the level of the person or the situation to give the right information
We covered a lot today around the concept of using relevant cues.
The first step is to understand, is your challenge not finding cues at all or is it not identifying what is relevant to the situation?
Your challenge this week is to pick one of the following, bonus points for doing more:
1) On a sticky note, write the question you need to keep top of mind.
Are there any cues or details that can be helpful here?
OR
How is this relevant to you the other person I am communicating to?
Put the sticky note near your screen so you see it when you're sending emails or in a Zoom meeting.
2) Have a conversation with a loved one where after you share a thought, you repeat back sharing just what is relevant
3) Before you send an email, reread it line by line to ask yourself if this is relevant to the other person.
If your struggle is not picking up the relevant cues, ask yourself if there are any other details this person needs to know so they can understand you better.
Cheers to Peak Brain Performance!
Most entrepreneurs want to grow their business but already got a lot of stress.
At LifePix University we help you rewire your brain to become more efficient and effective while experiencing more inner peace.
Learn more here.
This guide will give you all you need to start improving your cognitive functions. Learn what all 28 thinking skills are, how they apply to you and what you can do today to begin improving them.
Thinking is not one big thing. Thinking is made up of 28 parts, called cognitive functions.
Take the FREE assessment to see where each of your cognitive functions are currently at.
Can you help us reach our goal?
Share this podcast with someone you love!