The brilliant (yet easily distracted) Merlin Mann says he has a bad habit of Cmd+clicking sets of web browser tabs full of shiny things out to wrest his attention from the important work of doing stuff. To avoid getting sucked down the rabbit hole with one mindless click, he's purposefully inserting a page that asks him outright, "Is this really what you want to be doing right now?" He calls this little self-mind trick an "undistraction." Love the idea (even though the irony that his page asks an eerily similar question as my biggest online distraction is hard to miss). If you're not a Cmd+clicker, you can also use fuller-strength apps like LeechBlock to save yourself from online time-suckers. What games do you play with yourself to focus on the important stuff? Let us know in the comments.

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Journalist Carl Honore—author of the best-selling book In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed—discusses how he believes our culture's obsession with speed "erodes [our] health, productivity and quality of life" at the 2005 TED conference. (It watches like new!) Honore's talk covers not only how out of proportion our need for speed has become (quoting Carrie Fisher: "Even instant gratification takes too long"), but also how to get in touch with your inner tortoise. The most appealing part: Honore says that many who embrace slowness find that they do everything—eating, working, and living—better. If your fast-paced lifestyle has got you down, Honore's talk is a must-watch. Thanks auzigog!

Web site The Antiques Digest offers a guide on concentration originally published in 1930 and full of delightful old-time language detailing a message that's more important than ever today. The guide suggests several aids for concentration, like periodical relaxation (go nappers!), a definite schedule, the right environment, and solitude:

Solitude calls forth the mood of receptivity. Only then do we get the best. Great things are worked out in silence. Then come the flashes of inspiration—the new visions. Emerson tells us that "Solitude is to genius the stern friend—the cold, obscure shelter, where mould the wings which will bear it farther than suns or stars."

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Reader Jared writes in:

It's easy to become jaded and disheartened in any workplace. I created a 'Fuzzies' folder for my Inbox, where I save any particularly inspiring or gracious messages from co-workers. I take a few moments to browse my Fuzzies whenever my morale needs bolstering.

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Blogger Pamela Slim has a habit of writing during the quiet late-night hours, along with a sense that she can't write unless she's got a fat stack of Oreos next to her. Digging into the dieting tips of Martha Beck, she finds that her compulsive sweet tooth stems from the same place as her deadline anxieties. Her solution is to basically sit down and calmly think through why she's not doing that badly whenever the late-night longings pop up:

The starved and frightened brain drives overeating and low metabolism. The calm and secure brain drives a very different set of biological motivators and consequences. In other words, when your brain is fixed, you eat less and burn off excess as heat, whereas the "famine brain" caused by stress and hunger- including dieting — really does make you consume more and store more as fat.

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When you absolutely have to commit your presentation notes, interview points, or other words to memory, a Tachistoscope, which rotates images at varying speeds, can be the next best thing to a neural FireWire port. Free Windows utility Swiftscope puts that subliminal power on your desktop. Create a simple text file with the lines you need to know, open it in Swiftscope, and set the background and font colours, the timing of the slide changes, and set the app to full-screen mode for total text immersion. Swiftscope is a free download for Windows XP and Vista, and requires Microsoft .NET 2.0 to run.

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Failing to listen during an important conversation not only requires you to ask questions later, it can give off the impression of not caring, even if it's really just bad habits. Workplace consultant Gretchen Neels tells the New York Times' Shifting Careers blog that subtly "mirroring" the gestures of the person you're listening to—they lean their head to the left, you lean to the right—can push your brain into listening and leave a reassuring impression.

While this might sound odd, apparently this kind of activity puts you into the same groove. Ms. Neels says that if you are with friends and feeling very connected, you are probably mirroring each other's body language since it's something people automatically do in situations where they are comfortable.

Not a bad trick, but you might want to practice it on a spouse or a friend who can laugh at you first. How do you force yourself into receptive listening if it's not in the cards for that moment? Share your tips in the comments. Photo by b d solis.

Developing new habits can jumpstart our creativity and even help us grow new brain cells, reports the New York Times. Research by authors Dawna Markova and M. J. Ryan suggests that stretching—but not stressing—yourself can develop your mind and creative skills.

"Getting into the stretch zone is good for you," Ms. Ryan says [...] "It helps keep your brain healthy. It turns out that unless we continue to learn new things, which challenges our brains to create new pathways, they literally begin to atrophy, which may result in dementia, Alzheimer's and other brain diseases. Continuously stretching ourselves will even help us lose weight, according to one study. Researchers who asked folks to do something different every day—listen to a new radio station, for instance—found that they lost and kept off weight. No one is sure why, but scientists speculate that getting out of routines makes us more aware in general."

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Scientists have long held that seven items—be they images, numbers, or tasks—was the best a brain could manage to hold at once, but LiveScience points out that, without specific practice, the best-case scenario for most people is three or four. It's a good explanation why phone numbers are written and spoken as three and four-digit groups, and a better reminder that if you've got a lot to do or remember, writing it down is probably the only way to hit 100 percent. What's your personal limit on non-practiced memory? How do you break up tasks and must-remember items into small groups for better recall? Share your successes in the comments, and check out our top 10 memory hacks for some pointers on augmenting your grey matter's somewhat paltry RAM.

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Writing things down, on paper or on-screen, is the best way to make sure you remember important info and tasks, but sometimes you've got to rely on your plain old brain to keep essential data sorted and handy. Whether it's a client's name, a password or combination you want stored only in your head, or answers for an upcoming test, there are plenty of techniques and tools to help you lock in important stuff and pull it out when needed. After the jump, we round up some memorable memory-boosting hacks. Photo by furryscaly.

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