Tony Schwartz's Blog

How to Think Creatively
Creativity, Mental Needs | October 18, 2012
I grew up hungry to do something creative, to set myself apart. I also believed creativity was magical and genetically encoded. As early as the age of 8, I began sampling the arts, one after another, to see if I'd inherited some gift.Eventually, I became a journalist. For many years, I told other people's stories. I was successful, but I rarely felt truly creative.
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Battling Your Online Addiction
Focus, Mental Needs | September 26, 2012
How much time do you spend each day responding to email, checking Facebook, sending and reading Tweets, aimlessly surfing your favorite websites and buying things you don't need? How much time, in other words, do you spend doing stuff online that doesn't add much value in your life, or in anyone else's?Too much, I'm going to guess.
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A 90-Minute Plan for Personal Effectiveness
Mental Needs | June 13, 2012
For nearly a decade now, I've begun my workdays by focusing for 90 minutes, uninterrupted, on the task I decide the night before is the most important one I'll face the following day. After 90 minutes, I take a break.To make this possible, I turn off my email while I'm working, close all windows on my computer, and let the phone go to voicemail if it rings.
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Take Back Your Life in 7 Simple Steps
Focus, Mental Needs | May 29, 2012
In my most recent blog, I wrote about how we've allowed technology to take a pernicious toll on our attention, and in turn, on our creativity, our resilience, our relationships and, ultimately, our productivity.This week I'm turning my focus to how to wrest back control of your attention, so you can make conscious choices that provide long term satisfaction rather than instant but fleeting gratification.
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You Are Not A Computer (Try As You May)
Focus, Mental Needs | May 17, 2012
Technology is meant to serve us. Instead it increasingly runs us — and runs us down.Where we put our focus shapes our agenda and defines our experience in every moment. More and more, we're turning over this precious resource to our digital technology, allowing it to define the depth and span of our attention, and to seduce us into operating at such high speeds that we don't notice the insidious toll that's taking.
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