One of the tools that has had a major impact on my life has been Mind Mapping.

Developed by Tony Buzan, it is an incredibly powerful thinking device that has made a massive difference in the way I think.

Having been an avid user of Mind Mapping for just over 15 years and a teacher of it for the last 10 I can strongly endorse it as a thinking process that WILL enhance your professional life.

I am so passionate about sharing its benefits that I have a dedicated Mind Mapping Blog to help you get the most out of the tool

In addition I have just launched my new Mind Mapping Training website if your organisation is interested in developing their business thinking skills.

Recent events where I have shared the benefits and "How To" of Mind Mapping include:

• Working with a team of accountants who wanted to develop their thinking processes
• Running conference breakout sessions for the R&D arm of a major international company
• Working one on one with an Australian Real Estate agent keen to develop their knowledge and understanding of their industry and their marketplace.
• Working with the European subsidiary of an American Pharmaceutical company interested in developing their staff's skills at dealing with recently mandated Continuing Professional Development requirements
• Sharing advanced study and revision skills to an audience of students about to start university
• Delivering a Keynote to 800 Financial Advisors whose industry is going through major reviews across a number of areas, including training and development

 In my humble opinion, the efficiencies, effectiveness and increased productivity required by today's knowledge worker are simply not possible by just working harder or reading faster.

There are a variety of strategies, techniques and tools that can help deal with this increasing workload (which is one of the major causes of workplace stress) however at the core of all of these is the necessity to use our brains far more efficiently.

Mind Mapping allows us to do that and if you want to find out more, click here to discover more about Mind Mapping Training.

Yesterday I ran another one of my Hour a Day Workshops at a rather nice hotel in central London.

The background to the development of this programme was rooted in the Information Overwhelm problem that we face in today's fast paced world.

At first glance the most obvious skill to develop is that of being able to read faster. 

The logic being that with so much to read if you can do that faster you will be able to get more done.

Of course that is not always the case for a variety of reasons I won't go into here. 

It will help but there is far more to it than that.

My Speed Reading site will tell you more about that if you are interested.

So whilst I do cover becoming a more Effective Reader in this programme, much of it focuses on just becoming more effective generally.

At the beginning of the session I always ask the group these questions:

1. How do you feel about the QUANTITY of information you have to deal with
2. How do you feel about your EFFECTIVENESS in dealing with that information

 I get them to respond by numerically scoring on a scale of 1-10 (1 being bad, 10 being very good) and to give me a single word that would describe their feelings in each case.

Here are some of the results I got from yesterday's group (who were all senior directors in large companies by the way):

If we look at the figures in the left hand column we see a set of results that is a reflection of how they feel about the quantity they have to deal with.

It is important to understand that this is not a measure of the quantity, more a reflection of what their workload means to them.

The numbers are pretty arbitary and it is the words that are the most revealing.

In this group there is a mixed set of feelings about their information workload that varies from being quite desperate about it to being fairly relaxed.

Now in the right hand column there is a little more consistency in both the numerical scores and the more subjective, but more revealing verbal answers.

So whilst probably having negative thoughts about the quantity of information these people have to deal with, most on balance feel they are at the very least coping with it and indeed one or two are even thriving on it.

This is the sort of result I would expect from such high achievers.

However one result sticks out and that is the person who scored 3 and Desperate for quantity and 5 and Unfocused for effectiveness.

When we chatted this person revealed that 12 months ago their scores would have been much better.

They knew their job inside out and had a complete grasp of what needed to be done and how to do it.

But in the last few months their role had changed and they were still struggling to come to terms with their new responsibilities.

They said (and I quote) "It was much easier in my last role because I had very clear objectives and responsibilities and it was easy to know how to deal with all the stuff that came my way"

They went on to say "Perhaps I need to get clear on exactly what it is I need to do so that I can be more decisive and focussed like some of the other people in this room" (they were sate between the "decisive" and"skilled" people).

It was interesting watching them speak because this person pretty much came to the conclusion they had to get clarity on what they needed to do without any intervention on my part at all.

They answered their question themselves before they had even asked it.

So the most important word to know when dealing with information overwhelm is CLARITY.

I learnt this from Brian Tracy who loves this word.  You will hear him say it over and over again on his audio programmes - "Clarity, Clarity, Clarity".

This person, who quite clearly was a highly capable individual, used to have clarity in his former role but had neglected to gain it in their new role.

So why is clarity so important?

Well decisiveness is a vital quality to have in today's information laden environment.

When something hits your desk or your inbox you need to decide if you are going to deal with it and if you are, what you are going to do.

And with so much coming at you, those decisions need to be made almost minute by minute.

But if you do not have the clarity about what you are trying to achieve or what is vital for you to know, those decisions are muddied by this lack of focus.

Unfortunately in the absence of this clarity, rather than deciding (and potentially making a mistake), it seems easier to make no decision at all.

This is one of the reasons why many people's e mail inboxes are filled full of emails "waiting to be dealt with".

This is one of the reasons why many people's in tray is piled high with documents, reports and papers just waiting to be processed.

So if you are overwhelmed with the amount of information you have to deal with, just do a quick clarity check to see how clear you are on what is vital for you to do right now because I pretty much guarantee that is where the problem lies.

I have always admired those people who were described as "award winning" in their particular field.

It says to me that the person has achieved something of note but has been recognised by an organisation separate from themselves.

Last year I went to an Academy of Chief Executives Speaker Showcase to give a flavour of one of my topics and despite being given the toughest slot (the very last one of the day!) I was voted the top speaker for that event after competing against some really amazing speakers.

A year working with Academy groups, honing my session and developing my ideas meant that by the end of the year I had a really good programme (even if I do say so myself!) showing senior people how to release an hour a day.  You can find out more at my Hour a Day Workshop website.

At then at the end of last year I had a call from Phil Jesson, Head of Speaker Development for the Academy, telling me that I won the Best New Speaker category of their annual awards. 

I must say I was shocked but incredibly pleased and proud because not only are the Academy groups challenging audiences, the quality of my fellow speakers is extremely high.

So at the end of last year, I attended the annual awards ceremony to receive my Best New Speaker award from Brian Chernett (see the picture above).

Of course another year goes by and other speakers are in the frame to receive this year's prizes.

They will be presented at the November Academy Speaker's showcase and once again they have honoured me by inviting me to co-facilitate the day with that great speaker, John Cremer.

So if you are attending that event, I look forward to seeing you there.  If you are not but you are looking for a great speaker, then on November 17th this year, 30 of the UK's leading experts in their chosen fields who happen to be great speakers too, will be gathered together in one place.  Find out who is going to be there and make your pick from that list.  You won't go far wrong.

It is the stroke of midnight on the 31st December 2007….

You have fended off the slobbering lips of those insisting on kissing one and all, you have given your hugs, spilt your drink and made your resolution to this year actually keep your New Year's Resolutions.

As you look back on the year that has just past, are there more things you would have liked to have done but just did not get round to?

Were there business projects that got put on the back burner that would have really made a difference?

Would you have liked to take up a hobby you have been wanting to try for years?

Has the constant putting off of going to the gym taken its toll on your waistline?

Or maybe you longed to have spent more quality time with your loved ones?

So why didn't you do them?

Well for many I pose this scenario to it is the challenge of time poverty.  There just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to get everything done.

Of course there are only 24 hours in the day you know….

However what if at the stroke of midnight you could have suddenly been gifted with an extra three weeks to do whatever you liked with?

I know it sounds a little far fetched but just go with me on this one.

3 weeks a year = 2 days a month = an afternoon a week = an hour a day

So what if you could have any one of those time periods? (It is all the same time, just aggregated differently).

What would you do with that time?

Well first of all you need to find out how to get that time.

Just recently I worked with the legal department of a large international insurance company to show them how they can find this time by running my "Hour a Day Workshop" with them.

They were having an away day that culminated in Dragon Boat Racing (that will explain the strange hats) and a BBQ and they wanted to have something fun, interactive but also useful in a professional context.

Having run this workshop with the company's executive development programme earlier in the year, it apparantly got rave reviews and so that was how I got involved with the legal department.

Now the idea of finding an extra hour a day does seem like an impossibility to most but I know it can be done because not only have I done it, I have also helped hundreds others do the same to.

If you watch this video here, I explain not only how you can do it too, but I give you the step by step process.  It is really a very simple approach and really commonsense and you will be kicking yourself when you realise how it is done.

Watch this and let me know what you think.  By the way this video was shot on the way to and from the event with this particular client just last week.

One of the great joys about the work I do is the wide variety of people I get to meet and work with.  I encounter all sorts of different people from all sorts of different backgrounds in all sorts of different places.  Often, even in completely different sectors and industries, I keep bumping into the same sorts of problems and challanges….And today was no exception.

As someone who has run hundreds of training courses, personally working with over 90,000 people in a variety of industries and professions, I am often called upon to share my experiences with trainers.  In particular, given my area of specific interest, trainer groups are very interested to find out more specifically about Memory Improvement.

There are two angles trainers tend to look at when it comes to Memory Improvement:

• First of all professionally, I have yet to meet a trainer who wasn't keen on understanding more about how to make their training more memorable for the people who attend their sessions.
• Secondly the majority of people I meet are usually keen to discover more about improving their own memory

 This last one always makes me chuckle because I think there are two subjects people that people ALWAYS love to talk about and they are 1) the weather and 2) how bad their memory is! I have lost count of the number of times I have struck up conversations with people I have just met and the subject of how poor their memory crops up.

So yesterday I was at the Mount Somerset Hotel in Taunton working with Dental Trainers and Course Designers from Bristol University running a session called "Perfect Recall, Myth or Magic" and my objectives were:

• 1.  To enhance their knowledge of recall techniques
• 2.  To look at ways to enhance the learning experience of their own course participants.

We only had a few short hours but managed to pack a huge amount in.

Here is what I was looking to achieve with the group:

• The experience of improved recall during the session
• Greater confidence in their ability to learn and remember
• Increased motivation to engage in Continual Professional Development
• Perfect recall of the main points of the presentation

In the short space of time allocated I was able to do this (and more:-)) by covering these points:

• Why a poor memory is not necessarily age related
• The 10 reasons why we forget and what you can easily do about them
• A simple understanding of how the brain remembers
• 4 steps to a better memory
• The World's most powerful thinking tool

 One area we concentrated on in some depth was that of  how to remember names and faces as it was a challenge many of them faced.  I covered my HANDSHAKES process for remembering someone's name and gave them a few tips and tricks to of what to do if you meet someone but can't remember their name.

It was a successful day and despite the post lunch slot and a hot afternoon, many of them even stayed awake to listen to what I had to say.  Possibly the highlight of the day was trying to compete with a Peacock who insisted on schreeching at me from the courtyard outside the open door to the seminar room.

I heard the feedback the group gave him was incredible and that he is back next month for their next session!

I don't watch much television but I am aware of the hype and the huge following that "The Apprentice" with Sir Alan Sugar has.  My partner Pat is a huge fan and tries to watch the show every week.  Last night I happened to be in the room whilst she watched the latest dismissal and the big "You're Fired" moment.

I have only seen this twice before so I knew what went on and always felt you could learn a lot about watching the potential "ex-Apprentices" squirm under the grilling that Sir Alan gives them in the boardroom.  Last night was no exception and it was interesting to see Michael battle for his survival (I really thought he had blown it - I did not watch the task but it seemed he cheated and had used underhand tactics!).

However not only did Sir Alan NOT fire Michael but he got rid of red head Jennifer AND the Irish Jennifer.  I thought they were only supposed to get rid of one a week!  Still he is the boss and he can do what he likes and I suppose it makes for great television.

Anyway as Irish Jennifer (Maguire) left the boardroom and made her way to the taxi I commented to Pat that I would love to meet her.

Well lo and behold I turn up at the BBC today and who is in with Nihal before me but BOTH Jennifers.  Well not being one to miss an opportunity I introduced myself to Jennifer Maguire when she came out of the studio, had a quick chat with her and got a photograph taken.

What a lovely person she is and I don't think what I saw on the TV last night did her justice at all.  I haven't been following the Apprentica at all and so I have no idea how she has come across in the rest of the series but take it from me, not only is she really attractive, but she has an extremely attractive personality too and despite missing out on the coveted Apprentice spot, I sense she will go on to be very successful in whatever she does.

Good luck Jenny.

I get asked to do interviews on radio all the time, especially the smaller local stations and so when I get the invitation to go to the BBC in London to appear on a national station, it is always a treat to do so.

Whenever I visit a radio station to do an interview I never really know what to expect from the interviewer.  Occasionally someone has a bee in their bonnet and a point to make and that day I am going to be their victim.  However more often than not the person asking the questions is genuinely interested in what I have to say not only for themselves but also for their listeners.

This is usually the case with the BBC and today I had the privilege of being interviewed by Nihal of Radio 1 and the Culture Show fame.

You know you are going to have an insightful and engaging interview with great questions and good conversation when the DJ makes a point of coming out of the studio to meet you, say Hi and get to know a little which is exactly what Nihal did.

I was on for an hour and in between some great music we discussed all sorts of topics.  The key focus was of course memory improvement and we spent a bit of time talking about the World Memory Championships.  I always enjoy seeing the look of complete astonishment on people's faces when they discover exactly what I had to do to come second in the World Memory Championships.

One of the biggest questions that came out of the conversation was that of remembering names and faces.  Baya Cat  the studio producer (yes that is her real name) wanted to know how to overcome her challenge of not being able to remember the names of the people she has only just met (which is an extremely common challenge).  We discussed this in some detail using the scenario of a large Asian wedding.

We discussed a variety of other topics too including general memory improvement, the effect of concentration on memory, Mind Mapping, reading effectively and dealing with information overwhelm. 

Overall it was a good interview and I really wish we could have recorded our conversations whilst the records were playing because we covered some great stuff there too.

Thanks Nihal and I hope we do it again some time.

If you want to listen to the replay of the interview then you can find it here at http://www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork/nihal/biog.shtml under "previous shows" and click on the Thursday link.  This will only be valid for the next 7 days (it will be gone by the 15th May).

I am hoping to get a recording of the interview to put up here on my blog but in the meantime you can get it from the BBC.

Just a quick heads up for my regular readers.  Tomorrow at 1100 UK time (that is GMT +1) I am the "Guru" on Nihal's morning show on the BBC's Asian network.  You can listen in live if you go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork/nihal/ and select the "listen now" button on the right hand side of the page.  The show is also available for 7 days after on the same page if you miss the live broadcast.

It is exam time and so Nihal has invited me on to share my knowledge on Memory Development, Mind Mapping and Speed Reading to help students who might need a little help with their revision.

It is at the BBC studios in West London so I wonder if I'll see anyone famous?

One of the great things about being invited to speak to different companies, organisations and associations is that you get to appear on stage at some pretty amazing venues.  You also get to sample the delights of some very interesting and varied venues.  In my career I have spoken at, amongst others,  Aintree, the home of the Grand National (just last week!), The Barbican in London, Princess Royal Theatre Port Talbot, GMEx in Manchester, Olympia, A large theatre in Chennai in India, A former workhouse in Ireland, numerous smaller hotels and conference facilities, a castle,  a library,  many school halls and quite a few football grounds.  Today I had the privilege of presenting at St Mary's Stadium, the home of Southampton Football Club.

 My task was to engage, inform and entertain, 50 NHS Surgery Practice Managers for 90 minutes with the focus on showing them how they can release an hour a day by using some very simple strategies.  Now these people are extremely busy with tremendous drains on their time and energy and patience (excuse the pun).  Being pushed and pulled by often conflicting demands from the practice patients, the GPs and the NHS (at the local Primary Care Trust level or the regional or national NHS levels).   The pressure on these people is huge, but they do like a good time and so my brief was "give them something that they can take away and use immediately AND give them a good time".

So what did I do?

Well first of all the biggest challenge that many people face when looking to make progress in their personal and professional lives is the issue of belief.  A belief is a feeling of certainty that something is true to you.  The extent to which you believe something will be the extent of its control over you, positive or negative.  Now if you are in a busy, ever changing environment, constantly overwhelmed with paper work, conflicting demands and numerous challenges and problems (most of them with hair on top!) and some smart arse stands before you and says cheerfully, "I can help you  free up an hour in your busy day" you are at best going to ignore him and at worst want to punch him in the mouth!

 This is because with an existing frame of reference (or belief if you like) it is often a challenge to see how else things can be and even the mere suggestion that things might be different will often find people seeking out reasons (or possibly excuses) to justify their view of the world.  So that was the first challenge I had - to shift their belief that things could be different.  In the short space of time I had that could be quite a challenge and so rather than meet that head on, I outflanked them by shaking the foundations of a firmly held belief about their memory.  Just about everyone in the audience, when asked, believed that they had a poor memory.  Well 5 minutes later I showed them that this was a belief that probably was not true by demonstrating to them that with the right knowledge it is in fact very easy to remember something that 2 minutes earlier had seemed impossible. 

WIth that in mind, for the rest of the session I shared with them some of the lessons I have learned over the last 20 years about how they can deal with information far more effectively, what stops people from being the best we can be and what to do about it, and how to cut through information to find the nuggets of what you really need saving them both time and effort AND more importantly giving them back control over their intray.  It was a great day and fortunately for me they were a lively, energetic and interactive group who really took on board the message and got fully involved in the interaction and participation.  Ah, if only every group was like that…

And my closing message to them was "Just remember to Believe…."  because at the beginning they thought they had a bad memory but I showed them that was not really true.  So if that belief wasn't strictly true, then perhaps there were other beliefs they had that might be holding them back from making progress in other areas of their lives that were not true….just a thought.

Now I had a great day because I had a really good audience, my client who put the seminar on was delighted and from the response from the audience both during and after, they seemed to have enjoyed it to.  Certainly one audience member did and here is what he wrote to my client:

"Thank you for the fantastic seminar in Southampton yesterday, it was an extremely good day overall and I particularly got a lot from the day! I thought Michael Tipper was excellent and I certainly will remember his lecture, I think! I went to visit a friend at Southampton Hospital, she works in the ITU department, and passed on the memory skills from the session to her and also my wife when I got home. It was powerful and very useful in our very busy lives. I trust this has only taken you a milli-second to read!  Many thanks for an excellent day."  NM Practice Manager

 

I am pleased, rather smug and extremely excited to announce that my latest book (number 3) is now on the bookshelves in both the UK and North America.  It is called Memory Power Up, 101 Ways To Instant Recall and as the name suggests it is about how to get the most out of your memory.  It is published by Duncan Baird and you can get it from Amazon or from me by clicking here and it is out today.

I was approached by the publisher last year to write a book on memory improvement.  I don't know why I didn't do it before given that is what I help people with.  I suppose I was content with my two student related books because that is where I did much of my early work.

Anyway it is out now and I am absolutely delighted with it.  I was keen to focus on practical advice to help solve the most common memory challenges that people have and that is what I have done.  You will find some of the more extreme techniques about how we World Memory Championship finalists do it, but the majority of the advice in it is down to earth, easy to apply for your day to day memory difficulties.

You will find that after reading the book and applying some very simple ideas, you will realise that your memory is far from being deficient, in fact it is really good, you just do not know how to use it.

I have had some really good feedback about the book and was extremely honoured to have 8 times World Champion, Dominic O'Brien write the forward for me.  He describes me as a formidable opponent which is a huge compliment from the man who inspired me to do something with my memory in the first place.  Tony Buzan, the inventor of the Mind Map has also endorsed the book for me.

If you do get a copy of it, let me know what you think.