On January 24, 2017, I co-presented (with Carson Pierce) a workshop at Deliver Sessions (formerly Northern DPM Meetup) entitled New Year, New You. Old Brain.

Presentation summary:
It’s a New Year and all the mistakes of last year are in the past. Everything is fresh and new and you’re going to do everything perfectly this year. Just like last year. And the year before that…right?

Or maybe not, no matter how hard you try.

Why do we keep falling into the same habits, despite our best intentions? How can we finally make lasting changes to how we work and do things the way we know we’re capable of?

This talk is not what you might picture when you think ‘motivational talk’. There’s no power poses, personal mantras or anyone wearing a headset. Instead, we’ll look at things from the perspective of psychology and neuroscience to figure out things like:

• why you do one thing when you know you should do something else
• how habits work and how to make or break them
• how to set – and keep – goals
• how to prioritize and focus your work