Tag Archives: organization

What is a Think Pond?

Think Ponds are fluid associations of diverse individuals who bring their imaginations, knowledge, and skill sets, along with their dreams and passion projects, into a community of their own design. Creative energies converge, expanding possibility. Obstacles are flattened as complementary skills combine and available resources broaden. Timelines contract. Promising ideas stay out of the trash. Connections proliferate.

For individuals, a Think Pond is a next generation platform for shaping and strengthening four essential lifelong enterprises: 1) Dream chasing, 2) Life-embedded learning, 3)Solution-crafting, and 4) Venture launching. Making the most of these enterprises will both improve your competitive edge and increase your level of fulfillment with the work you do in the world.

For the greater good, an evolving ecosystem of Think Ponds is a wellspring of creativity and collaboration that can increase the sustainability of innovative, socially valuable programs, incubate new businesses, and activate unrealized human potential.

Brain Management

By Deborah Vrabel

Meeting deadlines and achieving goals demands effective use of time and resources. When we look at our workload, we reach for the calendar, the timeline, budgets, and other tools for ensuring that we have what we need and do the right things at the right time. We don’t assume that the resources we need are unlimited and available whenever we decide to use them. We don’t treat our pool of resources as something we can stretch at will to double its original size, and we don’t squander our most valuable resources to accomplish the things that matter least.

Many of us need to follow those common sense guidelines when we allocate our most precious resource–our capacity to think.

I’m not talking here about doing brain workouts like the games sold by Luminosity or practicing mindfulness. Neither am I referring to dietary supplements, exercise, rest, and other health practices that are good for the brain.

Instead, I want to try adapting the tools we all use to manage our time, resources, and productivity to the needs of people whose work spans an array of complex issues and requires versatile use of mental processes and people who are finding their way–whether that means exploring or reassessing career directions, working on a dream and a job simultaneously, or rebuilding and recovering after loss and upheaval.

Think Pond members: Let’s see where this takes us! How might considering flow, mental energy requirements, aesthetics, and social needs help us make better use of thinking time?