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Psychological research suggests success in big projects depends on shrewd shifts of focus between tasks and goals.

Successfully completing large, complex projects can bring great commercial, scientific or artistic rewards. Unfortunately these types of projects, by their very nature, also provide endless opportunities to falter along the way.

Early hiccups can send motivation into a tailspin, doubts cloud good judgement and the wood is lost for all the trees. There are so many reasons to jack it all in or do a bad job, and we need only choose one. That’s why any insight from psychology is welcome.

Recent psychological research suggests one of the keys to getting big projects done is balancing up individual tasks against the grand vision. It’s all about knowing when to flip the frame of reference from looking closely at the details of individual components of a project, and when to look up and see the project’s grand sweep.

Two new psychological studies published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggest how to divide our attention between task- and goal-focus. These techniques may help us avoid being put off by early failures, feel better about our progress and stay motivated to reach our ultimate goal.

If you prefer to skip the experiments, go straight to how to balance task-focus with goal-focus.

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Meyer Wells is a partnership between furniture designer John Wells and master craftsman Seth Meyer. Their approach is local: local reclamation, local production and local sales. In fact, 99% of their materials come from within 10 miles of their shop. Eco-sweet!

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In many iTunes App Store categories, there exists significant overlap–competing apps vying for the same place on your iPhone or iPod Touch. One of these categories encompasses eBooks. We previously reported on Stanza, which is now facing some competition.

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