There is that famous quip that says knowing youll be hanged in the morning has a way of clarifying your mind.

Suddenly, youre challenged to make the best use of the time you have left. You might reminisce, or appreciate the quality of light in your cell, or whatever it is that doomed people celebrate.

Or, you may find new meaning in the term, gallows humor, making yourself giddy with irony in your final hours.

But you probably wont be BORED if only because you have to squeeze years of life into minutes, and that would challenge the most imaginative of us.

Lets back away from doomsday for a moment to consider something all of us suffer from to some extent: boredom. I maintain that we can only be bored when were not being challenged or were not challenging ourselves.

Ive written before about Jim, my former boss at the car leasing company. He asked me how I would increase sales across the entire staff, and I believe I said something completely logical and wrong, like Give them higher commissions!

He believed the best way to bring out the abilities of a salesperson is to put him into debt. When you raise someones minimum payments each month, you challenge them to step up to meet or to exceed those demands.

And most salespeople, Jim said, will do just that: Theyll sell more.

You can try this for yourself, or take on a financially safer task. But whatever you do, the next time you feel bored, pile on the responsibilities, and that state of mind will be the least of your concerns!