Pop quiz! Are you becoming an idiot? Wouldn't you hate to wake up one day and suddenly realize,"Oh my! Over the past 10 years, I've become an idiot!" It would be better to know now and take corrective action before you reach the point of no return. This is a ten question quiz to determine whether or not you are becoming an idiot. Have you read at least two non-fiction books during the last 12 months? Do you spend more than 2 hours a week channel surfing? Have you taken any formal college training in the last five years? Has it been more than 5 years since you did a long division problem by hand? Have you been to at least one cultural event in the last year? (Museum, opera, … [Read more...] about Are You Becoming An Idiot?
mind
The Difficult Things
When I'm working on something very, very difficult, I often find myself bumping up against an invisible wall. It is as if my mind just isn't clear enough to break through. For example, when trying to learn a new, complex mathematical concept, I seem to spend a lot of time teetering just on the verge of a full understanding with no real idea of what is holding me back. It is like looking through a fog. The feeling is similar to running at your top speed and trying to go just a little bit faster. Obviously, this is very frustrating. You can almost taste success, but it just isn't happening. When I find myself in this situation, I can sometimes get past it by focusing more. This … [Read more...] about The Difficult Things
Using Different Parts of your Brain
There was some research done into what parts of the brain were triggered when writing at a computer versus what parts were triggered when writing with a pencil and paper. The experiments showed that writing by hand triggered activity in significantly different portions of the brain than when writing at a computer. (See Mozarts Brain and the Fighter Pilot book.) Obviously, it is expected that there would be some difference because of the varied muscle motor skills required by each activity. However, the difference was greater than what would be expected by just the required motor differences. The conclusion of the researchers was that we think significantly differently when writing … [Read more...] about Using Different Parts of your Brain
Taking the Time to Read
There are few people who wouldn't benefit from spending a little more time each day reading a good book. If you want to keep yourself at maximum creative capacity, you have to make sure you are taking in new ideas and thoughts. If you aren't continually feeding your mind, you'll eventually find your creative reserves starting to run dry. Continually producing output without taking any input is a good way to burn out. Here are eight tips that I've found help me in my personal reading habits: Read books. There is a lot of material available on blogs and other internet sites, but make sure you are taking time to read actual published books. The quality of published materials … [Read more...] about Taking the Time to Read
11 Steps Toward Developing a Superior Mind
Great success in life is usually the result of taking advantage of rare opportunities. So success is most likely to come to those who are prepared to take advantage of opportunities. One of the most important aspects of being prepared for any opportunity is making an intentional effort to avoid becoming dumb. I know that sounds silly, but it is very easy to find people around you who haven't kept themselves in mental shape. When opportunities come their way, they miss out because they lacked the right knowledge, frame of mind, or mental stamina. Just like a muscle, your brain needs exercise. Far too many people get stuck in a rut of old habits and never really exercise their … [Read more...] about 11 Steps Toward Developing a Superior Mind
The Deadly Well – Teaching to Learn
When you need to remember something you've learned, one of the best things you can do is explain your new knowledge to someone else. When I was studying music theory, I thought I had a firm grasp on the subject. However, when I went back and taught it to incoming freshmen, I discovered how much better I understood once I had to explain it to others. I still use this technique today. When there is something that I think I understand, I'll try to explain it to my wife to help me remember and to see if I understand things as well as I think I do. My mother teaches grade school and uses this principle all the time. When her sister and her sister's 5 year old grandson were coming to … [Read more...] about The Deadly Well – Teaching to Learn
Do You Read Enough?
Imagine you are interviewing someone for a job and one of the questions you are going to ask them is "How much time do you spend reading and what do you read?" Now imagine the answer you get back exactly describes your own reading habits. What would your opinion be of the person you are interviewing based solely on that answer? In other words, are you impressed with your own reading habits? Most people aren't. With the Internet, the average person reads a much wider range of content with much less depth than 20 years ago. And while there are some definite advantages to knowing a little about a lot of things, much of the content adds very little value to people's lives. Making … [Read more...] about Do You Read Enough?
9 Alternatives to Mindless Television
Even if you can find something you want to watch, television is generally a waste of time. Approximately 20 minutes out of every hour is commercials, so when you watch 3 hours of television, you actually are watching 2 hours of your show and 1 hour of commercials. Here are a few ideas to make watching television more productive. (It sounds funny reading that.) Don't Channel Surf If there is a show you want to watch, then watch that show. Jumping from channel to channel can eat up huge amounts of time without actually watching anything. Think in terms of having a complete experience: a start, a middle, and an end. If you simply jump from channel to channel you aren't really having … [Read more...] about 9 Alternatives to Mindless Television
Interview: Learning New Technology
We interviewed a number of bloggers and asked: How do you learn a new piece of technology? (968) Here are their answers. I play with it! If my mind doesn't start flooding with lots of ways it will save me a ton of time, I abandon it. If it's not intuitive to learn, forget it. In today's world there is no excuse for any technology to be difficult to learn. Ariane Benefit from Neat & Simple Living (rss) Giving yourself plenty of time to just "play" is important. You shouldn't buy a complicated new digital camera 30 minutes before you want to use it to capture a once in a lifetime event. I unpack, fire it up and start using it. I toss the manual in the corner and … [Read more...] about Interview: Learning New Technology
Scientists and Magicians
In an interesting experiment, scientists showed individuals photos of two female faces and asked them to pick which one was more attractive. Then using a slight of hand trick learned from magicians, the scientist replaced the chosen photo with the one that was not chosen. So, the individual was handed the photo that they had decided was less attractive. Only 26% noticed the switch. The other 74% accepted the rejected picture as the one that they had chosen. Now possibly that could be explained by saying that they just weren't paying attention to the photo once it was handed to them, but the scientists went one step further. After handing over the photo, they asked the individual … [Read more...] about Scientists and Magicians
Brain Rules
I was sent a copy of Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School to review and I must say it has been a very interesting read. The author, John Medina, is a developmental molecular biologist. He has written a surprisingly accessible book on how the brain works full of tips for getting the most out of your mind. The book is broken down into 12 rules. Here are a few: Exercise - One of the biggest contributors to a clear mind as we age is exercise. Our brains are only 2% of our body weight, but require 20% of our total energy. Exercise helps improve circulation and moves more oxygen to the brain. The book suggests that conducting meetings while … [Read more...] about Brain Rules
Sleep and Damaged Cognitive Performance
In a society where success is often associated with long hours of work, some things that were never considered by previous generations of Americans are now becoming very prominent. One of these is time management. While working longer hours and weekends is something that most of us consider relatively normal, scientists have taken a look at the effects of sleep on cognitive ability. In the New York Magazine article "Snooze or Lose," researchers have discovered something rather alarming about the sleep patterns of adults and children, alike. Dr. Avi Sadeh of Tel Aviv University conducted a study on the effects of sleep deprivation in grade schoolers. In short, what he found was that a … [Read more...] about Sleep and Damaged Cognitive Performance
Attention Spans and the Internet
In classrooms and homes all across the nation, teachers and parents are sometimes left wondering what happened to their children's attention spans. We often hear older generations commenting disparagingly about the way younger people always seem to be hard to entertain. Some just call this phenomenon being "spoiled," but is it just the children that are losing their patience? The Internet One of the chief factors in the change of attention span and reading habits that we are seeing is being attributed to the internet. Specifically, the internet is being targeted because it encourages "skim reading" instead of the more old fashioned "in-depth" kind of study that our civilization is … [Read more...] about Attention Spans and the Internet
Personal Development: Continual Improvement
We asked a number of bloggers: "How do you make sure that you are continually growing and learning new things?" There answers provide some great starting points for creating your own personal improvement plan. (3638) I try to remain curious. I constantly challenge my own thinking ... even when I don't want to. Take blogging for example. I thought it was a fad and refused to get involved. But after a while I wondered why I was adamantly against it ... and I opened up my sense of curiosity and jumped in. Being curious opens you to the world of new ideas and challenges your own sense of the status quo. Feeding your curiosity ensures you are always learning. Gavin Heaton from … [Read more...] about Personal Development: Continual Improvement
Stretching Yourself
Take the time to do something hard. Take the time to do something new. Your biggest surges of growth will come from stretching yourself. You can stretch yourself in small ways by trying a new type of food, talking with a stranger, or watching a movie that is different than your norm. You can stretch yourself in big ways by quitting your job and going into business for yourself. Regardless of how you go about it, you will grow more by stretching yourself on a consistent basis than by reading every self-help book you can find. When you are looking for things to stretch your capabilities, here are a few things to keep in mind. What are the risks? You need to understand the impact of … [Read more...] about Stretching Yourself
Sleeping Brains
Scientists implanted rats with special sensors and then trained them to run a particular course in order to find cheese. They found that they could tell where each rat was in the course by monitoring which cells were firing in the rats' brains. When the rats were sleeping, the scientists noticed something strange. The cells continued to fire in the same order. It was as if the rats were practicing running the course in their sleep. In another experiment, people were given a mechanical task to learn and repeat quickly. Scientists measured the areas of their brain that were active when performing the task right after learning it. Then they let some of the test group sleep and kept … [Read more...] about Sleeping Brains
Laptop for taking Notes
Unclutter posted an article about using a laptop to take notes at college. I tend to disagree. It is hard to beat a pen and paper for taking notes. One thing that is commonly overlooked is how different tools exercise your mind. When you work on the computer it uses substantially different parts of your brain than when you write with pen and paper. (I don't know what happens if you use a typewriter.) Since so much research and writing papers is done on the computer, taking notes by hand allow you to interact with the content in as many different parts of the brain as possible. What do you think? Is a laptop an effective way to take notes in a classroom? … [Read more...] about Laptop for taking Notes
The Zone
There are two things that will impact how much you get done. First, there is the amount of time you spend. Obviously, you can get more done in 20 minutes than in 2. The second is how focused you are. This factor is referred to as, being in "the zone". When it comes to your personal productivity, the second factor is usually more important than the first. How many times have you spent 30 minutes working on a task that you didn't really want to do and made very little progress, but when you truly decide you want to complete that task it only takes 15 minutes? This a common occurrence for most people. Often the biggest differentiator between highly productive and less productive people … [Read more...] about The Zone
Take a Nap for Memory
Studies suggest that your memories are solidified while you sleep. Your brain does a lot of work during your rest--almost like it is busy filing and making sense of everything you've discovered while you were awake. When you've learned a new concept or information that you want to retain, consider taking a nap or reviewing it right before going to bed. This will give your brain the best chance to assimilate the new information. … [Read more...] about Take a Nap for Memory