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Want to Improve Your Memory and Concentration? 10 Easy Tips

http://theadventurouswriter.com/blog/want-better-memory-ways-improve-memory-power/

Improving your memory and concentration means never having to hut for lost car keys again. These brainy tips range from memory vitamins to cognitive games — they’re all from Alex Colket, the creator of PlayWithYourMind.com. His site features over a hundred brain fitness games, all designed to improve memory, concentration, clarity of thought, and brain plasticity.

Before his tips, a quip:

“Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculptor of his own brain,” says Santiago Ramon y Cajal.

You have the power to improve your memory, concentration, clarity of thought, and problem solving skills. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. Here’s what one reviewer says:

“When I started reading this book, I anticipated that it would be a boring read because I couldn’t imagine how a non-fiction book about the history and biology of human memory could be interesting. I was delighted and surprised to find out that this book is loads of fun to read. It features a cast of interesting characters, some useful tips about how to improve your own memory, and a premise that is compelling: turning someone with an average memory into a world-class competitive memory champion in less than a year. Although the book is well-researched, the subject matter never seems dry. The author presents it with lots of humor and anecdotes that had me chuckling out loud.”

And, read on for Colket’s ten ways to improve your memory and concentration…

10 Ways to Improve Your Memory and Concentration

Guest post – Alex Colket

Long-believed to be static, science has now conclusively demonstrated that our brains are plastic and ever-changing. Our brains are constantly being shaped by our thoughts and experiences, and by choosing these wisely, we can become smarter and healthier.  These tips for improving memory power will increase your memory and concentration.

If your memory is particularly poor, read 10 Brain Fitness Tips to Reduce Memory Loss.

1. Set and achieve your goals — it will improve cognitive health. Every time you set a goal and achieve it, you mentally reinforce the notion that you have the power over your life. It makes you feel strong, capable and better prepared for the next challenge. Accomplishments — both performance and self-improvement goals – remind you of the great potential of your mind and your life, and increase your desire to create a better memory.

2. Meditate to increase problem solving skills. Talk to anyone who practices this regularly, and they will extol the benefits of meditation on improving memory power! Talk to a neuroscientist about meditation, who will explain that it has a profound effect on the mind and the power to transform the physical structure of the brain.

3. Eat and exercise to boost memory power. Exercise is great for physical health, and it’s also an important way to improve your memory and concentration. Don’t underestimate the value of blood flowing to your brain. Get that heart pumping by jumping rope, taking a swim, or dancing around your apartment!  Avoid sugars and processed foods; instead eat whole foods such as grains, fruit, veggies and nuts. And, don’t forget the benefits of eating Omega-3 fatty acids.

4. Listen to music or make art to sharpen brain connections. If you aren’t used to playing music, take a seat at the piano or the drumset. If you don’t usually create art, grab that paintbrush or clay. Just do it – doing new creative, artistic things will give you more and better memory power.

5. Learn a new language to improve concentration. Yes, the “best” period for learning a new language is well past you. You will most likely never be able to make or hear all the sounds necessary for fluency. But don’t worry about that — learning a new language is great mental exercise and can be very useful for work, travel and making friends.

6. Find new hobbies to make your brain stronger. Picking up a new hobby or learning a new craft has many benefits.  Almost any new activity you pick up will provide you with meaningful challenge and stimulation, which are brain or memory “vitamins” that improve memory power.

7. Play brain games to improve memory and problem solving skills. Games have great potential to sharpen your mind, as they can be fine-tailored to a specific task and engaging enough to keep you working at it. With the advent of online brain fitness programs, you can now exercise your memory, verbal skill, attention, problem-solving, visuospatial ability and more all in one convenient place.

8. Challenge your balance and motor skills to boost brain power. Play with balls, whether it be juggling, ping pong or a game of catch. Learn to tie knots. Practice standing on one leg or walking along balance-beam like objects (better yet, do yoga or dance). These are fun activities that will help you develop a better memory.

9. Write to improve your cognitive health. If writing isn’t a regular part of your life, it should be (and I am not talking about business emails). Do something creative or expressive. Start a blog, keep a diary, compose a poem or find a pen pal. Or, write about something in your life – such as how illness has affected your brain and memory.

10. Feed your brain with sleep — it improves cognitive function. Insufficient sleep affects mood and performance considerably. Having a well-rested and well-fed brain is the foundation for all these other steps; without that, you may not have the energy for much else.

“Exercising our brains systematically is as important as exercising our bodies,” says Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg, Clinical Professor of Neurology at New York University School of Medicine. “In my experience, ‘Use it or lose it’ should really be ‘Use it and get more of it.’”

For more memory and concentration tips, read How to Find the Right Brain Games and Brain Exercises.

If you have any thoughts improving your memory and concentration, please comment below…

Alex Colket is an amateur neuroscientist, professional game developer, and brain fitness junkie. Visit Play With Your Mind to check out his 100+ brain fitness games and tips on neuroplasticity, sustainability and cognitive health.

TIME MANAGEMENT

OCT 22, 2012 2:00 PM   

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How Being Unreachable Makes Me More Productive

Craig Jarrow

Want to know a secret? I am not always reachable. I don't always answer my phone. Sometimes, I don't check email all day. And I get a lot more done because of it.

Knock, Knock…and Knock

One day I was in my office having a meeting on an important topic. Meanwhile, a colleague emailed me. Then he texted. Then he rang my desk phone, followed immediately by my cellphone. (I am not making this up.) And finally, he came downstairs and knocked on my door. At this point, I figured that something critical was going on, so I stepped out of the meeting to see what was so important.

It turns out he was simply looking for a reference document that he had misplaced. It was not urgent. Yet, this individual did not see the issue in repeatedly pinging and interrupting me. In fact, he was frustrated that he could not immediately reach me.

Limiting the Interruptions

I am a big believer that our communication tools are there for our benefit. Not for the benefit of others to constantly interrupt our lives. The answer to the question, "Why didn't you answer your phone?" is, "Because I was busy."

When I am working on something important, I tend to shut out all outside interruptions. I go to my unreachable island of isolation so that I can get work done.

Here are some of my favorite tactics to limit interruptions:

• Don't Answer That Phone: If I don't know who is calling, I don't answer it. Plain and simple. That is what voicemail is for.
• Use Privacy Mode to Limit Callers: I take control of who can ring my cellphone by usingPrivacy Mode. That way only the people who I allow can actually ring my phone.
• Only Read the Important Email: I don't read email very often. When I do, I make sure that I read the important ones first. I use the new VIP Inbox and a great service called Saneboxto make sure that my most important email is what I see first.
• Don't Read Unsolicited Email: Lots of people complain about spam. I don't get much. But, the ones I do, I just don't read. Delete, delete, delete.
• Use Quick Forms of Communication: A quick IM, text, or tweet can be much more efficient in some circumstances. Sometimes it is not necessary to get on the phone or have a face-to-face chat.
• I Shut My Door: When I am working on something that needs concentration and uninterrupted creative time, I shut my door. Don't let some misguided open-door policyprevent you from getting your work done.
• Set Expectations: One of the best ways to limit interruptions is to set expectations with your team. Ensure they know the preferred methods of communications and when it is appropriate to interrupt.
• Practice the Right to Decline: Many people feel guilty if they do not answer their phone or immediately respond to an email. Give yourself permission to decline the interruptions.

• Isolate Yourself When Necessary

  I can go to my own island to avoid interruptions. And I may be unreachable, for a time, while I am getting work done. You are welcome to join me.
  Just make sure you turn your phone ringer off.

How to Have More Free Time in Your Day

Do You Need More Free Time in Your Day?

Having more time in your day is easier than you think. Often, all it requires is making some tweaks in your everyday habits. 5 minutes gained here and there can make a big difference when added up over a week.

Be Smart With Your TV Viewing

Watch TV Online

If you’re not careful, watching TV can chew up a lot of hours in your week and can become a major cause of procrastination. Obviously the easiest thing to do would be to cut down your tv viewing. However, If you’re not prepared to do that, how about watching them online instead?

Most free-to-air television stations (in Australia anyway) stream shows online for around a month after it airs on TV. The greatest benefit of this is no ad breaks! So watching a drama which would ordinarily consume 1 hour of my time now only consumes 40 minutes! So if there are 20 episodes in a particular season I would have saved myself 4hrs of ad viewing!

Make Use of Ad Breaks

If you do end up watching TV shows with ads, make the most of those commercial breaks. You could do quick cleaning bursts around the house, or do some quick push-ups or stretches in the breaks. Maybe there's a a drawer in the house you've been meaning to spring clean. If you do a little bit (say 3-5 minutes worth) every ad break, by the end of the show you should be done.

Breaking down jobs into small manageable chunks makes it appear easier to achieve, so set aside a few of these jobs for your TV ad breaks to get them done effortlessly.

Don't Let Emails Take Over Your Life

I've had the same email address for years, and have signed up to so many sites; especially those annoying daily deals type sites that email you each day; that it was common to get hundreds of emails a week. These days my email is far better under control. My 'junk' email is down to a minimum and it's only promotional emails that I have approved to receive. More importantly, I no longer waste hours a week sifting through useless emails to find legitimate ones.

A lean email inbox is an easy way to get more time back in your day, as not only are you not having to sort through junk email, you are less likely to be distracted by junk emails which can easily lead to procrastination.

Unsubscribing to email lists is the easiest way to get control of your inbox. If that sounds overwhelming to you, try to unsubscribe to at least 5 lists a day. (The unsubscribe link is at the bottom of the email.)I did this daily for around a month. It's amazing to think that It took me about a month of unsubscribing to 5 email lists a day to get my inbox under control. That's around 150 email newsletters that was cluttering my inbox! I still get the odd junk email coming in, but it's much easier to control these days.

Additionally, have 1 email account for the sole purpose for joining sites and another email dedicated just for personal correspondence and important emails. You could also have a third email for work colleagues.

Source: Audible

Listen to Audio Books

I love learning about new things and further developing my skills. Whilst I do like to read a good book from time to time, I much prefer audio books and podcasts as it means I can multitask at the same time.

I get most of my audio books fromaudible, as they have really cheap introductory offers and free trials where they give you a free book. Most of the audiobooks has been narrated by the author themselves which is a nice bonus.

	Time Management from the Inside Out, Second Edition: The Foolproof System for Taking Control of Your Schedule -- and Your Life Amazon Price: $5.99 List Price: $16.99
	Time Warrior: How to defeat procrastination, people-pleasing, self-doubt, over-commitment, broken promises and chaos Amazon Price: $10.11 List Price: $15.95
	Tell Your Time: How to Manage Your Schedule So You Can Live Free Amazon Price: $2.99

Track Your time

This exercise is not for the lighthearted. For a few days, a week if you can handle it, track how you spend every minute of every hour. Now I don't mean checking your watch constantly and monitoring minute by minute. rather, check in with yourself every half hour or hour (maybe use an alarm on your phone or clock) and write down how you just spent that last 30 minutes.

Yes this is a very tedious task, but often patterns emerge that reveal ways in which we could save more time. For example, your time diary could reveal that in the course of a week, you go to the store several 3 times a week for groceries. Condensing this into 1 trip would save you a few hours.

Often examining how we spend out time reveals that we are more productive at certain times of the day. Which would mean you could adjust your schedule to fit in with the way you work. I personally work better on tasks that require high attention and focus in the afternoons, so in the morning I usually schedule lighter tasks and errands that don't require much focus.

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What Are You Going to Do With This Free Time?

What are you going to do with your free time? Spend more time with your family, learn a new skill? Even an extra 15 minutes a day can make a big change to your life. Imagine if everyday this year you spent 15 minutes learning a new skill or learning to play an instrument, by the end of the year, just imagine how much more skilled you would be in those areas!

Alternatively 15 minutes a day spent mediating will make your days more productive. It needn't be mediation in a traditional sense, it could be painting, listening to music or going for a walk. it could be anything that gives you a sense of peace.

Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter

By Whitson Gordon

Whether you're trying to survive an intensive college schedule or just want to seem smarter in front of your friends, you can do a lot of things to both look and be smarter. Here are ten simple tricks for boosting your real (and perceived) brain power.

10. Read Faster and Better

Obviously, one of the best ways to boost your intelligence is to read more! You can read faster (and thus consume more knowledge) by getting your speech mechanism out of the equation. So give your mouth something to do, like eating, humming, or chewing gum to get through that stuff quickly. Then, take some time to absorb and reflect on what you read to keep it in your memory. Whether it'sWar and Peace or just the Wikipedia Random button, you'll be surprised by how much more you learn when you're reading not just fast, but well. Photo by Zitona.

9. Speak Up (and Do It With Expression)

The more you can contribute to a conversation, a meeting, or other discourse, the smarter you'll come off. Even if it means admitting ignorance or asking questions, you'll still look better than if you stay silent—and you might actually learn something in the process. Expressive speech is key: you can boost your credibility a lot by simply making sure you speak with an engaging tone. Change your pitch and volume as necessary, and try to minimize the number of pauses as you speak. A little confidence goes a long way. Photo by MagneticNorth.

8. Don't Fall Prey to BS

When someone's trying to convince you of something, they can often resort to logical fallacies, appeals to your emotion, and other "workarounds". Learn the most common forms of BS so you can detect them as they come up. By knowing what they are, you'll also be able to avoid dishing out those same fallacies yourself, which can be a big hit to your credibility if someone catches you.Image remixed from Evan Vucci (AP) and Pablo Martinez Monsivals (AP).

7. Focus on What You Know

When engaged in a heated discussion with your friends, you're bound to stumble upon a few holes in your knowledge. It's okay to admit when you don't know something, but if you're feeling particularly self-conscious and want to keep up the appearance of intelligence, the key is emphasizing what youdo know. If you're in an argument, don't stress disagreement so much as agreement—that way, you aren't straying away from things you know about. You're stressing the parts you do know while still taking part in the discussion. Photo remixed from originals by auremar andartenot (Shutterstock).

6. Get Some Exercise

A healthy body means a healthy brain. So, in between all the reading and mind-expanding, make sure you're leading a healthy physical life, too. That means eating right and getting regular exercise. A number of studies. have shown links between regular activity and intellecual capacity, productivity, and creativity. Will spending all day at the gym make you smarter? Not quite, but sitting around all day will not only kill you, but hinder your brain from being at its absolute best.

5. Talk to Yourself

While mumbling to oneself is often looked at the behavior of a crazy person, a recent study showed that talking out loud to yourself can help give you a temporary cognitive boost when trying to find something. The theory behind it: when you give yourself verbal labels to a task you're performing, you focus better on the task at hand at any given moment. So when you feel the need to open your mouth, don't fight the urge—it might help you get things done faster.Photo by atomicjeep.

4. Learn a Second Language

People who know a second or third language are often perceived as smart by others, but research shows that it can actually make you smarter, too. If you know a second language, you're able to adapt to and switch between certain mental tasks better than those that only know one, so if you want to give your brain a real boost, learning a new language is a real (and useful!) way to do so. It's not actually hard to do, either: all you need is this simple four step method to learn in just a few months.

3. Do Things the Hard Way

Technology really has made our lives easier (after all, that's what Lifehacker's all about), but sometimes it's worth doing things the hard way. Take GPS navigation, for example: it's great that you can essentially never get lost, but if you rely on it too much, you'll never truly learn your way around. Instead, wean yourself off your GPS dependency and actually learn your way around town, develop a sense of direction, and learn to navigate using your brain. Doing things the hard way can help keep your brain sharp, so don't be afraid to forgo the easy stuff once in a while. Photo by Ramunas Geciauskas.

2. Know What Won't Make You Smarter

There's a lot of work going into researching what makes us smarter—much of which we've mentioned here—but it's also important to know what won't make you smarter. Check out our list of nine stubborn brain myths that just won't die to see just a few examples, like "the internet is making us dumber" (it isn't, if you use it properly), "listening to classical music makes children smarter" (unlikely), or that "brain games make you smarter" (don't waste your time). The less time you spend on silly myths, the more time you can spend actually expanding your brain, so get these out of your system now. Photo by Igor Nazarenko (Shutterstock).

1. Just Believe You Can Be Smarter

The last step? Just believe you can be smarter. Studies have shown that this simple belief can actually make it true. That isn't to say you should be pompous: you need toassume you aren't that great yet, which will leave you open to learning new things and asking new questions—the exact sort of things that can make you smarter. But it'll never happen if you believe your intelligence is somehow fixed, so once that roadblock is gone, you may find you're much freer to pursue the level of intelligence you want. If you're having trouble doing that, it may be time to recalibrate your reality—attitude is everything. Title image remixed from Alberto Zornetta (Shutterstock) and Petr84(Shutterstock).

Title image remixed from Malchev (Shutterstock).

Nerf guns don't matter

Free soda does not a good company culture make

I'm seeing it more and more--job descriptions with perks about nerf gunsand happy hour, or new grads who joined a startup and are bragging aboutping pong tables and free coke. This is apparently something that people see as a fun culture, a sign that this is a place you'd enjoy working at and has people you'd enjoy working with.

This stuff doesn't matter.

A fun distraction is still a distraction

This stuff is all stuff you do when you're not working. When you have a few minutes to spare here and there and are bored and want to have fun. It's recreation. It's a distraction from work. It's not going to make you more productive, or make you happier with the work you have to do, or the people you have to work with.

In fact, it might make you less happy with those things. Suddenly the work you have to do, which could and should be fun and challenging if you're in the right field, is just a necessary evil to spend a few hours on before the next game of ping pong. You're not at work to play around, you're at work to get crap done, but if you spend long enough in an environment like this, then the work becomes the distraction and the nerf guns and happy hour become the thing you look forward to and are excited about.

This will not help your productivity and certainly won't make doing actual work any more enjoyable.

Keeping work and play separate

Lots of people seem to love bragging about working hard and playing hard, and it's a pretty common attitude that working with people you can go play laser tag with and be friends with is a big win. I'm going to disagree.

I'd like for people at work to judge me based on my work, not on how good I am at pool or how well I can handle my alcohol. I'd rather they didn't know any of those things, because it just distracts from what you're there to do. I don't want to have to deal with the drunken argument last Friday night at the bar when I'm working Monday morning. I don't want someone I work with to be bummed out with me because I didn't want to hang out on Saturday since I have a family.

Trying to enforce a culture where people are all friends with each other and go out drinking together and watch movies together does not make anyone any happier when they're working, it just creates more opportunities for drama and biases.

What really matters

It's easy to throw some toys into the office and call it your culture. Actually creating a good, positive, productive culture is much, much harder than that.

Do your employees feel heard when they have suggestions or questions? Do your managers do a good job of keeping track of budgets and focus without micromanaging and getting on everyone's nerves? Do people have a solid method of critiquing each others work and providing helpful feedback without hurting any feelings? Does everyone feel challenged and interested in the work they're doing?

These are the things that produce a good culture, and these are the things to strive for, and these are things that you can't buy at Target or brag about on job descriptions, but they're the things that keep people around and working hard and happy.

Coding skill vs. employee skill

You can get far without being a great coder

ON SEPTEMBER 5, 2012 - 5:41PM

At the extremely basic level, there are basically two good qualities that each programmer should strive for: programming skill and employee skill.

Programming skill is basically the ability to write good, solid, performant, maintainable, and all-the-other-desireable-code-adjectives code. This is what coders tend to spend their time harping on and debating about and reading about.

Employee skill is the ability to be a good employee and coworker. This means being responsive, being able to communicate well, hitting deadlines, being open to feedback, being able to explain complex things clearly, stuff like that.

An extreme example

Picture two people:

Rodrigo is an MIT graduate who writes compilers in his spare time. He is a core contributor to Haskell and wrote a few very well known Python packages. He can generally write very solid code that's readable and handles edge cases beautifully. However, he takes days to answer emails, he rarely picks up his phone, he doesn't seem to have much of an understanding of the importance of deadlines, he does things his own way, and you can't get a clear thought out of him without rambling incoherence surrounding it.

Gabriella isn't a very good coder. Her code is obviously written by an amateur. She takes 30 lines to write what should be written in 15 or 20, she introduces bugs that QA has to spend their time on, and she doesn't really grasp the concept of writing code that performs well--"if it works, it works!". However, she's incredibly responsive--she answers emails within minutes and never misses a call, she is a great communicator and is able to explain complex technical issues quite clearly to clients, she has never missed a deadline, she is constantly looking for feedback to improve her work, and she's an easy person to talk to.

So really think about it. Which would you really rather work with on a day to day basis?

What really matters?

In my experience, a programmer would rather work with Rodrigo, and a manager would rather work with Gabriella.

This makes some sense--after all, programmers are the ones who would have to deal with crappy code, and managers are the ones who would have to deal with missed deadlines and crappy team communication, so we all want the person who causes us the least amount of pain.

However, the point is that managers are the people you need to impress to get jobs and promotions and raises and pats on the back, so in this scenario, Gabriella comes out way ahead. And I've seen it happen many times--programmers who are great employees but not great coders move to the top while the great coders but poor communicators stay on the bottom.

Despite what we as programmers like to think, coding skill is not what really matters if you want to find success in a job, or at least in many jobs. Being a good employee is at least as important, sometimes more.