learncraft

[learncraft]

Today’s Read:                                 The Happiness Equation         (Secret 6 - 9)

Neil Pasricha continues to share the secret of ‘The Happiness Equation’ based on the experience of his own and of some popular entities. He elaborates why are we busy and how to compensate our time efficiently to be productive and happy at the same time. He uses a simple technique to overcome fear and do the task which we are supposed to do. Further, makes us revisit our true self which is masked by the world we live in.

To summarize:

Having more choice reduces our happiness. We get decision fatigue. We avoid the decision or we make a bad decision. And we always worry we made the wrong choice

Parkinson Law states "It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion".he more time available, the less effort we put in overall. A little thought today. Start the project tomorrow. Revisit it next week. We procrastinate. Why? Because we’re allowed to. There is no penalty. Nothing kills productivity faster than a late deadline.

How do you add an hour to your day with only one small change? Remove access. Close the doors. Lock the windows. And pick the bell you will answer and focus on. Delete and remove all access to yourself except for that one. Watch as your productivity spikes, your days become more productive, and you create beautiful space.

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it, we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. Space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration—it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.

Use the 3 Removals to add to your life. Because life is short. Time is fleeting. And you will never be as young as you are right now. So develop extra space by Removing Choice, Removing Time, and Removing Access, and nurture that space, that powerful space, so it fills your mind and time and life with contentment, freedom, and happiness.

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. Settling into your true, weird, authentic self isn’t easy, but it’s the most satisfying way to have everything. Having one giant purpose that you strive toward forever isn’t the goal. What is? An ikigai. A current aim. A reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find the happiness that you had thought could never be yours.

Being you remove regrets from your life. Authenticity removes regrets from your life. Remember: Advice reflects the advisor's thoughts, not your thoughts.

So what’s the single best piece of advice you’ll ever take? Don’t take advice. The answers are all inside you. Think deep and decide what’s best. Go forth and be happy. And don’t take advice.

[learncraft]

Today’s Read:                                 The Happiness Equation         (Secret 1 - 5)

Neil Pasricha author of ‘The Happiness Equation’, cyphers an equation to unravel the existing issue in today’s world of ‘Not Being Happy’. While many books signify the importance of being happy, Neil takes a step further to formulate ways of how to be happy and have a significant well life.

To summarize:

Harvard Business Review reports that happy people are 31% more productive, have 37% higher sales, and are three times more creative than their counterparts.

The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.

We all have negative self-talk. There is no such thing as an eternal optimist. There are people who feel optimistic, but those people have negative self-talk, too. And that’s okay. The problem isn’t that we have negative thoughts in our brain.The problem is we think we shouldn’t have negative thoughts.

Why is it so hard to be happy? Because life was mostly short, brutal, and highly competitive over the two hundred thousand years our species has existed on this planet. And our brains are trained for this short, brutal, and highly competitive world.

Unhappiness is nature’s way of keeping people on their toes. It’s a crude system, but it has worked for thousands of years.

If one knew everything about your life circumstances—your job, your health, your marital status, your income—One could predict only 10% of your happiness. That’s it! The remaining amount is not determined by your external world but by the way your brain processes it.

We found that people who are more physically active have more pleasant-activated feelings than people who are less active, and we also found that people have more pleasant-activated feelings on days when they are more physically active than usual.

Writing for few minutes about a positive experience or carrying out five random acts of kindness dramatically improves happiness.

Meditation can permanently rewire your brain to raise the levels of happiness.

Happy people don't have best of everything. They make the best of everything. Be happy first.

Do it for you. Don’t do it for others. It’s hard to compete endlessly because there’s always more to compete with when you get there.

When we begin to value the rewards we get for doing a task, we lose our inherent interest in doing the task. The interest we have becomes truly lost in our minds, hidden away from our own brains, as the shiny external reward sits front and center and becomes the new object of our desire.

Commissioned work will, in general, be less creative than work that is done out of pure interest.

When you don’t feel like you’re competing with others, you compete only with yourself.You do it for you. And you do more, go further, and perform better.

There is one issue that many of us have, that that is at the basis of why we jump at external rankings. The root issue is our lack of confidence. Self-judgment. We get lost in our own heads, we get confused with mixed advice, so we follow what we see.

What do the truly confident people have? They have a high opinion of themselves. And! They have a high opinion of others. That is the true definition of confidence.

None of us can control our emotions. We can only control the reactions to our emotions.

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any.

Today study after study shows that it is our social connections that are the single biggest driver of our happiness. Work provides us major social stimulation.

What does retiring do? It chops you out of a productive story. You aren’t part of something bigger than yourself anymore. This hampers your ikigai! So don’t give up work. You’ll be giving up the Social, Structure, Stimulation, and Story you get every day from being there.Forget the money. You’ll lose the 4 S’s, and they are much more important.

[learncraft]

Today’s Craft:                               Food For Brain?

There's no denying that as we age chronologically, our body ages right along with us. But research is showing that you can increase your chances of maintaining a healthy brain well into your old age if you add these "smart" foods to your daily eating regimen.

Blueberries. "Brainberries" is what Steven Pratt, MD, author of Superfoods Rx: Fourteen Foods Proven to Change Your Life, calls these tasty fruits. Pratt, who is also on staff at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, Calif., says that in animal studies researchers have found that blueberries help protect the brain from oxidative stress and may reduce the effects of age-related conditions such as Alzheimer's disease or dementia. Studies have also shown that diets rich in blueberries significantly improved both the learning capacity and motor skills of aging rats, making them mentally equivalent to much younger rats. Ann Kulze, MD, author of Dr. Ann's 10-Step Diet: A Simple Plan for Permanent Weight Loss; Lifelong Vitality, recommends adding at least 1 cup of blueberries a day in any form -- fresh, frozen, or freeze-dried.

Wild salmon. Deep-water fish, such as salmon, are rich in omega-3 essential fatty acids, which are essential for brain function, says Kulze. Both she and Pratt recommend wild salmon for its "cleanliness" and the fact that it is in plentiful supply. Omega-3s also contain anti-inflammatory substances. Other oily fish that provide the benefits of omega-3s are sardines and herring, says Kulze; she recommends a 4-ounce serving, two to three times a week.

Nuts and seeds. Nuts and seeds are good sources of vitamin E, says Pratt, explaining that higher levels of vitamin E correspond with less cognitive decline as you get older. Add an ounce a day of walnuts, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, filberts, almonds, cashews, peanuts, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, flax seed, and nonhydrogenated nut butter such as peanut butter, almond butter, and tahini. Raw or roasted doesn't matter, although if you're on a sodium-restricted diet, buy unsalted nuts.

Avocados. Avocados are almost as good as blueberries in promoting brain health, says Pratt. "I don't think the avocado gets its due," agrees Kulze. True, the avocado is a fatty fruit, but, says Kulze, it's a monounsaturated fat, which contributes to healthy blood flow. "And healthy blood flow means a healthy brain," she says. Avocados also lower blood pressure, says Pratt, and as hypertension is a risk factor for the decline in cognitive abilities, a lower blood pressure should promote brain health. Avocados are high in calories, however, so Kulze suggests adding just 1/4 to 1/2 of an avocado to one daily meal as a side dish.

Whole grains. Whole grains, such as oatmeal, whole-grain bread, and brown rice can reduce the risk for heart disease. "Every organ in the body is dependent on blood flow," says Pratt. "If you promote cardiovascular health, you're promoting good flow to the organ system, which includes the brain." While wheat germ is not technically a whole grain, it also goes on Kulze's "superfoods" list because, in addition to fiber, it has vitamin E and some omega-3s. Kulze suggests 1/2 cup of whole-grain cereal, 1 slice of bread two-thee times day, or 2 tablespoons of the wheat germ a day.

[learncraft]

Today’s Craft:                                 Meditation Actually Helps?

Meditation is the practice to be more mindful. On a practical level, I like to explain meditating as taking a dedicated amount of time to focus on your breath and acknowledge thoughts as they come. The mission is to channel your focus on connecting with the breath as it fills and empties from the lungs. When a thought comes by (and trust me, you’ll have MANY thoughts while meditating), simply say “hmph. I just had that thought. Interesting. I’m now going to go back to focusing on my breath.”

Just as we’re bombarded with a million texts, pings, and stimulations coming at us—giving attention to distractions we had no intention of ever consuming—we’re equally consumed by our own thoughts. We often give each of them equal attention and consideration, which breathes life into an endless wave of new and often unconstructive thoughts. And the cycle repeats.

Meditation allows you to see each thought for what it is—a make believe object—and gives you the perspective and training to look beyond it.

Moments of blank mind and pure bliss just start to happen and the frequency will increase over time with more practice. Most importantly, you slow down your mind, connect with self, and improve overall self-awareness.

This is where things get really interesting. Using modern technology like fMRI scans, scientists have developed a more thorough understanding of what’s taking place in our brains when we meditate, kind of similar to how scientists have previously looked at measuring creativity in our brains. The overall difference is that our brains stop processing information as actively as they normally would. We start to show a decrease in beta waves, which indicate that our brains are processing information, even after a single 20-minute meditation session if we’ve never tried it before. In the image below you can see how the beta waves (shown in bright colors on the left) are dramatically reduced during meditation (on the right).

Below is the best explanation I found of what happens in each part of the brain during meditation: Frontal lobe This is the most highly evolved part of the brain, responsible for reasoning, planning, emotions and self-conscious awareness. During meditation, the frontal cortex tends to go offline.

Parietal lobe This part of the brain processes sensory information about the surrounding world, orienting you in time and space. During meditation, activity in the parietal lobe slows down.

Thalamus The gatekeeper for the senses, this organ focuses your attention by funneling some sensory data deeper into the brain and stopping other signals in their tracks. Meditation reduces the flow of incoming information to a trickle.

Reticular formation As the brain’s sentry, this structure receives incoming stimuli and puts the brain on alert, ready to respond. Meditating dials back the arousal signal. How meditation affects us Now that we know what’s going on inside our brains, let’s take a look at the research into the ways it affects our health. It’s in fact very similar to how exercising affects our brains. Better focus Because meditation is a practice in focusing our attention and being aware of when it drifts, this actually improves our focus when we’re not meditating, as well. It’s a lasting effect that comes from regular bouts of meditation. Focused attention is very much like a muscle, one that needs to be strengthened through exercise.

[learncraft]

Today’s Craft:                                 Book a day, Keeps us at Bay?

Reading is fundamental to functioning in today's society. There are many adults who cannot read well enough to understand the instructions on a medicine bottle. Day-to-day activities that many people take for granted become a source of frustration, anger, and fear. Reading is a vital skill in finding a good job. Many well-paying jobs require reading as a part of job performance. There are reports and memos which must be read and responded to. Poor reading skills increase the amount of time it takes to absorb and react in the workplace. A person is limited in what they can accomplish without good reading and comprehension skills. Reading is important because it develops the mind. The mind is a muscle. It needs exercise. Understanding the written word is one way the mind grows in its ability. Teaching young children to read helps them develop their language skills. It also helps them learn to listen. Everybody wants to talk, but few can really listen. Lack of listening skills can result in major misunderstandings which can lead to job loss, marriage breakup, and other disasters - small and great. Reading helps children [and adults] focus on what someone else is communicating.

It is how we discover new things. Books are great learning tools which require the ability to read and understand what is read. A person who knows how to read can educate themselves in any area of life they are interested in. We live in an age where we overflow with information, but reading is the main way to take advantage of it.

Now everyone is talking about finding mentors these days. It’s all about finding someone (or even more people) that will help you navigate your life, your career and what not. It looks like a battle for the world’s best mentors broke out.

One might never ever meet a person that would impress or anything like that. How do you even ask someone to become your mentor? Do you apply or what? So until you find someone that really impresses you (and even after you found someone), you should just continue getting the best advice from the world’s best mentors by reading about their ideas, thoughts, and experiences in their books.

[learncraft]

Today’s Read:                                 The Productivity Project           (Part 5 - 8)

Chris Bailey spent a year experimenting with and blogging on productivity, and has now released a subsequent work entitled The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy offering advice and methods he still uses (noted in a concluding chapter a year after completing the formal manuscript) to be more productive—not to be confused with busy. 

To summarize:

Productivity is defined as “how much you accomplish”, not how much you do, thereby pointing out that being busy is not necessarily being productive. Thereafter, think about what task you value the most and write them down—because that’s where one should invest time, attention, and energy in being productive. This is key because it will determine the way in which the rest of the book is used.

With a slight Buddhist influence, which itself is very inward and self-focused, Chris’s motivation for being productive is to be able to do more for himself and eliminates things that get in the way of that or simply do not make him happy (e.g., he notes the number of hours per week he intentionally spends on various aspects of life in order to be productive, and little priority is given to relationships, but he continues to eat foods and drink alcohol that reduces productivity because he enjoys them and will not give up certain pleasures for the sake of 100% efficiency—perfectly okay, but indicative of his value system).Again, he begins with values for a reason, and we’re all going to differ there from the start.

No one can control or manage time anymore or less than anyone else! I will certainly be paying more attention to my energy cycles and adjusting when (if) I use caffeine for best effect, whether to be energized or prepare for a crash to get better sleep.

Whether one measures productivity in achieving a daily word count or developing relationships some may perceive as counterproductive encouraging a decrease in happiness.

Here is the video where Chris Bailey explains his project for ‘Productivity’ in simple words:

[learncraft]

Today’s Read:                                 The Productivity Project           (Part 1 - 4)

Imagine a guy who was so interested in productivity that he set aside an entire year of his life to exploring ways to become more productive. It would take an interesting guy. Well, we don't have to imagine because Chris Bailey has done it. In an interesting and somewhat entertaining book, Bailey lets us in on his one-year productivity project in his book titled, ‘The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy’.

To summarize:

A key takeaway from Bailey is his discovery of the relationship between our time, energy, and attention. He writes, "If you want to become more productive, managing your time should take a backseat to how you manage your energy and attention." Some of the common conclusions were vindicated in his study. We need to eat properly, get plenty of rest, not waste time doing things that don't matter and make sure we are doing the right things. But he also aimed to blow up the myth that working longer is working better (or smarter). He says, "Productivity isn't about doing more things--it's about doing the right things."

Some of the experiments Bailey conducted included: going several weeks getting by on little to no sleep; cutting out caffeine and sugar; living in total isolation for 10 days; using his smartphone for just an hour a day for three months; gaining ten pounds of muscle mass; stretching his work week to 90 hours; restricting his work week to 20 hours; getting up late; getting up early-- all the while monitoring the impact of his experiments on the quality and quantity of his work.

When you work consistently long hours or spend too much time on tasks, that's usually not a sign that you have too much to do--it's a sign that you're not spending your energy and attention wisely. As one example, during my experiment to work ninety-hour work weeks, I found I accomplished only a bit more than when I worked twenty-hour workweeks. . . . But in practice, working longer hours means having less time to refocus and recharge, which leads to more stress and lower energy.

"After thirty-five to forty hours of work, studies show that your marginal productivity begins to drop until at approximately eight 60-hour weeks, the total work done is the same as what would have been done in eight 40-hour weeks. . . . Working longer hours can decrease your productivity. One study found that when you work sixty-hour weeks, in order to accomplish one more hour of work, you need to work two hours of overtime. Yet another study found that your productivity "falls off a cliff after 55 hours--so much so that someone who puts in 70 hours produces nothing more with those extra 15 hours."

You may not agree with everything you read in this book but you will be challenged to evaluate your work in general and your time, energy and attention in particular.

There are other really helpful nuggets like his sections on procrastination, social media, becoming more creative, the science behind how we work, and the rule of three.

Here are a few more thought-provoking quotes:

Busyness is no different from laziness when it doesn't lead you to accomplish anything.

Productivity isn't about how busy or efficient you are--it's about how much you accomplish.

Just because you feel productive doesn't mean you are--and the opposite is often true.

To summarize decades' worth of complex neurological research in one sentence, our brains are built for solving problems, connecting dots, and forming new ideas--not for holding on to information that we can simply externalize.

[learncraft]

Today’s Read:                             Spark - The Revolutionary New Science Of Exercise And The Brain                                         (Chapter 6 - 10)

John Ratey is a Harvard psychiatrist who subspecializes in the clinical use of exercise in mental diseases. In ‘Spark - The Revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain’ he examines clinical and lab research in neuro-hormones, the chemical soup that determines how well our brain works.

To summarize:

As Plato says,"In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these two means, man can attain perfection." We feel good when we exercise because it allows the brain to function at its best. Muscle building, cardiovascular conditioning, reducing stress and tension are secondary. Our society and its conveniences have made it difficult to get enough physical activity. We now have to work at it.

The Naperville School District (19,000 students) west of Chicago has redesigned its P.E. system. All students participate in P.E. classes which develop cardiovascular fitness. In class, students use heart rate monitors to gauge their degree of exertion. The only games played are ones with high levels of sweat like three-on-three basketball. Students are taught to encourage and support each other. The results have been dramatic: 10% of the number of overweight children found in other school districts; only 3% of students in Naperville are overweight. In an international study of 230,000 students, those from Naperville were sixth in math (first in the U.S.A.) and first in science, ahead of Singapore, China, Korea and Japan. To confirm that the fitness program is key a study compared test results after P.E. class with results several hours later. Scores were much higher right after the fitness class, findings which confirmed prior animal studies. Vigorous exercise makes your brain work much better especially right after the exercise but also longer term.

Naperville is an upper middle-class community where many parents are scientists or engineers. Titusville, Pennsylvania is not. It is a failed factory town north of Pittsburgh where they copied the Naperville P.E. program beginning in 2000. Test scores went from below state average to 18 percent above. Since 2000 there has not been one fist fight in the junior high school. They were common before.

A share of the 2000 Nobel Prize was given to an Eric Kandel who demonstrated that practice (piano, vocabulary etc.) caused neurons to grow new branches and made branches get larger and better connected to adjacent neurons. A neuro-chemical, BDNF, has the same effect plus it causes new neurons to form from stem cells and protects neurons from decay and death. Exercise elevates BDNF levels throughout the brain. Other beneficial body and neuro-hormones also increase during exercise. In summary, exercise increases alertness and motivation; it encourages new connections between neurons; it causes new neurons to form. Adding a complexity to exercise with things such as yoga, Pilates, tennis, or martial arts is even more effective than simple exercise. Exercise has been studied in patients with depression, stress, anxiety, attention deficit, addiction, menstrual and menopause problems.

In general, exercise has outperformed standard drug therapy in each of these conditions. That's not even taking into consideration the considerable side effects and cost of medications.

It's been well documented that Alzheimer's disease incidence is much lower in regular exercisers (50% less). Animal studies have shown exercise effects in models of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's where findings in the brain were significantly reversed. Mental exercise is equally important. An epidemiologic study in Minnesota has followed an order of nuns who stay very active. When one died at age 85 of a heart attack she was found to have severe Alzheimer's disease at postmortem exam. But she had tested in the 90% percentile on cognitive tests shortly before her death. Severe pathologic Alzheimer's due to her genetic makeup had no effect on her life. Billions of dollars are being spent on genetic and pharmaceutical cures for this devastating disease, but we already know that a combination of diet, exercise, and vigorous mental activity will prevent it.

Ratey's exercise prescription:

Aerobic - Four times a week; 30-60 minutes at 60-70% of maximum heart rate (220 - age = theoretical maximum heart rate)

Strength - Twice a week with weights or resistance equipment.

Balance and Flexibility - Twice a week for thirty minutes. Yoga, Pilates, Martial arts, dance are possibilities.

In general more is better, harder is better, with another is better.

Interval Training having 30-second bursts of a maximal effort several times during the aerobic sessions causes an increase in human growth hormone, a valuable healing and anti-aging substance that normally is at low levels later in life.

This video will provide you with overall valuable gems embedded in this book:

[learncraft]

Today’s Read:                             Spark - The Revolutionary New Science Of Exercise And The Brain                                         (Chapter 1 - 5)

John Ratey in his book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain is about the tremendous benefits of exercise, specifically cardio-intensive activities like running and biking. Through a combination of interviews, frontline work as a clinical researcher, and extensive analysis of the latest scientific literature, it concludes that frequent, moderate-to-high intensity cardio permanently improves not only physical health but mental and psychological health too.

To summarize:

1. Exercise helps your body utilize energy more efficiently

One of the ways exercises optimizes energy usage is by triggering the production of more receptors for insulin. In the body, having more receptors means better use of blood glucose and stronger cells. Best of all, the receptors stay there, which means the newfound efficiency gets built in.

2. Regular exercise helps you:

A. Be more social

Studies show that by adding physical activity to our lives, we become more socially active—it boosts our confidence and provides an opportunity to meet people. The vigor and motivation that exercise brings help us establish and maintain social connections.

As for the trait, the majority of studies show that aerobic exercise significantly alleviates symptoms of any anxiety disorder. But exercise also helps the average person reduce normal feelings of anxiousness.

C. Fight depression

In Britain, doctors now use exercise as a first-line treatment for depression, but it’s vastly underutilized in the United States, and that’s a shame.

D. Improve focus

Paradoxically, one of the best treatment strategies for ADHD involves establishing extremely rigid structure. Over the years, I’ve heard countless parents offer the same observation about their ADHD children: Johnny is so much better when he’s doing tae kwon do.

E. Fight unhealthy addictions

In smokers, just five minutes of intense exercise can be beneficial. Nicotine is an oddball among addictive substances as it works as a stimulant and a relaxant at the same time. Exercise fights the urge to smoke because in addition to smoothly increasing dopamine it also lowers anxiety, tension, and stress levels—the physical irritability that makes people so grouchy when they’re trying to quit. Exercise can fend off cravings for fifty minutes and double or triple the interval to the next cigarette.

F. Make better decisions

…the participants reported that an entire range of behavior related to self-regulation took a turn for the better. Not only did they steadily increase their visits to the gym, they reported that they smoked less, drank less caffeine and alcohol, ate more healthy food and less junk food, curbed impulse spending and overspending, and lost their tempers less often.

G. Have healthier babies

Exercise seems to be more than just not harmful, though. In one study, Clapp compared thirty-four newborns of exercises to thirty-one of sedentary mothers five days after birth. There’s only so much you can do to gauge behavior at this early stage, but the babies from the exercise group “performed” better on two of six tests: they were more responsive to stimuli and better able to quiet themselves following a disturbance of sound or light. Clapp sees this as significant because it suggests that infants of exercising mothers are more neurologically developed than their counterparts from sedentary mothers.

H. Live longer!

If your brain isn’t actively growing, then it’s dying. Exercise is one of the few ways to counter the process of aging because it slows down the natural decline of the stress threshold.

[learncraft]

Today’s Read:                                      A Mind For Numbers      (Chapter 13 - 18)

In these last chapters of “A Mind for Numbers”,  our author Barbara Oakley sheds light on the memory allocation in our brain. She emphasizes the importance of ‘Collaborative’ and ‘Renaissance learning’. Further providing us with essential tips to unlock the ability to learn within us.

To summarize:

Chapter 13: “Sculpting Your Brain.” This chapter is a mini-case study of Ramón y Cajal, the NobelPrize-winning “father of modern neuroscience” (194). Oakley’s purpose is to illustrate how strategies she describes in previous chapters—especially chunking and creating analogies—are reflected by and account for Cajal’s intellectual development.

Chapter 14: “Developing the Mind’s Eye through Equation Poems.” We finally reach a chapter that focuses on mathematics, specifically on how to read mathematical symbols and understand the stories told by equations. As Oakley notes, “There are hidden meanings in equations, just as there are in poetry” (203). Oakley explains two strategies for finding and understanding those hidden meanings: by simplifying and personifying the object of study and by recognizing when and how to transfer to a new context something learned previously in a different context.

Chapter 15: “Renaissance Learning.” The primary focus of this chapter is the value of independent learning, but it also acknowledges the value of effective teachers. Oakley ends with a caveat for readers about “intellectual snipers,” i.e., “those who criticize or attempt to undermine any effort or achievement you make” (218).

Chapter 16: Avoiding Overconfidence: The Power of Teamwork.” In contrast to the previous chapter, which emphasized independent learning, this chapter promotes the advantages of collaborative. Oakley argues collaborative learning can help learners avoid overconfidence. As long as group members feel free to disagree with the group’s status quo, study teams can provide useful checks and balances to members’ individual learning, and Oakley explains how.

Chapter 17: “Test Taking.” Rather than focusing on test-taking as a mode of assessment, Oakley focuses on its role as “an extraordinarily powerful learning experience” (238). Students and teachers will find most useful the “Test Preparation Checklist” (240-41). Oakley also describes the “hard-start—jump-to-easy” technique of test-taking and addresses strategies for harnessing test-taking anxiety.

Chapter 18: “Unlock Your Potential.” The final chapter summarizes the previous chapters, culminating in two lists: “10 Rules of Good Studying” and “10 Rules of Bad Studying.” Both can be adapted easily to accommodate learning in any field or discipline.

[learncraft]

Today’s Read:                                      A Mind For Numbers      (Chapter 7 - 12)

Barbara Oakley author of “A Mind for Numbers” not only elaborates the functioning of our peculiar mind but also lays out the process to memorize effectively. She provides us with varied tools and tricks to enhance our memory and learn efficiently. She explains how information can transform from a temporary chunk to long-term memory by utilizing a proper procedure.

To summarize:

Chapter 7: “Chunking Versus Choking: How to Increase Your Expertise and Reduce Anxiety.” Oakley provides opportunities here for readers to practice the study habits and learning strategies introduced previously. She prioritizes the mental storage of concepts over rote memorization and provides seven steps for building powerful chunks of process-based learning. She also emphasizes that learners gain expertise through active learning and mentally expanding their collection of problem-solution patterns.

Chapter 8: “Tools, Tips, and Tricks.” Acknowledging that it is normal for learners to have some negative feelings about beginning their work, Oakley explains that by managing those feelings and completing a type of behavioral self-analysis, learners can develop personalized productivity tools as well as a positive anticipation toward their work. She provides strategies designed to organize behavior and free up working memory for better problem-solving. She also emphasizes the need to include healthy leisure time in the workday. Students and teachers may find especially useful the list of best apps and online support programs for keeping on task.

Chapter 9: “Procrastination Zombie Wrap-Up.” This is the culminating chapter about procrastination. Oakley notes that the neural framework needed for math and science performance languishes under stressful, binge-learning conditions. In contrast, the learning strategies of pausing and reflecting are more effective. Chapter 10: “Enhancing Your Memory.” Oakley describes strategies for improving one’s visuospatial memory, i.e., by creating analogies, such as visual images, jingles, or the “memory palace.”

Chapter 11: “More Memory Tips.” Oakley expands on the previous chapter, focusing on the effectiveness of learners’ creating visual metaphors, spaced repetition, meaningful groups, and narratives. She also notes that, with respect to some kinds of learning, the kinesthetic element of writing by hand offers some advantages over writing by computer. She ends the chapter with a few more “memory tricks.”

Chapter 12: “Learning to Appreciate Your Talent.” Oakley shifts her focus to the role of intuition in learning and urges readers not to underestimate its value. She emphasizes that what we know isn’t as important as how we think.

[learncraft]

Today’s Read:                                      A Mind For Numbers      (Chapter 1 - 6)

Learning and understanding complex studies are though? Barbara Oakley author of “A Mind for Numbers” disagrees as she unveils the science of learning and assures us that this book will improve our ability to learn and solve problems irrespective of any subject by understanding ‘focus and diffused thinking’.

To summarize:

Chapter 1: “Open the Door.” Oakley traces her academic and professional history from mathphobe to professor of engineering. By reviewing her personal journey from an expert in Slavic languages to revamped career path, Oakley shows that “the brain is designed to do extraordinary mental calculations”. She foreshadows subsequent chapters, including some findings from the field of neuroscience that readers can apply to expand their skills and creativity in any fields and beyond.

Chapter 2: “Easy Does It: Why Trying Too Hard Can Sometimes Be Part of the Problem.” The pitfalls of “trying too hard” are explained and illustrated through numerous examples. Oakley defines two primary modes of thinking—focused and diffuse—and shows how each is important for different types of learning and problem-solving. She asserts that we must learn not only how to use each mode but also how and when to shift between these modes.

Chapter 3: “Learning is Creating: Lessons from Thomas Edison’s Frying Pan.” Oakley describes the mental habits of two creative giants--Thomas Edison and Salvador Dali—to support her claims about the successful uses of focused and diffuse modes of thinking. She also emphasizes the importance of working memory and long-term memory for creativity and problem solving, because these two forms of memory build multiple and novel connections that can lead to novel outcomes.

Chapter 4: “Chunking and Avoiding Illusions of Competence: The Keys to Becoming an ‘Equation Whisperer’.” Oakley explains the process of chunking information and reveals common misconceptions about time-on-task versus active forms of reading and learning. She argues that making connections within and between information is more effective than passive rereading, overlearning, and rote memorization, strategies that frequently trick learners into believing they understand more of the material than they really do.

Chapter 5: “Preventing Procrastination: Enlisting Your Habits (“Zombies”) as Helpers.” Oakley labels procrastination as a “keystone bad habit” (86) and, therefore, a particularly threatening zombie. Habitual procrastination sabotages the neural foundations needed to succeed, especially but not exclusively in complex subjects. Oakley provides a roadmap for identifying and avoiding addictive behaviors that thwart productive learning.

Chapter 6: “Zombies Everywhere: Digging Deeper to Understand the Habit of Procrastination.” Building positive mental habits is Oakley’s focus here. Four main components of habits are reviewed: Rewarding short periods of productivity, nurturing the diffuse-thinking mode, engaging in mental contrasting, and avoiding multi-tasking that interrupts the learning process. Oakley argues that successful learners tend to focus on process over product.

Video to illustrate the focused and diffused thinking within our brain:-

[learncraft]

Today’s Read:                               Deep Work (Part 2- The Rules)

No matter where your profession lies, Deep Work can be cultivated.Cal Newport in his book Deep Work (part 2) guides us with a set of rules to embrace Deep Work is our lives.

To summarize:

The willpower we possess is not infinite. It is limited and gets depleted as we use it.

The key to developing a deep work habit is to move beyond good intentions and add routines and rituals to your working life designed to minimize the amount of your limited willpower necessary to transition into and maintain a state of unbroken concentration.

The ability to rapidly switch your mind from shallow to deep mode doesn’t come naturally. Without practice, such switches can seriously deplete your finite willpower reserves.

By leveraging a radical change to your normal environment, coupled perhaps with a significant investment of effort or money, all dedicated toward supporting a deep work task, you increase the perceived importance of the task. This boost in importance reduces your mind’s instinct to procrastinate and delivers an injection of motivation and energy.

Expose yourself to ideas in hubs on a regular basis, but maintain a spoke in which to work deeply on what you encounter.

For an individual focused on deep work, the implication is that you should identify a small number of ambitious outcomes to pursue with your deep work hours. The general exhortation to “spend more time working deeply” doesn’t spark a lot of enthusiasm.

For an individual focused on his or her own deep work habit, there’s likely no team to meet with, but this doesn’t exempt you from the need for regular accountability. You can create the habit of a weekly review in which you make a plan for the workweek ahead.

Decisions that involve large amounts of information and multiple vague, conflicting, constraints, your unconscious mind is well suited to tackle the issue. This is due to the fact that these regions of your brain have more neuronal bandwidth available, allowing them to move around more information and sift through more potential solutions than your conscious centers of thinking. Thus providing your conscious brain time to rest enables your unconscious mind to take a shift sorting through your most complex professional challenges. A shutdown habit, therefore, is not necessarily reducing the amount of time you’re engaged in productive work but is instead diversifying the type of work you deploy.

For a novice, somewhere around an hour, a day of intense concentration seems to be a limit, while for experts this number can expand to as many as four hours but rarely more.

Any work you do fit into the night, therefore, won’t be the type of high-value activities that really advance your career; your efforts will instead likely be confined to low-value shallow tasks.

To simply wait and be bored has become a novel experience in modern life, but from the perspective of concentration training, it’s incredibly valuable.

Professional memory athletes never attempt rote memorization, that is, where you simply look at information, again and again, repeating it in your head. Instead, they remember information as scenes.

If you’re a knowledge worker—especially one interested in cultivating a deep work habit—you should treat your tool selection with the same level of care as other skilled workers, such as farmers.

If you want to eliminate the addictive pull of entertainment sites on your time and attention, give your brain a quality alternative.

Deep Work generates life rich in productivity and meaning.

[learncraft]

Today’s Read:                               Deep Work (Part 1- The Idea)

The necessity and benefits of focus within this world of distraction is explained by Cal Newport in his book Deep Work (part 1).

To summarize:

Deep Work is professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.

Spend enough time in a state of frenetic shallowness and you permanently reduce your capacity to perform deep work.

High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus) .

Two Core Abilities for Thriving in the New Economy:

1. The ability to quickly master hard things. 

2. The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.

The Deep Work Hypothesis: The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.  

A new science of performance argues that you get better at a skill as you develop more myelin around the relevant neurons, allowing the corresponding circuit to fire more effortlessly and effectively. To be great at something is to be well myelinated.

Below is a video illustrating this:

[learncraft]

Thank you, Thomas, for suggesting such awesome books.

Today, I completed Part 1 of  ‘The Power of Habit‘ by Charles Duhigg.

To summarize: Habit is rigid, strenuous but attainable.

It can be created, altered but cannot be removed.

Habit is an automated process and requires minimum to none brain processing. But our brain cannot distinguish between good and bad habit.

It follows a simple process of cue --> routine ---> reward.

To create a new habit, craving for the habit is essential.

To change an existing habit, craving for that habit should be known. Further, only the routine can be altered while cue and reward remain same.

It is seen, belief to change act as a crucial element during the change in habit. Whereas changing habit while being engaged with someone, acts as a catalyst to alter the habit.