Power Up Your Mind: Learn faster, work smarter

Try these simple ideas before you start a particular learning

activity:

 Cover a blank piece of writing or flipchart paper with all you

already know about a subject. Take your time and keep on coming

back to the task. Use a mixture of words, drawings, jottings—any-

thing that seems helpful. I call this activity a braindrizzle. It is

much less dependent on the accident of a particular time than a

brainstorm and induces less unnecessary stress. By downloading

what you already have in your mind, you are beginning to organize

what you know.


 Set yourself some simple research tasks to do, like spending an hour

on a focused web search or getting one good book from your library.

Your mind is endlessly curious, so once you start to narrow the

range you are beginning to tune in.


 Ask a member of your family, a friend, or a colleague to tell you

what they know about the subject you are interested in. Other peo-

ple tend to make connections that you have not considered.


 Browse and skim read as many books or magazines about your cho-

sen topic and scribble anything interesting on to post-it notes. Put

these up on a wall where you can see them. You can take in data at

a very rapid speed. Surrounding yourself with visual prompts is a

good way of engaging your brain.


 Make a list of all the questions you have about your area of interest.

Your brain will naturally start to search out the connections/answers

once it tunes in to this.

Simply by doing these kinds of activity, you are beginning to give

your mind time to work on things before you start your learning.

You will be amazed at its ability to process existing information and

acquire new data so that you are well tuned in when you start out.

Breaking down your learning

It is important to set specific targets for your learning. To be a suc-

cessful learner and achieve these targets, one of the key attributes

106 Power Up Your Mind