Creativity – The First Cousin to Genius

What exactly is the difference between the mind of a genius and the mind of an ordinary person? Michael Michalko, in his book Cracking Creativity, says he thinks the difference is that geniuses know “how” to think, instead of “what” to think. This enables them to create completely new concepts and say to themselves that anything is possible.

That simply means that they look at problems differently. They combine ideas, images, and thoughts in a different way and are able to recognize patterns in the world around them. They know how to make connections between objects, no matter how unusual or disparate. An example of this is when Leonardo DaVinci made the connection between the tone of a bell and a flat stone hitting the water, causing waves. His connection was that sound also traveled in waves.

Another sign of genius is the ability to think in opposites. An example of this type of thought would be the Danish physicist Niel Bohr. In 1928, he announced that it was possible to imagine light as both waves and particles, not however simultaneously.

The ability to think in metaphors is considered a sign of genius. Aristotle felt that if a person has the ability to compare two separate areas of existence and somehow find a relationship there, then that person has a special gift.

A person of exceptional abilities also focuses on how to analyze the process of accidental creativity. It’s not a matter of why it failed, but what exactly did it do?

A person possessing genius is highly productive. An example of this was Thomas Edison, who held over 1,000 patents. In his book Cracking Creativity, Michael Michalko states that geniuses produce large quantities of ideas because they think fluently. Apparently, their minds are extremely busy; they think all the time. And it’s possible for the rest of us to develop these attributes as well. It’s simply a matter of training our brains to think more fluently.

According to Buckminster Fuller, “Everyone is born a genius. Society degeniuses them.” Some believe that genius just appears, out of the blue, and that the conditioned thinking of higher education can actually detract from a person’s genius.  Massive amounts of knowledge doesn’t necessarily guarantee genius; it only means you have an excellent memory. And the good news is that you need not be a genius in order to be creative. And even better news is that we are capable of more than just creative thought; we are capable of more genius than we ever dreamed. Charles Baudelaire described genius as “no more than childhood recaptured at will.”

So, how do you accomplish this feat? You must retrain your brain to think like a genius. You can do that by following the above criteria. You must start to think about the world around you differently. Think in opposites, think in metaphors, and become more productive with your thoughts. And when ideas don’t exactly pan out the way you hoped they would, you must ask yourself not why it failed, but what did it accomplish, what did it prove?

Want to develop the mind of an inventor? Start looking at designs around you and ask yourself how you could make them different. Max Planck, known as the father of quantum theory, believed that it was necessary for scientists to have “a vivid intuitive imagination, for new ideas are not generated by deduction, but by artistically creative imagination.” Even Einstein said his theories were “free invention of the imagination.” Ezra Pound said, “Genius…is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one and where the man of talent sees two or three, plus the ability to register that multiple perception in the material of his art.”

Secrets of Geniuses
By Tony Alessandra

Watch Out For These Hindrances to Creativity!

It’s time to discuss the dreaded “enemies” of your creativity. Anything that stops the natural flow of creativity is known as a block. There are many different reasons they occur and it requires some work on your part to re-establish that creative flow.
There are several thieves of your creative time. These are the blocks to your creative thoughts and ideas. But don’t be afraid; while they may seem daunting, you can learn the process of deflecting them.
Sometimes, daily life itself is the thief of your creative time. Perhaps you worry about caring for your children, or even elderly parents. If your day job is time-consuming or boring, you might dream of time to just let your imagination go where it wants. Ill health might also be your greatest worry and time stealer.
Here’s the first place to let your imagination take over and help you find that creative time you need. Creativity over your daily life is your first challenge. All you need to begin with is a few minutes to yourself. Use your journal to record the problems you face and practice coming up with some creative ways to work through them.
The hardest part is learning to focus on one challenge at a time, giving it your conscious and subconscious attention. If your life is very stressful, that just means you need the creative time more than ever. You must give to yourself, or you’ll have nothing to give others in your life. Dr. Phil McGraw said, “You can’t give from an empty cup.”
I can hear you right now saying, “When can I possibly find time to be alone and think about anything but my problems. There’s so much to do, so much to accomplish, and not nearly enough time to do them all. Where do I fit in time for myself?”
If you come home from a long day of work, and then have small children demanding your time, it’s actually a perfect time for a little creativity. Playtime with them in the form of coloring, playing with clay, and reading are ideal ways to exercise your own creativity. They are also great ways to relax. The benefits to the children are that you are helping to build their self-esteem and self-confidence. Children love doing things with their parents. Praise them lavishly to help boost their own creativity and self-worth. If you’re responsible for older people, try some board games, card games, or hobbies to connect with them and spur on your own creative forces, as well as theirs.
Then give yourself a few minutes before bed to sit quietly and think your own creative thoughts. Meditation is an excellent way to teach your mind to focus and concentrate on your own creativity. When you go back to your journal, you may be pleasantly surprised at how successfully and creatively you’ve solved any problems you’ve faced. Making meditation a part of your day could make all the difference in your mood and your health.
You’ve discovered that being busy, and yet finding creativity in your life, is very possible. But there are other obstacles you may have to face. Sometimes you may find that you have conflicting goals, or have not positively defined those goals. You might have a great deal of competition at work, and you might be confused as to how to take advantage of opportunities you feel are necessary to your career advancement.
Here’s yet another opportunity to put your creativity to the challenge. As with any problem, you must first define it precisely. You cannot progress forward without knowing exactly what it is you want. Once you’ve defined the goal, it’s time to set out the steps to attaining that goal. What do you need to get from Point A to Point B? You need a plan. Here’s where your creativity can help you again. Make your plan, deciding how to get what you want, step-by-step, complete with a time line if necessary. Then follow your plan.
Zig Ziglar said, “You can’t hit a target you cannot see and you cannot see a target you do not have.” It’s essential to have a plan in mind, a goal to achieve, a road map to what you want. In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia.
Without a definite goal in mind for your life and your creativity, you may find yourself going along with someone else’s plan that’s not necessarily the right one for you. Go with your own creativity and find what’s right for you personally.
Yet another enemy of your creativity is anxiety. It’s hard to focus on brilliant ideas if you’re feeling anxious. And while anxiety is not the ideal place in which to work your creative magic, it can be used to your advantage at times. Oscar Wilde said, “The anxiety is unbearable. I only hope it lasts forever.” You can use that anxiety to spur you forward and keep you moving.
Other obstacles you may encounter are lack of self-confidence or fear of criticism. You must remind yourself that you are a highly creative person. Take steps to learn what you need to know to develop that creativity and your self-confidence. As for criticism, you must learn to let it roll off your back. There will always be critics in your life, and you must learn the art of ignoring them.
You may even be a bit self-critical concerning your own abilities. That inner critic is the worst of all of them, because that’s the one you hear all the time. This is the voice in your ear saying, “What makes you think you can come up with the creative answer to this problem? Who do you think you are anyway?” It takes some practice to learn to turn off the inner critic when you’re in the middle of creating something, but it’s important that you do.
Procrastination is one of the worst blocks to your creativity. “As soon as I get some extra time, I’ll get to that creative project.” “I’ll tackle that new project this weekend, after work.” “As soon as school is back in and the kids are out of the way, I’ll get to that special project.”
You know you’ve done exactly that; you’ve procrastinated day after day, week after week, month after month. Yet you never seem to get around to that special project. Sometimes, you can actually use one of these enemies of creativity to inspire you. The well-known “Round Tuit” is just such an innovation. It’s a yellow circular piece of rubber, stamped with “Round Tuit” on one side. At one time, it was “the thing” to give to your procrastinating friends. They’re always waiting until they got around to it; well now they had one.
That creative project, that hint of a brilliant idea, that nugget of creativity continues to sit at the edge of your mind, mocking you, calling to you. It’s so close, you can almost touch it. You can almost get your hands on it. But it stubbornly stays just out of reach. It taunts you, “Leave all that other stuff and come be creative with me!”
Procrastination is one of the hardest blocks to dispense with, because it feels like a legitimate excuse. After all, you’re so busy, you got so much to do, and so many people depend on you and demand your time. It’s so easy to keep putting it off, until you never get to it at all.
There are many types of procrastinators. There are those who wait until the last minute and tell themselves that they work better under pressure. Pressure or no pressure, they still don’t accomplish anything.
There are those who either fear failure or perhaps fear success, so they avoid the project. This group would rather be thought of as lazy than without the necessary ability to accomplish the goal.
It just feels like you’re being pushed, and no one likes being pushed to do anything. Trouble is, you just don’t feel thrilled about doing whatever the project is. So, you avoid it as long as you can, giving excuse after excuse.
Lastly, there are those who simply cannot make a decision, thinking erroneously that if they make no decision, they’re not responsible.
The last block that is so difficult to deal with is that of perfectionism. You’re never satisfied with what you accomplish – it’s never quite right, it’s not “perfect,” others may not like it, etc. Many writers experience this syndrome. They write a few pages, then start the editing process, thinking it will be easier than if they waited until the story or book was finished. The problem with that theory is that you will never get past those first few pages. You are always stuck in the editing process and you will never finish at all.
Many people get so stuck in the “perfection” rut, they eventually give up the project altogether. Their reasoning is that if they can’t get it just right, why bother finishing it? This is positively destructive to the creative process.
Since there is no such thing as perfection, then striving for it is a useless pursuit and a waste of your creative time. There are cultures and groups around the world who remind themselves of their own imperfection by deliberately including a flaw in their art. The Japanese call it a “wabi.” Amish quilt makers always include a deliberate flaw in their work, to remind themselves that men and women are not perfect.
In this case, we must return to the childlike model of creativity. Children don’t care if they get something perfect, they just love doing it. They just keep on trying, regardless of how many times they fail to achieve perfection. Remember the time when you were a child and failed to accomplish something to everyone’s satisfaction. “Just do your best,” your mother told you. “All you can do is your best.”
“There is no failure, except in no longer trying; no defeat, except from within; no insurmountable barrier, except our own inherent weakness of purpose.” – Anonymous

Creativity Allows Making Mistakes, In Fact Count On It

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” – Joseph Chilton Pearce

One of the biggest reasons why you might not nurture your creative side is fear – fear of making a mistake, fear of not getting something exactly right, fear, fear, and more fear. “What if I mess up?” “What if people laugh at me?” “What if this is just a foolish notion?” Unfortunately, that is going to happen. Everybody fails sometimes; but it’s okay. Failure isn’t fatal or permanent. Even Thomas Edison had some failures and it took him many trials before he perfected the light bulb. He didn’t consider them as failures; however, he just found many great ways that didn’t work. But he persevered and eventually, he succeeded.

Never fear making mistakes. Remember that perfectionism is a deterrent to your creativity. (More on that in a later chapter.) Albert Einstein noted “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” Don’t let fear keep you from being creative. You won’t learn as much from winning as you will from losing. Your mistakes teach you much more than your triumphs do.

The upside of not succeeding right away is that we often encounter the magical “serendipity.” Serendipity is the ability to make unexpected and fortunate discoveries. It is simply accidental good fortune. What you fear to be a dreadful mistake might instead turn out to be the perfect answer to the problem.

Do insights come suddenly or are they in your subconscious, just waiting to leap upon the stage of your consciousness? That’s hard to say. You might call it mere chance, coincidence, pure randomness, or complete unpredictability. How the creative thought gets to you is not the issue. Seizing upon the new idea is what’s important.

Sometimes, you need to go outside the box in your thinking. Do something completely different. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly the same way, but expecting a different outcome. That’s where creative thinking comes in. Think of the same problem, but in a different way. Turn it on its side, or on its head. Look at the whole thing from different angles. Take an entirely different approach to the question. Oliver Wendell Holmes taught us “Man’s mind stretched to a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions.” Thank goodness for that!

For many, the ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking is difficult and strange. Human beings are creatures of habit and tend to do things as they’ve always been done, exactly how they’ve always been taught to do something. Unfortunately, this is very restrictive, non-creative thinking. Do you sometimes feel like the mime inside the glass box? Trapped inside and always trying to figure a way out? Try finding a creative solution to your escape. Perhaps a special key or maybe just a large hammer would do the trick. Scott Adams said, “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

Developing Creative Ideas

Nurturing the Creativity Within

“An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.” – Bill Bernbach

Now that you’ve accepted the fact that you are indeed a creative person, and that you are capable of becoming creative more than you have ever dreamed of, it’s time to put that talent to work and practice, practice, practice.

The first thing you need is a place in which to be creative – a space of your own. If possible, it should be a space that’s comfortable and conducive to creative thinking – a place free of distraction and noise.

To start with, you will need a desk, a comfortable chair, good lighting and the proper tools or equipment. At this stage, you are only focusing on your creativity and formulating ideas. You’re still brainstorming. To help you focus, you might try a little mood music.

Grab that pen/pencil and paper. If you like, you can use a recorder. Whatever medium you choose, make sure you record every single idea; don’t let any of them get away. You may not be able to retrieve them later. At this stage, don’t try to censor yourself, just write down everything that occurs to you, no matter how silly or bizarre it might sound.

Don’t be negative; this is no time to be critical with yourself. Just let yourself go. Try writing for about fifteen minutes at a time. Natalie Goldberg says to just keep your hand moving across the page. Francis Bacon said, “Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.” Then take a break. Get up, stretch, take a walk, and relax

Give yourself time every day to daydream, to ask “What if?” Remind yourself you’re a creative being and allow yourself to maintain that childlike wonderment. Question everything. When you run into the “That’s just the way we’ve always done things,” attitude, try this:

• Ask why.

• Think of a new way to do things. Think outside the box, as they say. Don’t be afraid to challenge traditional thinking.

• Maintain the motivation.

• When something strikes you as interesting, go with it and find the twist.

Keeping a journal is an excellent way to avoid losing all those marvelous ideas your creative mind is capable of churning out. Allow yourself that spontaneous creativity.

Increasing the creativity in your life is easy if the activities you’ve chosen are of particular interest to you. William Shakespeare said, “No profit grows where is no pleasure taken, in short, study what thou dost affect.” Simply put, do what you love and you will succeed. You work hardest where your heart lies.

Give yourself the proper incentive to work hard on developing your creativity. Don’t wait for inspiration to strike. Sit down and begin the process of creating; and the Muse, in curiosity, will appear.

Many times, visualization is very helpful in the process of creating a new idea. Each person has their own way to bring their creativity to the forefront. You will doubtless find your own way to entice the Muse to visit you. Benjamin Franklin used to take air baths to stimulate his thinking. The ritual itself is not important; it’s only a way of focusing your mind on developing creative ideas. Other factors may include a music that inspires you, the time of day when your creativity is at peak, or working in a particular place each time. The important part is to train your mind to think creatively. This takes a little time and effort, but is well worth it in the long run. When creative inclinations (such as questioning everything, asking what if, and stretching your mind) become automatic, you can pat yourself on the back. You’re developing the creative side of your brain, inviting the Muse. Congratulations!

Remember, developing creative ideas is not enough. You must back it up with action. Robert Ringer said, “Nothing happens until something moves.” Put those wonderful ideas into motion. Take action!

Creativity in the Work Place

Creativity in the Work Place

“Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.” – Anna Freud

In today’s competitive world, it is more important than ever for businesses to attract and keep highly talented people. In order to do that, they must provide a work place environment that is challenging, creative, and fun. Since creativity is at the root of innovation and invention, it would behoove all companies – large, small, or in between – to help promote a creative atmosphere in which this talent may flourish. What better way to get a huge return on their investment?
A two-year in-house creativity course offered at General Electric resulted in a sixty percent increase in concepts available for patents, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In 1999, after investing over two million dollars in research and development, Hewlett Packard generated more than 1,300 applications for patents.
When the Sylvania Company offered several thousand employees a forty-hour creative problem-solving course, their return on investment came to $20 for every $1 they spent.
So how can your company keep its employees happily coming up with great, innovative ideas?
•    Look for these creative people. Recognize them for the intelligent innovators that they are.
•    Create an atmosphere that’s conducive to creativity. You need to let the ideas come forth and thrive. Be tolerant about ideas that don’t work out initially. There’s always a next time when more fresh ideas can be implemented.
•    Acknowledge the people in the company who generate new ideas. It’s important to foster that creativity and show visible support. Champion those innovators!
•    Reward the creators with public recognition, monetary rewards, or both.
The workers and the managers should bring about creative changes in the company together, shaping a fellowship that allows for a feeling of safety for those creative ideas. It should provide an environment where people can feel secure about expressing those ideas, without being fearful of criticism or ridicule.
The feelings of respect and trust for one another will foster inspiration, and dismiss any negativity or critical judgments. The perfect atmosphere would be one of encouragement, motivation, good training, and lots of opportunities to be creative. This would provide the necessary creativity to the organizational level.
No longer would you go to a work place that fills you with dread each day. The job that provides you with money for food, clothing, and shelter, not to mention a few luxuries, could also be a pleasant haven during the workday. You’d have security and status, but without so much stress. If your creativity is allowed to blossom, your heart and soul for your career returns as well. This could change the face of the work place. Implement this yourself and see if you can make a change for the better in your own workplace.
Many companies try to avoid putting creativity back into the work place. They feel it could lead to chaos. They say that it would be illogical, unruly, and uncontrollable. This needn’t be the case, if approached in the proper manner.
If you encourage creativity within your company and support the talented people, it will help you compete, regardless of your industry. According to Fortune Magazine (January 1998), highly motivated employees are up to 127% more productive than those averagely motivated employees in complex jobs. It’s simple – if an employee feels satisfied and encouraged in his job and happy with the company, he will become more motivated and thereby become more productive. A happy worker is a productive worker!
Unfortunately, our country has become a nation of workaholics. We feel if we’re not busy 24/7, we must be slacking off; we must produce nonstop or other people will think that we’re lazy. But busyness for its own sake is a sign of low self-worth and should be avoided. Even God rested after working for six days.
It’s okay to sit and do nothing once in a while. Sometimes, you have to let a problem sit awhile and incubate in your mind. The answer will come more easily if you stop obsessing about it.  Even daydreaming is useful. If you allow your child to daydream, they will develop a higher IQ. Why not do the same for yourself? Remember too, that play is just as important for an adult as it is for a child.
Believe it or not, the number one concern of employees at any level of a company is not money, but the desire for a good balance between their work life and their personal life. In order for good employees to keep up with the level expected of them, they must attain a certain balance of work and play. Vacations, occasional personal time, and a pleasant work place are essential for their careers and their health.
There’s a Zen saying that the bow kept forever taut will break. This is very true. We need to play and relax in order to be productive. Play, even at our work place, makes us happy and joyful. It clears those cobwebs out of the brain and allows us to think more clearly, thus becoming more productive. The problems that seemed beyond your reach while brainstorming might come so much easier when your mind is free of stress and worry.
Creativity and play are essential these days. We’re all looking for more purpose in our lives, and we’re beginning to re-think our jobs and careers as well. Job security is a thing of the past; and unless employers begin to recognize and encourage creativity on the job, there could be radical changes coming.
In many companies, smart employers are beginning to see the advantage of closely-knit teams working together to form creative, problem-solving forces. They’ve begun using a more open kind of office, omitting walls between the departments. They’re making use of more computers and other forms of communication with each other. Department heads are working more closely with the lower levels, so they are aware of what’s happening at all times. The chain of command is made simpler, responsibilities are expanded, and creative and innovative ideas are welcomed and encouraged.
In any job or profession, there are problems to be solved; and where there is problem solving, there will be creative thought. The first step to solving a problem is to know everything you can possibly know about the problem. You must know how it started and what caused it. Get hold of all pertinent information.
Start to look at all the facts. Figure out how they fit together. Sometimes, you’ll find that unlikely elements can start to make some sense together. Try not to fall into what scientists jokingly refer to as “psycho sclerosis” or hardening of the attitudes. This just means not falling back into the “this is the way we’ve always done it” syndrome. If it has always been done that way, why is there a problem with it now? Obviously, it isn’t working now, so it’s time to figure out a new way to do things.
Watch out for the notorious “inner critic.” (More about that in another chapter.) This is simply that little voice in your head that tells you it’s impossible for you to solve this problem. It’s the old “if others haven’t been able to solve this muddle, what makes you think you can?” critic. Disregard this voice. Unfortunately, you might also hear this selfsame voice coming from others as well. Remember the words of Mark Twain, who said, “The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”
Watch out too for the frustration that can come at you. Long hours of preparation and anguish, when the answer doesn’t present itself, can often lead to total frustration with the whole project. You just want to throw up your hands and yell, “I quit!” But don’t! That’s just the “darkness before the dawn,” as they say. Stay persistent. The answer is out there and you’ll find it; just don’t give up. It’s not that a problem is unsolvable; sometimes, people just give up too quickly.
Sometimes, you just have to let that thought simmer in your brain for a while, let things gel a bit. Maybe you just need to “sleep on it.” Let your subconscious work on it for the night. (More on the subconscious in another chapter.)
Often times, going on about your usual business, getting ready for work, showering, and shaving will break the dam and the brilliant ideas just pop to the surface of your brain. A long walk or a drive in the country will make all the difference. You just need to relax and let those ideas simmer in your brain until they’re done. Maybe it’s time to play!
Try to take a break often during your day and let your mind rest a bit. Our world is encroaching on our thinking time, all during the day. Your boss, associates, teachers, students, even television, all want to tell you what you should be doing, every minute of the day. Sometimes, you just need a break from all the mind controlling going on and think your own thoughts.
Whether it’s on the job or at home with your family, the creativity you possess is a vital tool in your life. Have faith in your own creativity. Don’t be so hard on yourself if things don’t work the first time. Be an observant human, watch everything, learn, and don’t be afraid to ask the dumb questions. You know what they say – the only dumb question is the one you didn’t ask.

Information Overload Inhibits Concentration and How To Minimize Detrimental Effects As Stress

For decades, we’ve been all about developing more and more labor saving devices, communication devices, needing more and more information about everything under the sun. Now we’ve become a society that doesn’t just enjoy, but desperately needs the Blackberry, the pager, the cell phone, the laptop and internet access. Through these devices, we receive information every minute, every hour, every day. We have snail mail, email, radio, television, and phone calls demanding our constant attention. We have books, magazines, reports, and articles that must be read and absorbed. Heaven forbid any information should elude us. We feel we must know everything there is to know, every minute of every day. We’re terrified of being out of the loop, or in the dark about anything.

In our quest to know increasingly and because of our fear of being left out from new information, we have come to a point where it is impossible to concentrate on a project, to focus with laser-like energy. We’re much too busy gathering information. When do we have enough?

David Shenk calls this “data smog” and likens it to pollution we find throughout our world. The production and distribution of information in today’s world has become so much easier to do, not to mention the retrieval of said information, thanks to the internet. This unfortunately, produces an overabundance of low quality information coming at you constantly, every day, from a diverse amount of sources.

The speed at which our society changes is mind boggling to say the least. Technology changes with each passing minute; there’s always new new ways to make old jobs easier or even obsolete. Scientific breakthroughs and cultural innovations happen with such rapidity that it’s difficult to keep up. Every day, science fiction becomes science fact. And all of us feel we must run to keep up, keep our skills sharp, learn new skills every day, every year, constantly adapt to an ever changing society and work world.

When the distribution of more information began, it was considered a good thing, but we may have already reached our saturation point, and the flow of information towards us continues, increasing every day. It’s time to limit our use of so much useless information.

Futurologist Alvin Toffler has put together a very detailed study of the acceleration of change and its psychological effects. He foresees a time of severe physical and mental disturbances, which he calls “future shock” syndrome. He likens this to the nervous breakdown people experience due to wartime trauma, called “shell shock.” The rapid changes of our modern life can, and he thinks will, produce a state of helplessness and inadequacy.

Studies have been done to show the direct correlation between constant change and physical illness. People with high life changes are more likely to develop serious illnesses.

Change can bring about one of two conditions. A person can become excited and curious about what happens next, or they can become fearful, confused, and tense. The longer these feelings remain, the more likely that fatigue will set in and the person will experience loss of control and feel highly distressed. Anyone who has experienced these feelings will tell you focus and concentration are out the window at this point. It’s impossible to concentrate under these conditions.

Too long in this kind of stressful situation brings about the instinctive animal reaction—fight or flight. A person can become aggressive in his/her behavior, something that is difficult to sustain for long periods, or it can cause that person to want to run away and avoid the whole painful thing. It can also tip a person into total despair and depression, a complete numbing of their sensations, an inability to move forward.

Unfortunately, anxiety seems to be ever present in our society, as evidenced by the record use of drugs to suppress the symptoms, such as sleeplessness, irritability, constant worry, and digestive upsets. Never have so many people needed so much medication just to make it through their lives.

Maybe it’s time to quiet the incessant chatter and stem the flow of useless information. Then we may better determine what’s important to us and what isn’t, what we need and what we can do without, what’s necessary to our existence and what amounts to pollution of our mental world.

What can we do about this “data smog?” How do we clear our heads so as to focus on the problems and concentrate on solutions? For starters, set the filters on your email, to dump the truly useless junk mail. If you must check your email all day, at least limit the amount you must go through. Throw away the obvious junk mail you receive each day unless it pertains to something you really need.

Try turning off the television a few hours a day; take a break from the news on occasion. Leave your Blackberry, pager, and cell phone at home when you take a vacation. Let your mind and body rest. Focus on what’s important. Remember, you cannot examine every piece of data, or every new web site added to the millions out there already. Don’t let information take control of you; you must control information.

Memory Techniques We Use To Improve Recall

All the memory devices we are considering help to produce ways of putting data together so it makes it much simpler for us to recall it.

1. Group

If you have to recall big groups of numbers or things, then divide them into much littler units. For instance, if you need a very long number, say your social security number, which might be

569724981, then divide it like this: 569 724 981.

2. Classify data according to type

For instance, why not fix up all thirty-seven of Shakespeare’s plays into logical groupings made up as follows: – Comedy, history and tragedies?

3. Rhymed

Utilize the techniques for producing poetry like rhymed, rhythm and alliteration. For instance, if you wish to recall what happened to all of Henry VIII’s wives then you may do the following:

Died, Beheaded, Died

Died, Beheaded, Survived

4. Rules of grammar

This is, for instance, relating to such things as “I” before “E” except after “C”.

5. Spelling

Always take the 1st letter or syllables in order to form a fresh word which spells out the data that you wish to recall.

So if you’re looking to recall the five great lakes for a geography test, then you may say H.O.M.E.S., which then tells you that they’re Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior.

6. Narrative

This is a great imaginative procedure, as it helps you to produce a sentence, story, cartoon or visual picture in your brain in order for you to recall some vital data.

7. Map

Utilizing structure helps to bring about a diagrammatic representation of the relationship discovered between major ideas, sub classes and all the supporting detail and data that you have to recall.

8. Arrangement

Put units of data that you need to recall in terms of their location or in chronological order.

9. Going through

Utilizing this device, you’ll either act out, or go through the motions in order to get a feel for an idea.

Write up the word or data that you need to retrieve, and then, utilizing your index finger, go over and trace the shape of the word and see it in your brain.

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