Journal to the Self: 13 Tools to Make Journaling Work for You In this post, I present 13 specific journaling tools you can start using immediately, along with a mind map of the book ‘Journal to the Self: Twenty-Two Paths to Personal Growth‘. Journaling is perhaps the most effective and direct way to get a deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you. By putting your thoughts in writing, you trigger some unique mental processes that often lead to invaluable new insights. In the book Journal to the Self, Kathleen Adams presents many tools that make the process of journaling much easier and enjoyable, presenting plenty of choices to make journaling work for you. Regardless of your writing style (or even if you see yourself as someone who doesn’t enjoy writing at all), you’ll find tips to make your self-discovery journey more effective and enjoyable. Journaling Tools The Journaling Toolbox is the meat of Journal to the Self. Springboards: These are ready-made phrases that answer the question "What should I write about?". Now to the Full Book
Study Smarter, Not Harder Good students don't just study harder, they study smarter. A study published this week identifies some habits of successful college students. I'll describe the new study shortly, but first: How should students study ? A growing body of cognitive psychology research emphasizes the value of two principles: Principle one is space your studying out over time . Principle two is test yourself . Ironically, students often rate spacing and testing as counterproductive. According to the study that came out this week , the good ones do. In summary, low performers were especially likely to base their study decisions on impending deadlines rather than planning, and they were also more likely to engage in late-night studying. Why spacing wasn't significantly related to GPA isn't clear. It's always important to remember that correlation doesn't equal causation. College isn't all about grades, it's really about learning.
120 Ways to Boost Your Brain Power Here are 120 things you can do starting today to help you think faster, improve memory, comprehend information better and unleash your brain’s full potential. Solve puzzles and brainteasers.Cultivate ambidexterity. Use your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth, comb your hair or use the mouse. Write with both hands simultaneously. Switch hands for knife and fork.Embrace ambiguity. Learn to enjoy things like paradoxes and optical illusions.Learn mind mapping.Block one or more senses. Readers’ Contributions Dance! Contribute your own tip! There are many, many ways to keep our brains sharp.
We're Only Human...: The Science of Cramming I went to a very nerdy college. This school was so nerdy that the “mascot” was an engineer, and at football games students would chant: “Tangent, secant, cosine, sine. Three point one four one five nine. Go Engineers!” I'm not kidding. So how is it possible that today I do not even know what a secant is? Was I studying the wrong way during all those wee hours? Consider “overlearning.” University of South Florida psychologist Doug Rohrer decided to explore this question scientifically. The results were interesting. Rohrer and Pashler also wanted to see if the scheduling of study breaks might make a difference in learning. All these experiments involved rote learning, but Rohrer and Pashler have also found similar effects with more abstract learning, like math. All we were taught about study skills at my nerdy school was to keep a clean, well-lit work space and eat a good breakfast, and most of us ignored that advice.
Solve Your Problems Simply by Saying Them Out Loud How many times have you gone through explaining a problem to a friend, and before he could say a word about it you had already figured out the solution by yourself? The very act of explaining a problem out loud can, by itself, be enough to solve it. How can this deceptively simple strategy work so well? How can we leverage it, transforming it in a problem-solving technique we can use at anytime? The Magic Behind Explaining Problems Out Loud Communicating your problems out loud has several advantages over silently thinking about them: 1. In order to put your problem in a communicable form you must clarify it, stating it in objective terms. Putting your problem in words will tremendously help you grasp it: language is not only a tool of communication as many believe, but also a tool of thought (for more on that, check ‘Top 3 Reasons to Improve Your Vocabulary‘). 2. Explaining your problem to someone else is particularly effective when you assume no knowledge on the other person’s part. 3.
Think You Know How To Study? Think Again What Happened to Downtime? The Extinction of Deep Thinking & Sacred Space Interruption-free space is sacred. Yet, in the digital era we live in, we are losing hold of the few sacred spaces that remain untouched by email, the internet, people, and other forms of distraction. Our cars now have mobile phone integration and a thousand satellite radio stations. When walking from one place to another, we have our devices streaming data from dozens of sources. There has been much discussion about the value of the “creative pause” – a state described as “the shift from being fully engaged in a creative activity to being passively engaged, or the shift to being disengaged altogether.” However, despite the incredible power and potential of sacred spaces, they are quickly becoming extinct. Why do we crave distraction over downtime? Why do we give up our sacred space so easily? But this desperate need for constant connection and stimulation is not a modern problem. We are depriving ourselves of every opportunity for disconnection. So what’s the solution? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Why Forgetting Is Key To Remembering Forgetting isn’t usually thought of in relation to learning, but as it turns out, it might play a role. Herman Ebbinghaus, a German experimental psychologist from the late 19th and early 20th century, was (seemingly) curious about the way people remembered. (And thus forgot.) What made our good man Herman unique though was in his method of study–or rather his focus group. Among other projects, Dr. Among Dr. He is also known for his ideas on the rate of forgetting, claiming that 90% of what is learned is forgotten by learners within 30 days–often within hours. The infographic below reviews some of his ideas–how we remember–and how quickly we forget. This is a cross-post from Online Colleges Related posts:
Understanding Stress: Symptoms, Signs, Causes, and Effects What is stress? The Body’s Stress Response When you perceive a threat, your nervous system responds by releasing a flood of stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol. Your heart pounds faster, muscles tighten, blood pressure rises, breath quickens, and your senses become sharper. Stress is a normal physical response to events that make you feel threatened or upset your balance in some way. The stress response is the body’s way of protecting you. The stress response also helps you rise to meet challenges. But beyond a certain point, stress stops being helpful and starts causing major damage to your health, your mood, your productivity, your relationships, and your quality of life. How do you respond to stress? It's important to learn how to recognize when your stress levels are out of control. The signs and symptoms of stress overload can be almost anything. Stress doesn’t always look stressful Foot on the gas – An angry, agitated, or “fight” stress response. How stressed are you?
Making It Stick: Memorable Strategies to Enhance Learning By: Regina G. Richards Think about how you remember something: When you want to remember a phone number, do you repeat it to yourself several times until you get the whole number dialed? Using strategies intrinsically mean slowing down when you do something. We all use strategies throughout our day to remember the variety of facts and ideas we need to retain. It is valuable for us, as teachers, therapists, and parents, to have a basic understanding of how we remember information so we better appreciate the need for strategies. Back to top The memory process Memory is a highly complex process involving multiple components working simultaneously. Everything begins as sensory input from our environment. Figure 1 Memory process schema The diagram in figure 1 is a representation of the memory system: Information moves from Sensory Input through Sensory Memory and Short-Term Memory and eventually into Long-Term Memory (Richards, 2003, p. 17). The RIP toolbox for memory Repetition: The R in RIP
Nine Things Successful People Do Differently - Heidi Grant Halvorson -... - StumbleUpon Learn more about the science of success with Heidi Grant Halvorson’s HBR Single, based on this blog post. Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle. 1. To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. 3. Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. The good news is, if you aren’t particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. 7. To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you’d honestly rather not do. 8. 9.