Deskercise! 33 Ways to Exercise at Work Remember the days when “work” meant manual labor with a side of blood, sweat, and tears? Neither do we. These days it seems we’re more likely to log hour after idle hour with our bums glued to our seats. And while you may be an Excel champ by day and gym rat by night, recent research suggests that the recommended 30 minutes of cardio five times per week may not undo the health risks of a sedentary lifestyle. So what’s a worker chained to his or her desk to do? Luckily short bouts of aerobics, strength exercises, and stretching in between conference calls and Gchats can help improve fitness levels and heart health. 1. Tap into your inner Fred Astaire by speedily tapping those toes on the floor under your desk. 2. Want to avoid elevator small talk in favor of elevating the heart rate? 3. Instead of slogging away for hours nonstop, take a mini break for a stationary jog. 4. Win over a new client? 5. Walking during work is totally underrated. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
Develop Perfect Memory With the Memory Palace Technique The Memory Palace is one of the most powerful memory techniques I know. It’s not only effective, but also fun to use — and not hard to learn at all. The Memory Palace has been used since ancient Rome, and is responsible for some quite incredible memory feats. Eight-time world memory champion Dominic O’Brien, for instance, was able to memorize 54 decks of cards in sequence (that’s 2808 cards), viewing each card only once. And there are countless other similar achievements attributed to people using the Memory Palace technique or variations of it. Of course, most of us are not in Dominic’s memory championship line of business (or in Hannibal’s line of business for that matter). The Memory Palace The Memory Palace technique is based on the fact that we’re extremely good at remembering places we know. 5 Steps to Use the Memory Palace Technique 1. First and foremost, you’ll need to pick a place that you’re very familiar with. A good first choice could be your own home, for example. 2. 3. 4.
Reading Strategies - Learning Skills from MindTools Reading Efficiently by Reading Intelligently Get the most from your reading. © iStockphoto/mammamaart Whether they're project documents, trade journals, blogs, business books or ebooks, most of us read regularly as part of our jobs, and to develop our skills and knowledge. But do you ever read what should be a useful document, yet fail to gain any helpful information from it? In this article, we're looking at strategies that will help you read more effectively. Think About What You Want to Know Before you start reading anything, ask yourself why you're reading it. Once you know your purpose, you can examine the resource to see whether it's going to help you. For example, with a book, an easy way of doing this is to look at the introduction and the chapter headings. Ask yourself whether the resource meets your needs, and try to work out if it will give you the right amount of knowledge. Know How Deeply to Study the Material Read Actively Tip: Know How to Study Different Types of Material Tip 1:
Top 40 Useful Sites To Learn New Skills The web is a powerful resource that can easily help you learn new skills. You just have to know where to look. Sure, you can use Google, Yahoo, or Bing to search for sites where you can learn new skills , but I figured I’d save you some time. Here are the top 40 sites I have personally used over the last few years when I want to learn something new. Hack a Day - Hack a Day serves up fresh hacks (short tutorials) every day from around the web and one in-depth ‘How-To hack’ guide each week.eHow - eHow is an online community dedicated to providing visitors the ability to research, share, and discuss solutions and tips for completing day-to-day tasks and projects.Wired How-To Wiki - Collaborate with Wired editors and help them build their extensive library of projects, hacks, tricks and tips.
How to pick a lock--tips for your characters My husband has all sorts of unique skills, including lock picking. When my main character needed to escape from a tricky place, I turned to my better half to teach me how to get her out. There are all kinds of ways to pick a lock, but today I'll focus on how to do it with bobby pins, a lock pick set, and a bump key. If a pesky lock is in your character's way, here are some tricks she can try: Bobby Pins According to my law-abiding husband, bobby pins work best on old locks. Use two bobby pins, or break one in half. Additional tip: early in the story, I established that my main character wore bobby pins in her hair. Lock Pick Set This wouldn't have worked in my story, because the main character didn't have access to a tool like this. Lock pick sets include several shapes and sizes, so your lock picker will choose what works best for her. She'll insert the prying tool, the L, into the fat side of the lock. Bump Key So there you have it.
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
The recipe for success: get happy and you will get ahead in life | Science Happiness, rather than working hard, is the key to success, according to research published today. Cheerful people are more likely to try new things and challenge themselves, which reinforces positive emotion and leads to success in work, good relationships and strong health, say psychologists. The findings suggest that happiness is not a "feelgood" luxury, but is essential to people's wellbeing. What is more, happiness can also extend across an entire nation, with people in "happy" nations being more likely to have pro-democratic attitudes and a keenness to help others. The link between happiness and success was investigated by a team from the University of California Riverside, led by Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky. First, they analysed questionnaires that ask people about multiple aspects of their lives. Other studies revealed that having a sunny outlook on life appeared to precede good fortune. Success was not just about earning lots of money. Nor is happiness just an individual pursuit.
Learn How to Stealth Clothing is very very important on how well you're sneaking. Colors of clothing MUST match and also have to match the environment (i.e. you're in a white room, wear white clothing). Also make sure your clothing fits perfectly. Any loose clothing that hangs over your pants is fine AS LONG as you TUCK them into your pants and stretch a little bit to make sure you have enough room to move around quietly. (Note: Sometimes underwear clothing can have a major effect on your pants while sneaking.) (Second Note: Loose objects on clothing can be harmful unless it matches with your clothing, does not make the slightest noise, and does not reflect light.)
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.
Boost Your Brain’s Power With a 9-Volt Battery and Some Wet Sponges It seems, with the help of a 9-volt battery, wire, crocodile clips, and wet sponges, you can increase your brain’s performance and, more importantly, return your brain to its younger, more malleable and learning-receptive state. The technique, which is lumbered with the fantastic and slightly terrifying name of transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS), is similar to deep brain stimulation (DBS), but it doesn’t involve complex neurosurgery. TCDS runs a very small current — just 2 milliamps — into brain tissue just beneath your scalp; it’s non-invasive, and seemingly quite safe. By pumping electrons into the brain, neurons move a few millivolts towards ‘depolarization’, which makes them more sensitive, and thus reducing the time it takes signals to travel across your nervous system. More importantly, though, this technique increases the plasticity of brain tissue, leaving it in a kind of ‘wet clay’ state after the electrical current has been removed. Read more at Nature
50 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do Self-reliance is a vital key to living a healthy, productive life. To be self-reliant one must master a basic set of skills, more or less making them a jack of all trades. Contrary to what you may have learned in school, a jack of all trades is far more equipped to deal with life than a specialized master of only one. While not totally comprehensive , here is a list of 50 things everyone should know how to do. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. Check out these books for more ideas on pertinent life skills:
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. Readers’ Contributions Dance! Contribute your own tip! There are many, many ways to keep our brains sharp. GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit Did you know that by attaching a 9-volt battery to your scalp — with the help of some electrodes and some wet sponges (or conducting gel) — you can more than double your brain’s learning rate and boost peak performance? It sounds crazy, but it has now been proven by multiple studies that transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) can significantly speed up your brain. In one case, the US Air Force used tDCS on trainee drone pilots to halve their learning time; likewise, DARPA has used tDCS to speed up the training of snipers. In another study, carried out by the University of New Mexico, test subjects learned how to play a video game twice as quickly while under tDCS, and played the game with heightened performance. With that out of the way, I give you GoFlow β1, a do-it-yourself tDCS kit. Even at $99, the GoFlow kit is fairly expensive. If you’re interested in how tDCS actually works, we’ve written about it before in some detail.