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. Eat blindfolded, wear earplugs, shower with your eyes closed.
- Develop comparative tasting. Learn to properly taste wine, chocolate, beer,cheese or anything else.
- Find intersections between seemingly unrelated topics.
- Learn to use different keyboard layouts. Try Colemak or Dvorak for a full mind twist!
- Find novel uses for common objects. How many different uses can you find for a nail? 10? 100?
- Reverse your assumptions.
- Learn creativity techniques.
- Go beyond the first, ‘right’ answer.
- Transpose reality. Ask “What if?” questions.
- SCAMPER!
- Turn pictures or the desktop wallpaper upside down.
- Become a critical thinker. Learn to spot common fallacies.
- Learn logic. Solve logic puzzles.
- Get familiar with the scientific method.
- Draw. Doodle. You don’t need to be an artist.
- Think positive.
- Engage in arts — sculpt, paint, play music — or any other artistic endeavor.
- Learn to juggle.
- Eat ‘brain foods’.
- Be slightly hungry.
- Exercise!
- Sit up straight.
- Drink lots of water.
- Deep-breathe.
- Laugh!
- Vary activities. Get a hobby.
- Sleep well.
- Power nap.
- Listen to music.
- Conquer procrastination.
- Go technology-less.
- Look for brain resources in the web.
- Change clothes. Go barefoot.
- Master self-talk.
- Simplify!
- Play chess or other board games. Play via Internet (particularly interesting is toplay an ongoing game by e-mail).
- Play ‘brain’ games. Sudoku, crossword puzzles or countless others.
- Be childish!
- Play video games.
- Be humorous! Write or create a joke.
- Create a List of 100.
- Have an Idea Quota.
- Capture every idea. Keep an idea bank.
- Incubate ideas. Let ideas percolate. Return to them at regular intervals.
- Engage in ‘theme observation’. Try to spot the color red as many times as possible in a day. Find cars of a particular make. Invent a theme and focus on it.
- Keep a journal.
- Learn a foreign language.
- Eat at different restaurants – ethnic restaurants specially.
- Learn how to program a computer.
- Spell long words backwards. !gnignellahC
- Change your environment. Change the placement of objects or furniture — or go somewhere else.
- Write! Write a story, poetry, start a blog.
- Learn sign language.
- Learn a musical instrument.
- Visit a museum.
- Study how the brain works.
- Learn to speed-read.
- Find out your learning style.
- Dump the calendar!
- Try to mentally estimate the passage of time.
- “Guesstimate”. Are there more leaves in the Amazon rainforest or neuron connections in your brain? (answer).
- Make friends with math. Fight ‘innumeracy’.
- Build a Memory Palace.
- Learn a peg system for memory.
- Have sex! (sorry, no links for this one!
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- Memorize people’s names.
- Meditate. Cultivate mindfulness and an empty mind.
- Watch movies from different genres.
- Turn off the TV.
- Improve your concentration.
- Get in touch with nature.
- Do mental math.
- Have a half-speed day.
- Change the speed of certain activities. Go either super-slow or super-fast deliberately.
- Do one thing at a time.
- Be aware of cognitive biases.
- Put yourself in someone else’s shoes. How would different people think or solve your problems? How would a fool tackle it?
- Adopt an attitude of contemplation.
- Take time for solitude and relaxation.
- Commit yourself to lifelong learning.
- Travel abroad. Learn about different lifestyles.
- Adopt a genius. (Leonardo is excellent company!)
- Have a network of supportive friends.
- Get competitive.
- Don’t stick with only like-minded people. Have people around that disagree with you.
- Brainstorm!
- Change your perspective. Short/long-term, individual/collective.
- Go to the root of the problems.
- Collect quotes.
- Change the media you’re working on. Use paper instead of the computer; voice recording instead of writing.
- Read the classics.
- Develop your reading skill. Reading effectively is a skill. Master it.
- Summarize books.
- Develop self-awareness.
- Say your problems out loud.
- Describe one experience in painstaking detail.
- Learn Braille. You can start learning the floor numbers while going up or down the elevator.
- Buy a piece of art that disturbs you. Stimulate your senses in thought-provoking ways.
- Try different perfumes and scents.
- Mix your senses. How much does the color pink weigh? How does lavender scent sound?
- Debate! Defend an argument. Try taking the opposite side, too.
- Use time boxing.
- Allocate time for brain development.
- Have your own mental sanctuary.
- Be curious!
- Challenge yourself.
- Develop your visualization skills. Use it at least 5 minutes a day.
- Take notes of your dreams. Keep a notebook by your bedside and record your dreams first thing in the morning or as you wake up from them.
- Learn to lucid dream.
- Keep a lexicon of interesting words. Invent your own words.
- Find metaphors. Connect abstract and specific concepts.
- Manage stress.
- Get random input. Write about a random word in a magazine. Read random sites using StumbleUpon or Wikipedia.
- Take different routes each day. Change the streets you follow to work, jog or go back home.
- Install a different operating system on your computer.
- Improve your vocabulary.
- Deliver more than what’s expected.
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