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Intelligence can be continuously improved. Everything a smart person knows, they learned from somewhere at one point or another.
Getting smarter doesn’t necessarily mean a huge commitment of time and energy every day.
If you can consistently train your brain to adapt to new situations and information — you will get smarter with time.
The good news is, you don’t have to spend a lot of time every day to become wiser, intelligent or smarter than you were yesterday. You can invest just 5 or 10 minutes every day to do more of what helps you upgrade your mind, cognition, and knowledge model.
1. Focus on Your Personal Priorities
In 10 minutes, you could decide what to do next week. You can also track what have you learnt so far to avoid getting complacent and help learn new things.
A good plan will make you look forward to it. Make a list and write down what you want to learn in the next few days.
Don’t over-plan, this may cause you to underact. A decision alone changes nothing. Action is the greatest gift that only you can give to yourself, so get started.
2. Read to Put Your Brain to Work
What is the best book to promote the brain? People have different opinions on this issue. Some people think that it is enough to develop a daily reading habit, but others think that one should choose from a variety of novels and non-fiction works.
Charlie Munger once said, “I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up. Books can really help a lot, particularly when you have a long way to go.”
3. Embrace Lifelong Learning
Smart people are passionate about new knowledge, and they never stop learning.
The learning effect is best when you connect it to things that you’ve already learned. The more you know the more you can connect.
Use the Feynman Technique to make sure you understand things better. This is perhaps the single most effective studying tool that you can use to focus.
Don’t stop looking for answers. If you still can’t understand something, find ways to expand your knowledge so that you can truly understand it.
4. Subscribe to Thought-provoking Newsletters (here refers to the subscription function of various websites)
The newsletter can help you learn something new every day, and it is really useful. But not too much, you just need a few newsletters to be smart. Use the Look Later App to collect good articles you think are insightful so that you can read them later. Try to read some of your favorite articles every night before you sleep.
If you spend 10 minutes a day, listening to TED talks is also a good way. TED is full of the smartest people in the world. You can subscribe to TED to get weekly inspiration.
5. Give Yourself Something to Pursue
Do something. Create something of value. Share your works. Start a project with passion. You will learn more in the process even if you fail. You will be a better person than you were before you gave it a shot.
No matter what you do, you have to create some value.
Every online break doesn’t have to be about checking social feeds.
Replace an hour of social browsing with something more mentally nourishing. Challenge yourself to do something original.
As Einstein noted, “I’m not smart, I just have a strong curiosity.” All smart people are passionate about their personal pursuits. They find meaning in the work they do.
There’s always something exciting going on in their lives. Find out what brings out the best in you and make time to complete it.
6. Start Reflecting in Writing
Write down what you learn. It doesn’t have to be pretty or long, but taking a few minutes each day to reflect in writing about what you learned is sure to boost your brainpower.
Write a few hundred words a day on things that you learned. Always take notes. Records brilliant thoughts you get through the day for later use.
Be willing to try new things — even if they don’t seem immediately useful or productive. You never know what will be useful ahead of time.
You just need to try new things and wait to see how they connect with the rest of your experiences later on.
7. Share What you Have Learnt
The best way for learning is to teach. If you want to truly master something, find someone you can teach.
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Share what you have learnt through blog, podcast, or vlog. And you can also share your knowledge by answering questions in Quora.
As Einstein said, if you cannot explain what have learnt in a few words, you don’t truly understand it. So, try to explain the knowledges you have learnt to others in simple words. That helps you to better understand it.
Mortimer Adler — “The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.”
When you share what you have learnt to others, you will master the knowledge better, as it forces you to think deeper.
Therefore, post what you have learnt to the public, which helps you to sort through your thoughts.
8. Spend Some Time Doing Nothing
Rest purposefully, and give sufficient time and space for your brain to process what you just learn.
Mounting evidence suggests that regular breaks during your mental works helps increase your creativity. It will not become an obstacle to creativity. At the same time, it will not accumulate stress and tiredness.
Sometime, laziness is not a vice, but an indispensable factor for creativity. And it’s also necessary when doing creative works.
9. Spend Some Time Thinking
There is an activity that have great positive impact to you: thinking.
Spend some time doing nothing but thinking. Otherwise, it doesn’t work.
It’s not just reading other people’s point of view and then thinking. You should learn to focus, and the procedure costs you time and energy.
You need to stay alone to release yourself from the outside interference. After all, it’s natural that human brains will be attracted by all kinds of interferences.
State your thoughts, and think about them. Thinking is about asking questions on your thoughts.
For example, Tim Armstrong—CEO of AOL asked his executives to spend 10% working hours a day or 4 hours a week in thinking. Jeff Weiner—CEO of LinkedIn spend a whole 2 hours to think without interrupt.
10. Cultivate Mental Strength
Mental strength cultivation is a continuous process.
New neural pathways begin to be formed when you are learning something new. And that’s the way to improve your mental strength.
Mental strength is not only about your willpower, but also about your commitment to work and to yourself. You need to force yourself to use your brain more frequently.
The more you learn about new skills, new lessons or new thinking styles, the stronger your brain will become. Try to learn something new every week, and then go on working hard.
A real intelligent man will think of problems from different perspectives, while playing the best state.
“The test of a first-rate intelligence,” said F. Scott Fitzgerald, “is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
Abraham Lincoln sometimes debated with his friends from one perspective, and then, they exchanged their arguments to debate from the opposite perspective.
All in all, you should exercise your muscles of brain.
11. Cultivate Self-awareness
It’s important for a person to cultivate his/her self-awareness.
Self-awareness helps you realize what habits you have, and decide what habits you need to change.
Self-awareness helps you to recognize your own emotions and underlying feelings, which will all influence your behavior and thinking.
It offers you a way to find peace with yourself. It increases your confidence by telling you “who you are”.
Develop the habit of introspection. Pay attention to your self-awareness, when you are immersing yourself in certain emotion.
12. Compete with Yourself
Improve by 1% every day.
Pay efforts to make a little improvement every day.
Learn to exceed your own expectation, during which you will learn how to push your limits.
You may sink into mediocrity if you find everything satisfying.
As Calvin Coolidge said’ “All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.”
