Mind Performance Hacks: Tips & Tools for Overclocking Your Brain (Paperback)

Description

You're smart. This book can make you smarter.

Mind Performance Hacks provides real-life tips and tools for overclocking your brain and becoming a better thinker. In the increasingly frenetic pace of today's information economy, managing your life requires hacking your brain. With this book, you'll cut through the clutter and tune up your brain intentionally, safely, and productively.

Grounded in current research and theory, but offering practical solutions you can apply immediately, Mind Performance Hacks is filled with life hacks that teach you to:

• Use mnemonic tricks to remember numbers, names, dates, and other flotsam you need to recall
  
• Put down your calculator and perform complex math in your head, with your fingers, or on the back of a napkin
  
• Spark your creativity with innovative brainstorming methods
  
• Use effective systems to capture new ideas before they get away
  
• Communicate in creative new ways-even using artificial languages
  
• Make better decisions by foreseeing problems and finding surprising solutions
  
• Improve your mental fitness with cool tricks and games

While the hugely successful Mind Hacks showed you how your brain works, Mind Performance Hacks shows you how to make it work better.

 

Credits  

Preface  

Chapter 1. Memory 

      1. Remember 10 Things to Bring  

      2. Use the Number-Shape System  

      3. Make Lots of Little Journeys
      4. Stash Things in Nooks and Crannies  

      5. Use the Major System  

      6. Use the Dominic System  

      7. Visit the Hotel Dominic  

      8. Dominate Your Memory  

      9. Memorize Numbers with Carroll's Couplets  

      10. Tune In to Your Memory  

      11. Consume Your Information in Chunks  

      12. Overcome the Tip-of-the-Tongue Effect  

Chapter 2. Information Processing 

      13. Catch Your Ideas  

      14. Write Faster  

      15. Speak Your Brain's Language  

      16. Map Your Mind  

      17. Build an Exoself  

      18. Pre-Delete Cruft  

Chapter 3. Creativity 

      19. Seed Your Mental Random-Number Generator
      20. Force Your Connections  

      21. Contemplate Po  

      22. Scamper for Ideas  

      23. Deck Yourself Out  

      24. Constrain Yourself  

      25. Think Analogically  

      26. Enjoy Good, Clean Memetic Sex  

      27. Play Mind Music  

      28. Sound Your Brain with Onar  

      29. Keep a Dream Journal  

      30. Hold a Question in Mind  

      31. Adopt a Hero  

      32. Go Backward to Be More Inventive Going Forward  

      33. Spend More Time Thinking  

      34. Extend Your Idea Space with Word Spectra  

Chapter 4. Math 

      35. Put Down That Calculator  

      36. Make Friends with Numbers  

      37. Test for Divisibility  

      38. Calculate Mental Checksums  

      39. Turn Your Hands into an Abacus  

      40. Count to a Million on Your Fingers  

      41. Estimate Orders of Magnitude  

      42. Estimate Square Roots  

      43. Calculate Any Weekday  

Chapter 5. Decision Making 

      44. Foresee Important Problems  

      45. Predict the Length of a Lifetime  

      46. Find Dominant Strategies  

      47. Eliminate Dominated Strategies  

      48. Don't Overthink It  

      49. Roll the Dice  

Chapter 6. Communication 

      50. Put Your Words in the Blender  

      51. Learn an Artificial Language  

      52. Communicate in E-Prime  

      53. Learn Morse Code Like an Efficiency Expert  

      54. Harness Stage Fright  

      55. Ask Stupid Questions  

      56. Stop Memory-Buffer Overrun  

Chapter 7. Clarity 

      57. Learn Your Emotional ABCs  

      58. Avoid Cognitive Distortions  

      59. Use the Fourfold Breath  

      60. Meditate  

      61. Hypnotize Yourself  

      62. Talk to Yourself  

      63. Interview Yourself  

      64. Cultivate the Naive Mind  

      65. Employ Mental Momentum  

Chapter 8. Mental Fitness 

      66. Warm Up Your Brain  

      67. Play Board Games  

      68. Improve Visual Attention Through Video Games  

      69. Don't Neglect the Obvious: Sleep, Nutrition, and Exercise  

      70. Get a Good Night's Sleep  

      71. Navigate Around the Post-Lunch Dip  

      72. Overclock Your Brain  

      73. Learn the Facts About Cognitive Enhancers  

      74. Snap Yourself to Attention  

      75. Assemble Your Mental Toolbox  

Index