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Think Better And Be More Creative By Laughing-By Learn New Skills Blog

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Top 50 Free Websites 2011 Skills and Perfromance Tools

Top 50 Free Websites 2011 Skills and Perfromance Tools

There is no better time to talk about joy, smiling and laughter than at Thanksgiving when everyone is hopefully in a good mood, sharing and grateful for what life has brought all of us. That’s the theme for today’s post.

Also, next week is Thanksgiving and time for annual top 50 free websites.

Top 50 Free Websites 2011 Skills And Performance Tools

We are getting excited about the BUZZ on our top 50 free websites for 2011. We publish this list just in time for Thanksgiving…keep your eyes open for it.

Why the BUZZ for this list? Our theme explains it best.

No Money. No problem.

All the FREE skills and tools for employees, managers and entrepreneurs looking to learn new skills and tools for improving performance:  Grow Yourself.  Grow Your Organization.  Inlcudes internet performance tools, for small businesses looking to grow and take their business to the next level.  Great for online//offline marketing.

More on that next week, now back to thinking, creativity and laughter.

Think Better And Be More Creative By Laughing-Article Post

So now you ask, what does laughter have to do with thinking? OK, let’s look at the medicinal value of laughter and thinking and at the same time, lay down some background on the value of laughter, smiling, joy and happiness.

The good, the bad, the ugly- laughter is the best medicine and when you smile, the world smiles with you.

Think Better And Be More Creative By Laughing- background
Being full of joy, smiling and laughing and enjoying even the smallest things reduces the effects of stress, increases brain activity and heightens creativity, all of which helps you overcome challenges in difficult time.

Think Better And Be More Creative By Laughing-the bad

Hey, doom and gloom consumes us today, at every corner. Work and unemployment, economic slowdown and no jobs, 401K’s reduced to 201K’s and the story just starts there. It is easy to get consumed by it and become negative thinking: this is no time to laugh or enjoy life.

Think Better And Be More Creative By Laughing-the ugly

It’s easier to be depressed in bad times than good. When you get depressed, your mind shuts down, you lose your creativity and people tend to isolate themselves. Depression comes with a full laundry list of symptoms, none f them good. It’s also a huge precursor to stress. The two make you uptight, cranky and allow you to easily push people away when you need their support the most.

Think Better And Be More Creative By Laughing-the good-
We typically use the left side of the brain in most activities, but not when we laugh and smile and experience joy. When we laugh, we light up the right side of the brain. Our research reveals that when people have been struggling with a problem and feel stuck, our focus narrows, and our ability to solve problems is greatly reduced and limited. Experts say, we do much better when we break a way and enjoy a good hearty laugh.

Here’s the bottom line: if you have a sense of humor, and smile and laugh regularly, you mind brightens up and you come up with fresh ideas and make better decisions and your problem solving abilities are enhanced.

Think Better And Be More Creative By Laughing is published by Learn New Skills Blog.

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Learn New Skills-Improve Memory Tips That Actually Work

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Improve Memory with unique tips

Use these tips for Improving memory

Learn new skills- improve memory

So now that  we know about basic recall and memory from our last post, here are some tips and guidelines to  improve your memory and basic recall.

Learn new skills by paying attention

You can only remember what you have learned and you
can’t recall it if you have not paid attention to it, or made a strong effort to
encode it into your brain. “That what you give energy too grows.”  The more time and mental energy you give something, the more you remember it.  It takes about eight seconds of intent focus to  process a piece of information through your hippocampus and into the  appropriate memory center. That means you can’t do more than one thing when you  need to concentrate! If you distract easily, try to absorb the information in a
quiet place where you won’t be interrupted.

Tailor information you want to retain to your learning style. I’m very visual, and most people are visual  learners; they learn best by reading or seeing what it is they have to know.  But some are auditory learners who learn better by listening. They might
benefit by recording information they need and listening to it until they
remember it.

 Learn new skills-involve your senses

Involve all your senses. Even if you’re a visual learner, read out loud what you want to
remember- if you can recite it rhythmically, even better. Try to relate
information to colors, textures, smells and tastes. The physical act of
rewriting information can help imprint it onto your brain. Relate information
to what you already know. Connect new data to information you already remember,
whether it’s new material that builds on previous knowledge, or something as
simple as an address of someone who lives on a street where you already know
someone.

Learn new skills-all about organization for improving memory

Organize information. Do you want to remember it?  Write it down first.  Write things down in note pads and datebooks and on calendars;  take notes on more complex material and reorganize the notes into categories  later. Use both words and pictures in learning information. Understand and be  able to interpret complex material. For more complex material, focus on  understanding basic ideas rather than memorizing isolated details. Be able to  explain it to someone else in your own words. If you can’t summarize it our  loud, that means you really have not absorbed or understand it completely.

Learn new skills-practice make perfect

Rehearse information frequently and “over-learn”. Review what you’ve learned the same day you learn it, and at intervals thereafter for the next 7-10 days. What
researchers call “spaced rehearsal” is more effective than “cramming.” If
you’re able to “over-learn” information so that recalling it becomes second
nature, so much the better.

Be interested and motivated, and keep a positive mental perspective. Tell yourself that you want to learn what you need to remember, and that you can learn and remember
it. Telling yourself you have a bad memory actually hampers the ability of your
brain to remember, while positive mental feedback sets up an expectation of
success.

Learn new skills- develop a system for improving memory

I use these like a religious person uses a bible.  I have several go to systems when I absolutely have to remember something…and they work.  Mnemonic devices to improve memory. Mnemonics (the initial “m” is silent) are helpful  tips of any kind that help us remember something, usually by causing us to  associate the information we want to remember with a visual image, a sentence,  or a word. Sometimes they are also called moronic systems. Whatever you pay  attention too, you will be better able to recall it so these systems put you on  the right track to recall.

Learn new skills- common devices for memory

Common types of mnemonic devices include:

Visual images – a microphone to remember the name “Mike,” a rose for “Rosie.” Use
positive, pleasant images, because the brain often blocks out unpleasant ones,
and make them vivid, colorful, and three-dimensional — they’ll be easier to
remember. Made up acronyms about the subject matter are great moronic memory
tools to help you recall.

Sentences in which the first letter of each word is part of or represents the initial of
what you want to remember. Millions of musicians, for example, first memorized
the lines of the treble staff with the sentence “Every good boy does fine” (or
“deserves favor”), representing the notes E, G, B, D, and F. Medical students
often learn groups of nerves, bones, and other anatomical features using
nonsense sentences.

Acronyms, which are initials that creates pronounceable words. The spaces between the  lines on the treble staff, for example, are F, A, C, and E: FACE.

Rhymes and alliteration: remember learning “30 days hath September, April, June, and
November”? A hefty guy named Robert can be remembered as “Big Bob” and a smiley
co-worker as “Perky Pat” (though it might be best to keep such names to
yourself).

Jokes or even off-color associations using facts, figures, and names you need to recall,
because funny or peculiar things are easier to remember than mundane images.

Learn new skills-in bite size pieces

Ever hear of the magic of 7?  That’s the largest number most people can remember with ease, and why a phone number is 7 digits long.  “Chunking” information; that is, arranging a long list in smaller units or categories that  are easier to remember. If you can reel off your Social Security number without  looking at it, that’s probably because it’s arranged in groups of 3, 2, and 4  digits, not a string of 9. “Method of loci”: This is an ancient and effective  way of remembering a lot of material, such as a speech. You associate each part  of what you have to remember with a landmark in a route you know well, such as  your commute to work.

When it comes to improved memory, hopefully learn new skills gave you some great insight.

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Learn New Skills-The Essence of Learning New Skills-How We Learn

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Learn New Skills-

The Essence of Learning New Skills-How We Learn

Learn new skills or learning anything new can be very complicated. To simplify the topic, I’ve included the essence of how we actually learn about new subjects of
interest.  Here is the essence of how we learn new skills. How we learn new skills is actually pretty simple and the process is very enlightening.   Final footnote: we use learn new skills as the premise for our posts, but it is also a metaphor for learning anything you want to learn.

Learn new skills-how we learn

  • * 10% of what we READ
  • * 20% of what we HEAR
  • * 30% of what we SEE
  • * 50% of what we SEE AND HEAR
  • * 70% of what is DISCUSSED WITH OTHERS
  • * 80% of what is EXPERIENCED PERSONALLY
  • * 95% of what we TEACH TO SOMEONE ELSE

Learn new skills- in three steps

Notice how the amount or retention grows once you begin to use the skill and teach the
skill.  We always used a three step practice to training our employees on new skills.  Shortly you will see how it ties together with the trhee levels of knowledge.

  1. We teach the skill
  2. They use the skill several times
  3. They teach the skill

Once you reach the level where you can teach the new skill you learned, that’s when you really begin to grasp the knowledge. This doesn’t happen overnight, but the quicker you can get through these three stages, the quicker you own and learn new skills.

Learn new skills-the three levels of knowing

Now that you know “how to learn”, it’s time to bring our attention to the essence
of knowing and knowledge. You can’t be a great thinker or learn new skills
without understanding the three levels of knowing and the three levels of
knowledge.

This model identifies the three levels of knowing.

The Three Things You Know

The Three Things You Know

 

 

 

 

 

So now that you know…what are you going to do with it.
Here are few more enlightening statistics when it comes to learning.

  • 75%  will do nothing
  • 15% will look at it
  • 10%-will learn, practice and teach the new skill

That’s the magic number to learn new skills. Statistics tell the tale.  Only
10%- actually it is less than 10% of people will actually even learn new
skills, less will practice the new skill and even fewer will eventually teach
it.  That’s why so few people really ever succeed.

Call it lazy, call it procrastination, call it not fun.  Once you change your mind set
to learn new skills and begin to embrace them as tools that will help you
achieve your goals, get ahead in life and prosper, you will be more inclined to
put yourself in that 10% grouping.

Learn new skills-the three levels of knowledge

This model shows the three levels of knowledge.

Knowledge-The Three Steps To

Knowledge-The Three Steps To

  1. Basic recall is the lowest level in
    the hierarchy of knowledge. That’s where you first learn new skills, your first introduction to learning anything new.
  2. Comprehension- this is where you begin to learn new skills and understand new things.
  3. Application- this is the final step to knowledge the gateway to really learn new skills.  Those who reach this level with a skill, actually begin to develop their real skills.
Learn new skills- the rest of the story

The rest of this post will focus on basic memory, and we will address the higher levels of knowledge in the next posting.

Learn new skills- all about memory

In simple terms, memory is the mental activity of recalling information that you have
learned or experienced. That simple definition covers a sophisticated process
that involves many different parts of the brain and serves us in different and
unique ways.

Just like muscular strength, your ability to remember increases when you exercise your
memory and support it with a proper diet and other healthy habits. There are a
number of steps you can take to improve your memory and retrieval capacity,
especially when you learn new skills. First, however, it’s helpful to understand how we remember.

Learn new skills- short term memory

Memory can be either short-term or long-term. In short-term memory, your mind stores
information for a few seconds or a few minutes: that’s about the time it takes you to meet look up a friend’s telephone number. Short term memory is fragile, and it’s meant to be. If not, your brain would quickly be faced with “sensory overload” if you retained every phone number you called, every person you met. Your brain is also meant to hold an average of seven items: called the magic of (7 +-2), which is why you can usually remember a new phone number for a few minutes. Anything more than 7 and you have difficultly recalling.

Learn new skills-long term memory

Long-term memory on the other hand, involves the information you make an effort
(conscious or unconscious) to retain, because it has some significance or is
important to you. For example: information on colleagues, and friends). Some
information that you store in long-term memory requires a conscious effort to
recall: episodic memories, which are personal memories about experiences you’ve
had at specific times; and semantic memories (factual data not bound to time or
place), which can be everything from the names of the planets to the color of
your child’s hair. Another type of long-term memory is procedural memory, which
involves skills and routines you perform so often that they don’t require
conscious recall.

In our next from learn new skills we will post, we will review improving memory.

Check out our intro price from learn new skills on their Be Thinkful skill development plan.

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Thinking Skills- Reflective Thinking: Learn New Skills From The Inside Out

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Reflecting and refelctive thinking

Looking from the inside out with reflectve thinking

Thinking Skills-

Learn new skills from the inside out

Here is a great opening quote on learning thinking skills on reflection and reflective thinking

When it came to thinking skills, Confucius said it best…

…”By three methods we may learn wisdom 1st, by reflection, which is noblest; 2nd by imitation, which is easiest; and 3rd by experience, which is bitter sweet.” – Confucius

Thinking skills-history repeats itself

They say history repeats itself. Lessons from the past are one of the smartest thinking tools you can use.  Embracing the lessons from the past is what “reflection” and reflective thinking skills are all about. When you reflect, you draw on past experiences. Drawing on past experiences puts things in perspective and sheds a new light on the teachings and lessons learned.

Thinking skills-reflective thinking turns experience into insight”

Having been through something once, gives you a sense of confidence that experience teaches.  We call these “AHA” moments-teachable moments.   Thinking skills like reflection and reflecting is a sure fire way to jump start any thinking process. When you reflect on something you get to see the entire picture.  The good, the bad, the ugly. You can learn something from both positive and negative perspectives, so don’t turn your back to the negative side of the lesson.

Here is a pointed quote for you on experience on thinking skills- “Those that forget the past are condemned to relive it”

When you look at both the positive and negative side of a coin using reflective thinking skills, it has a unique way to take a bad experience and turns it into a valuable one. Do not miss the opportunity to get something of value from it.

Thinking skills-two sides of the coin

It’s easy and fun to pull the wisdom from a positive experience. A good experience is the most valuable. Having done it once successfully, you should be able to repeat the positive experience. To ensure that you get the same results with the next new experience, ask yourself these questions:

Was there one big factor in the experience, and what role did it play in the solution and outcome?

What was the one negative thing about the experience, how could I have prevented it, more importantly, what lesson did I learn?

  • What steps did I take?
  • What questions would I have asked if I had another expereince similar to it?
  • What was my biggest surprise?
  • What could I have done differently to improve the results?
  • What did I learn?
  • What could I have done to improve the past experience?

Thinking skills- exploring the past

Exploring the past is definitely inspirational. It also provides integrity to your thinking, and most important of all, it puts the past experience into true perspective. You can use this thinking tool for any challenge. You can also use it to just sit back and reflect, you will be surprised what you learn.

Here is a practice exercise that is simple to do. Think back in time, and then think through these different subjects-one at a time:

  • Opportunities
  • Family
  • Career
  • Hobby
  • Goals
  • Giving
  • Short Comings
  • Problems
  • Work

You can also use this thinking skills tool and strategy to think about any scenarios to see if you experienced something similar in the past that you can draw on. Always keep balance and perspective in mind when you reflect. If you have a current challenge you are working on, reflect on it, give it some mental energy, give yourself a place to reflect that is quiet and a time that is most peaceful for you, and what is really important here is-let it incubate.  Give reflective thought time to blossom, grow and develop.  Time is your friend with reflective thinking…so give it some room

Reflective thinking skills is the first place to start when you want to think about something and think better.

Thinking skills- looking ahead

Exploring the future is definitely inspirational. Thinking associated with new ideas, planning different objectives and also stretching your creative thoughts on how to proceed in a different way, provides you with loads of positive energy!  Use the past to think ahead, set goals and cherish the insight these thoughts give you.

Reflective thinking is just one of hundreds of different patterns, strategies and insights from our Be Thinkful© thinking and creativity E-Book and skill development program.  Learn new skills and check out our special limited time intro offer now at www.thinkingskillsets.com.

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Learn New Skills-The REAL VALUE Of Thinking And Creativity

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Learn New Skills-

The REAL VALUE Of Thinking And Creativity

Stand out in a crowd when you learn new skills like thinking and creativity

Learn New Skills-The REAL VALUE Of Thinking And Creativity And Top Performance

Learn new skills-The real value of thinking

When you learn new skills like thinking skills, here is what happens.  Great thinking produces the groundwork for great results.  You just can’t have performance and great results without better thinking.  Poor thinking creates negative consequences, and average thinking produces simply no improvements or progress.

Great thinking generates great improvements in your performance and progress.  Great thinking combined with great ideas releases a person’s real potential.  Good thinking generates more good thinking for those who turn it into a practice.  That’s exactly how you start to become a great thinker.

“An invasion of armies could be resisted, but never an invasion of ideas”

Learn new skills- thinking should be obvious to us

The REAL VALUE of great thinking, generating ideas and the ability to sell yourself and influence others should be apparent to all of us.  It’s hard to advance without it, and it’s even harder to be successful, or to earn life changing income, without being a better thinker.

Here’s why.  Unsuccessful individuals concentrate their thinking on existing and surviving.  How can you generate ideas when you are merely trying to get by?   When you learn new skills like thinking and creativity, you understanding the effects associated with changing your thinking, and you are more inclined to improve your thinking skills. 

 Learn new skills-improve your thinking and creativity

1. Improved thinking creates the base line for good results
2. Poor thinking only creates negative results
3. Average thinking produces little to no progress
4. Good thinking improves your chances for success
5. Great thinking produces greater performance, success and income

Only when a person makes the proper changes and improvements to their thinking do things change, and turn out better for them.  That’s when you can start to understand better, think better, and generate great ideas for your company or yourself.

Learn new skills-change your thinking

Improving your thinking is all about changing attitudes and beliefs.

Change is a personal thing- “I would really want to change.”  Change is really possible-“I am able to change.”  Change is profitable- “I’ll be rewarded by change.” 

Changing your beliefs, changes your expectations.  Changing your expectations, changes your attitude.  Changing your attitude changes your behavior.  Changing your behavior changes your performance. 

When you learn a new skill like thinking, this is what happens.  Changing your performance, changes your life…and this my friends is exactly how you become successful and produce life changing income!

Learn new skills–creativity

Thinking and creativity go hand and hand.  The more creative you are the better thinker you are.  Here is an inside look at creativity and the skills you develop as you become more creative.

1. Learn new skills like-Curiosity

When you learn new skills like creativity, you start to ask ‘why’, ‘what if’ and ‘I wonder…’ are great questions to build into your life if you want to be a more creative person. Learn new skills like creativity to be more employable is one great benefit.  Companies like creative people.

2. Learn new skills to-Finding the FUN in Problems

The biggest problem is that we often see problems or obstacles in life as unacceptable parts of life. We avoid pain or suppress it when it comes and in doing so, we don’t often see and feel symptoms that are there to tell us something important. Creative people see problems as a natural and normal part of life – in fact they often have a fascination with problems and are drawn to them.   That is why creativity and thinking go hand in hand.

3. Learn new skills to Confront Challenge

Most of the most creative ideas through-out history have come from people facing a challenge or crisis and rather than running from it asking ‘how can I overcome this’?

4. Learn new skills for- Constructive Discontent

Creativity and creative people often have an acute awareness of what’s wrong with the world around them – however they are constructive about this awareness and won’t allow themselves to get bogged down in grumbling about it – they take their discontent and let it be a motivation to doing something constructive.

5. Learn new skills for Being Positive

Learning creative skills gives you a unique attitude and belief that most (if not all) problems can be solved. No challenge is too big to be overcome and no problem cannot be solved (this doesn’t mean they’re always happy or never depressed – but they don’t generally get stumped by a challenge).

6. Learn new skills for Suspending Judgment

As you start learning creative skills, you begin to hold off on judging or critiquing an idea is important in the process of creativity. Often great ideas start as crazy ones – if critique is applied too early the idea will be killed and never developed into something useful and useable. (note – this doesn’t mean there is never a time for critique or judgment in the creative process – it’s actually key – but there is a time and place for it).

7. Learn new skills- Obstacles Lead To Innovation, Improvement & Solutions

This subject is similar to the example above,  but by ‘hurdles’ I mean problems and mistakes in the creative process itself. Sometimes it’s on the journey of developing an idea that the real magic happens and it’s often out of the little problems or mistakes that the idea is actually improved.

8. Learn new skills- Stick With It-Ness

Creative people who actually see their ideas come to fruition have the ability to stick with their ideas and see them through – even when the going gets tough. This is what sets apart the great from the good in this whole sphere. Stick-ability is key.

9. Learn new skills to develop-Flexible Imagination

It’s fun watching a truly creative person at work when they’re ‘on fire’. They have this amazing ability to see a problem or challenge and it’s many potential solutions simultaneously and they have an intuitive knack at being able to bring previously disconnected ideas together in flashes of brilliance that seem so simple – yet which are so impossible to dream up for the average person.

Is Creativity tied to Personality A Trait or Can it be Learned?

As I read through this list of traits of creative people – the question that I know the answer to is whether creativity is tied to personality type or whether it can be learned?

Yes creativity is a learning skill.

Some people are just creative – they don’t train themselves to think like they do and they often don’t even know that they are any different from the rest of us – it’s just who they are.

However, we can all enhance our ability to be creative over time when learning new skills.   When you learn new skills like our thinking and creativity skill sets, you will really become a creative type.

If you want to become successful and live at a new level, you have to be more creative and think at a new level.  Learning skills and using the life changing skill sets associated with Be Thinkful© is the right product for you, and the right time for you to start learning how to think and understand better, be more creative and yes…even generate great ideas.

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