6 Rules for Brain Development

Six Rules

1. Organize your brain.
2. Cultivate enthusiasm.
3. Sharpen your interest.
4. Think.
5. Improve your concentration skills.
6. Improve your observation skills.

Let’s look at each rule separately.

Organize your brain.

Organization is the most important skill. It means storing things and thoughts properly. This quality affects all areas of life: from personal to professional. Chaos often hinders even creative work.

Imagine that you are terribly disorganized physically: you scatter things around, you don’t keep things in order. In the morning, you have a difficult exam. You wake up late (because you went to bed late), and you prepare for it. Instead of grabbing your bag and leaving the apartment, you have to run around the room looking for what you need. As a result, you’re pretty stressed and late for the exam. Your mind is in turmoil, and you have no time to think about the questions. You’re simply trying to get your nervous system in order.

This example illustrates the lives of many people. What should have been done yesterday is not done, it’s put off until tomorrow, leading to stress, lateness, and mental confusion.

Here’s what disorganization can lead to:

• Studying at night and not getting enough sleep;
• Spending a lot of money on travel because nothing was planned and many things were forgotten at home;
• Mental chaos;
• Poor academic and work results;
• Irritation of others, especially when it comes to teamwork;
• Being late.

Learn to manage your time properly, otherwise you’ll spend the rest of your life reacting to problems as they arise.

Cultivate Enthusiasm

Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the most underrated philosophers, said, «Nothing great can be achieved without enthusiasm.»

Being enthusiastic means being emotionally engaged in an activity and truly enjoying it. If you don’t like reading books, start with the ones you find most interesting. Cultivate a desire to read every day. Or solve puzzles. Exercise your brain in ways you enjoy. And even if you have to pretend sometimes to generate enthusiasm, you’ll simply believe it.

Hone Your Interest

Interest is an emotion that creates a desire to learn about something or someone. William Morris: «The real secret of happiness lies in the real interest we take in the world around us.»

How can you train yourself to be interested in everything around you? You may not like this advice, but it’s the same as with enthusiasm: you need to persistently convince yourself of it and find ways to build motivation. Some people don’t want to do anything for decades, but if they just tried, everything would change.

A developed interest has a positive effect on concentration and memory. It allows you to pay attention to something for longer and experience it with all your senses.

Think

Henry Ford said, «Thinking is hard work, that’s why so few people like it.»

Develop logical thinking; it will allow you to understand one thing and then move on to the next. Creative thinking allows you to develop several new ideas from one, and from those, even more. When thinking, it’s important to use these types of thinking, as well as critical and analytical ones. Wisdom lies in understanding which tool to use at the right moment.

Improve your concentration skills

Concentration is difficult to learn, but it’s entirely possible. The more you focus on one thing, the more success you’ll achieve. There’s no other way.

Monitor yourself: how many activities do you engage in throughout the day? Everything counts, even how many times you pick up your phone or how many websites you visit. All of this kills concentration. The desire to learn and try everything leads to a loss of focus. Most people can’t even read one book a week because it requires concentration.

Improve your observation skills

Bernard Shaw: «Observation is considered cynicism by those who lack it.»

An observant person has excellent intuition and memory. These are all skills necessary for brain development. Memorize things, recall in detail how your day went and what a close friend was wearing. This is not only beneficial for your brain but will also allow you to draw a ton of interesting conclusions.