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Working With Your Hands Does Wonders for Your Brain
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Working with our hands
Activities that use our hands relieve stress and help solve problems:
- Using our hands on a task that doesn’t demand much cognitively gives the mind a chance to relax and rest.
- When our brain is “offline,” it gives it a chance to work on problems behind the scenes.
- There is something primal about it. We have actively used our hands as part of our daily survival for thousands of years.
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Motivation and creative work
Intrinsic motivation is necessary for creative work. We need broad thinking, so we can come up with innovative ideas and see new connections.
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Elements of intrinsic motivation
The 3 elements required for intrinsic motivation:
- Autonomy: it's about choice - when you believe you have a choice, you're more motivated.
- Mastery: it's about wanting to get better at something that matters.
- Purpose: it comes from believing you're working on something that's bigger than yourself.
Knowing our work helps others
When we know that our work will make a difference to someone else, it makes us work harder.
Try to reach out to the people who directly benefit from your work. This could boost your motivation to work hard.
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Pay Attention and Take Notes
Taking copious notes prevents you from forgetting things and saves you the time you would spend searching for it again.
Whether you have a notebook handy or an app to capture something digita...
Read (And Do) More Widely
The wider the information and experiences you have, the more chances you have to generate new, creative ideas or come up with interesting angles for what you want to write about.
Get a Lot Of Feedback
Having feedback can help you spot issues you tend to overlook. Also an uninvolved opinion also prevents you from investing on something that is bad because you are emotionally attached to it.
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Measure Output, Not Input
Systems are the best way to progress since they reward effort and we control all the variables. However, we need to have a sense of direction in those efforts, to know what we are trying to...
Use the 80/20 Rule
... to constantly question yourself if your focus, time or money is on the things that generate the majority of the results.
The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle states: 80% of the output or results will come from 20% of the input or action. The little things are the ones that account for the majority of the results.
Reserve Mornings for Deep Work
Our working memory, alertness, and concentration gradually improve a couple of hours after waking up, peaking at about mid-morning - our brain’s natural peak productivity period.
Take advantage of this state, by scheduling your most important work for this period. Focus on performing Deep Work, meaning you get to work free of distraction for a long period of time.