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Why does walking through doorways make us forget?
The meaning of the 'Doorway Effect'
We have all experienced, at one point in our life, the so-called 'Doorway Effect': the fact of intending to do something, but immediately after having started, we forget what we were about to do.
Our attention has the tendency to shift from one thing to another according to our ambitions, plans, strategies. It is at this exact point that the 'Doorway Effect' occurs.
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The meaning of the 'Doorway Effect'
We have all experienced, at one point in our life, the so-called 'Doorway Effect': the fact of intending to do something, but immediately after having started, we forget what we were about to do.
Our attention has the tendency to shift from one thing to another according to our ambitions, plans, strategies. It is at this exact point that the 'Doorway Effect' occurs.
The cause of the 'Doorway Effect'
The 'Doorway Effect' occurs whenever we change our physical environment, as this results also in changing our mental environment. This is why so often when we enter a room in search of one item, we tend to exit the room with everything but that one item. In just a few minutes, we forget what it was that we were supposed to search and our mind chooses another point of interest.
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The associative memory
We all experience, from time to time, issues with our memory. Involuntarily, we end up forgetting things, such as people's names, after having met for the first time.
One trait that we...
Tips to remember people's names
Whenever you find yourself in the difficulty of not remembering somebody's name, try some useful tips such as repeating the name several times, connecting the new name to something you already know or linking it to something else you have just found out about the person. Just bear in mind that associations work wonders.
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Don’t Rely On Your Memory
If you want to remember things, don't rely on your memory. Put it in writing or in a digital notebook.
Make Back-Ups Of Everything
- Make sure to back up your computer files.
- Make duplicates for your car and home keys.
- Scan your IDs, passports and bank details, and put it all in a secured folder on your computer.
Keep all your financial records, birth certificates, land titles and insurance in one folder, preferably in a safe.
Have a designated place for everything
- Sort out your clothes, cleaning materials and everything else and keep them in labeled containers or closets at home.
- Organize your work space well so that your every move is conserved, knowing exactly where everything is.
Doing this will take time, but it is easier to find what you need.
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Counterproductive goal tracking
When you make progress toward your long-term goal, your brain – with its mental checklist of many goals – turns off the mental processes that were driving you to pursue your long-term goa...
How to combat The Progress Trap
- View your actions as evidence that you are committed to your goal.
- Always remind yourself why you want to reach your goal, especially as you reach milestones along the way.
- Look at your accomplishments to see that you really do care about your goal.
- After you make positive steps toward a goal, ask yourself: “How committed do you feel toward that goal?”
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The Science of Sleep
The average adult spends 36 % (or about one-third) of his or her life asleep.
Purpose of Sleep:
- Restoration
- Memory Consolidation
- Metabolic Health
Restoration
The first purpose of sleep is restoration.
Every day, your brain accumulates metabolic waste as it goes about its normal neural activities. Sleeping restores the brains healthy condition by removing these waste products. Accumulation of these waste products has been linked to many brain-related disorders.
Memory Consolidation
The second purpose of sleep is memory consolidation.
Sleep is crucial for memory consolidation, which is responsible for your long term memories. Insufficient or fragmented sleep can hamper your ability to remember facts and feelings/emotions.
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Walking backwards
Backwards walking (whether real, imaginary, or virtual) can boost your short-term memory.
To go back in time, it might help to go backwards in space. Moving backwards t...
Drawing to remember
When we draw something we are forced to consider in more detail and it’s this deeper processing that makes us more likely to remember it.
Even writing a list helps somehow, which is why when you get to the shop and realise you’ve left your shopping list at home, you can still remember more items than if you hadn’t written a list at all. However, doing a drawing takes it one step further.Exercise, but get the timing right
When you want to learn something in particular, then physical effort does seem to help, at least in the short-term.
In an experiment, people that did 35 minutes of interval training 4 hours after learning a list of pictures paired with locations were better at remembering the pairs than those who did the interval training straight away.
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On Commitment
Commitment begins with desire. Each person has to want it and be willing to sacrifice for the other. It takes shifting the way we view ourselves and giving up something, in order to g...
1. Positive Experiences
A great confidence and commitment builder in a relationship is a shared, positive experience with the person you love. Think of the identity of your relationship — how you and your partner perceive it to be.
Take the negative, funny things and turn them into positive experiences. And take the positive experiences and live through the memories and build toward new experiences.
2. Committing In Thoughts And Actions
There will be easy, seamless days, but there will also be conflict and struggle. Relationships take work. Value your time with your partner.
Go “all in” and think about what will make that person happy, ways to improve your relationship or to help ease their burden. Show with words and actions that you care.
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Reality Reloaded
Pandemics, wars, and major social crisis create new kinds of attitudes, needs, and behaviors, which require mastering new skills and adjusting to the new realities.
One of the key factors...
Crisis Chronology
During a crisis, the chronological way to handle things is usually:
- Defensiveness and rapid reaction.
- Endurance plans for a potential recession.
- Making adjustments for a quick rebound.
- Reinventing and applying creative strategies for new opportunities.
Developing Capacity For Imagination
Imagination is a challenging task under extreme circumstances and world-changing events like the current pandemic. It helps us go from adapting to the new environment to shaping it. A leader has to develop the capacity for imagination using the following imperatives:
- Carving out time for Reflection
- Asking active, open questions
- Being Playful
- Sharing, collecting and scaling of ideas
- Seeking the Unexpected
- Experimenting
- Not losing Hope.
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Guilt is an informative emotion
It’s often a sign we’re not acting in accordance with our values.
The guilt of not working stems from two places:
- From the fact that we value working har...
Counter guilt around break time
Reflect on how you need to recharge—and, more than that, how doing good work depends on it:
- How much you value resting your mind so you can do better, more creative work later.
- How your focus will benefit from this attention break.
- How many great ideas come while your mind is wandering (when you’re not working or focused).
- How often your mind considers and plans for the future while you’re stepping back.
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47/times a day
...is the number we check our phones on a daily basis.
And nearly double that if we’re between the ages of 18 and 24.
We’re no longer weighed down by having to retain trivial data, since all the information we need is one click away, and so we are left with greater cognitive space and with a hard time process...
We’re no longer weighed down by having to retain trivial data, since all the information we need is one click away, and so we are left with greater cognitive space and with a hard time processing the information we take in to form memories.
2 kinds of memories
- explicit, created through conscious experience;
- implicit, which form when past experiences affect us, sometimes without our knowledge.
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The Importance Of Boredom
It drives us to engage in activities that we find more meaningful than those at hand. Without it, we’d be perpetually excited by everything.
Research shows that people who are bored...
Focus And The Brain
When we’re consciously doing things we’re using the “executive attention network, ” the parts of the brain that control and inhibit our attention. The attention network makes it possible for us to relate directly to the world presently around us.
By contrast, when our minds wander, we activate the brain’s “default mode network, ” which is the brain “at rest”; not focused on an external, goal-oriented task. In this mode, we still tap about 95% of the energy we use when our brains are engaged in focused thinking.
Types Of Daydreaming
- Poor attention control: when people with poor attention control drift into daydreaming. These people are anxious, easily distracted, and have difficulty concentrating, even on their daydreams.
- Guilty-dysphoric: when our thoughts drift to unproductive and negative places. We berate ourselves for perceived mistakes or flaws and feel emotions like guilt, anxiety, and anger.
- Positive-constructive: when our thoughts veer toward the imaginative; it reflects our drive to explore ideas and feelings, plan, and problem-solve.
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