Whether you’re the CEO of a multinational, or the department intern, you qualify as a business professional. Needless to say, that title entails the possession of a broad set of skills that includes leadership, communication, practical knowledge, and yes–reading. Reading may not seem like a significant part of your day-to-day work. You may have abandoned the notion of reading with the concluding chapter of your college textbooks. Quite the contrary, in fact. If you are a serious player in the competitive job market of today, you already know that simple tasks that may not seem to take up much of your time actually eat up more of it than you’d think. But you already knew that. You’re a clever professional. You know that cutting down on time spent doing menial labor–like reading–means more time doing work that relates directly to your job. (more…)
Growing up, people like Aesop, Big Bird, and our parents gave us life lessons we lived by till this very day. “Choose a career you enjoy”, “You don’t have to get along with everyone”, and “Slow and steady wins the race” may all sound eerily familiar to you. However, it’s time to realize that while these aphorisms struck gold during childhood, adulthood is all about being productive. And being productive follows a whole other set of golden rules. So it’s time to forget what you learned about success all those years ago and relearn the fundamentals of productivity as they apply to you now. (more…)
2011: a year full of promise and positive changes. However, it seems to be that no matter how cutting-edge technology is nowadays, no laptop, smartphone application, or hand-held device can break the cyberspacial wall of impossibility. Some tasks just simply can’t be done by technology alone. But this is for a good reason. Technology is there to aid us–to help users adapt, organize, develop, share, edit, communicate, and perfect their work. It’s a tool to help our feeble, bumbling human minds remember and carry out our tasks at the next level. Nevertheless, it’s a tool that most of us 21st Centuryists can’t live without. Having said that, I’d like to introduce you to a slew of neat widgets from Google. They’ve been around for some time now, but in case you haven’t had a proper introduction, meet Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Google Fast Flip, and Google Tasks. All of these programs are intended to be used for better communication, organization, collaboration, and much more. (more…)
Answers have been sought in a variety of ways through history. Oracles, wise men, gypsies, encyclopedias, telescopes, microscopes, magic 8 balls—there’s nowhere mankind hasn’t already looked for answers. Although wise men and fortune-tellers are way past their heyday, this doesn’t mean that people have stopped asking questions. Quite the contrary. So what’s the single most important means of answer-seeking in this new age of information? Why, the internet of course. There’s absolutely nothing in the world that isn’t addressed somewhere by someone in cyberspace. Literally, all the information previously found in an encyclopedia (and then some) is just a click away. Google alone receives about 2 million hits a day. Wikipedia receives over 51 million hits in the same amount of time. Got a question? The World Wide Web has an answer.
Why are some books more quotable than others? Why is it that we can never remember those useful bits of information that we read? What exactly is selective memory and how does it affect our reading? Good questions. You’d be surprised to know that memory, like a mental bank account, is virtually limitless.Read on explore the mystery of the human mind and how your memory ties in with reading.
So what’s the best way to memorize reading material? Honestly, it’s not about how you read. It’s about what you read. The most important tactic is to have in your hands material that appeals to you. When I say “appeals to you”, I do mean reading material with words, not pictures. Having said that, you can probably think back to a really good book that you read and realize that you know most of it by heart. That’s because you weren’t just interested in finishing the book, but also because you received true enjoyment in reading it. Maybe you’re a fiction reader. Perhaps you like historical books. It all comes down to one factor: in order to stimulate your memory while reading, it is first and foremost important to find a real interest in the material. I can guarantee that you’ll have an easier time memorizing the Kama Sutra than Webster’s Dictionary for one very good reason. This, my dear reader, is known as the phenomenon of selective memory. (more…)
For all of us avid readers out there the outside world poses a great threat in the form of distractions. Whether they are pleasant or annoying, distractions will always get one simple goal accomplished – they will make your job of finishing whatever it is you are reading a daunting task.
Distractions may vary in shape, size and form, but rest assured, they will follow you even to the North Pole if you decide to make it a reading retreat. Some distractions are easy to spot, while others hide under an impenetrable disguise, so that you don’t even recognize them as such. We decided to list the most dangerous of them for you, so that if you ever become victims to these ugly creatures, at least you do so very well informed.
The video below, courtesy of JESS3, is an interesting take on the massive amount of information now available on the internet. Now more than ever before, it’s become very easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information present in the world. Most people have trouble keeping up with the amount of material they need to read for work and school, which leaves very little room for personal reading.
When was the last time you read something for pure enjoyment? Are there books you once bought, but have yet to read? Information management and speed reading are gaining relevance as key skills for success in school and in the workforce. The video below simply illustrates how the internet has led to an explosion of information. How we deal with this is key. Enjoy the video!
