Everyone wants to become a little smarter and I have been a big fan of increasing my intelligence bit by bit. Today, I ran across a Medium article about 24 daily habits that will boost intelligence. Although I like the post for its conciseness, I would like to discuss them further to expose the good and the bad of each method. I will divide the 24 habits into a four part series so I don’t create a wall of text that repels viewers or causes wrist strain due to excessive scrolling.
- Ten idea generation. James Altucher’s method of coming up with ideas. I think this is a great way to stimulate your mind and keep you going. I personally like idea generation and it does really work.However, one pit fall is that you may strain the brain too much. Also, ten is a good round number but generating nine, eight ideas would be fine. The point of the exercise is to make you more creative and stimulate your brain not to come up with ten ideas all the time.
- Follow your question. As a researcher this is one of the best ways to learn. If I get curious, I write it down on my excel sheet and see how doable it is. Then I rank the questions in order of feasibility. For simpler questions, I google or use Quora. Definitely, ask good questions and follow through
- Devil’s Advocate. In a good educational setting, we are trained to think about the other side and look for the flaws. Specially, in investing, I think what is the downside? What could go wrong. When I do research, I always think that there is no effect or whether the results are driven by other factors.
- Read chapter in a book. I used to read a lot and I suggest that everyone does so as well. But given my time constraints, I usually just listen to podcasts or audiobooks, which works quite well. But I will get back to reading a chapter everyday.
- Watch educational video. I love TED, Coursera, EdX, and all the good videos that people put on YouTube. The real MVPs. However, we need some discernment. Not all educational videos are good. I have often seen very poor quality videos as well. So we really need discernment. Just be a little careful on what you watch.
- Read newspaper. Many newspapers have fallen due to lack of advertising revenue with the boom of online content. However, I often read good local newspapers and supplement my reading with good blogs. So always read about what is going on the world and around you.
I will cover the next six ideas in the next post. Hope everyone has a productive day/ week.
Pureum's Perspective 