Memorize What You Read And Hear

Reading is Great, but if your read an important book, magazine article or speech, you should make sure you get the most out of it.

Here’s my suggestion how to do this: When you come across a thought or sentence that hits you as being important and that you want to be able to use later in conversation or just for your inspiration:

Hold on a moment, re-read it a second and third time, think about it.

Then copy this quotation or motivational passages and memorize it.

Reading ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne I have marked many passages, and written them into a small book for myself. Using this small book now, I get to the essence of the book immediately and can refresh my memory easily.

Copying the important passages forces you to develop the right mental habits which will inevitably lead you to success.

Listening is an other very important skill that many people neglect. If you catch yourself not really listening to the other perosn when in a conversation, or forgetting immediately what was said, and you want to change this, the audio book ‘Listening – a forgotten skill’ might be just the audio book you are looking for.

Managers and other employees spend more than 40 percent of their time listening to other people but often do it so poorly that the result is misunderstood instructions, misdirected projects, and erroneous actions—millions of dollars’ worth of mistakes just because most people don’t know how to listen.

In this new edition of her classic guide to the art of effective listening, Madelyn Burley-Allen shows you how to acquire active, productive listening skills and put them to work for you—professionally, socially, and personally.

 

Get Involved With What You Do

As we’re always on the run, we tend to try and do things as quickly as possible. But this can be very counter-productive…

If you’re trying to do something, do it right or don’t do it at all. Things done only with half your attention given, are not worth doing.

This is especially true if you are reading and learning. Make sure you have the necessary time to settle into the subject and really work with the information.

Actively read with a pen or highlighter in hand. Underscore the important sentences or words that stand out to you. Write your own notes into the margins. Always make sure to jot down any ideas or images that pop up in your mind when you read. These fleeting ideas that are triggered by associations are invaluable! This is what Rhonda Byrne means, when she mentions the Law of Allowing! Never dismiss or discard and idea or image, always let it work – you will gain great inspiration from such ideas.

A great way to prepare for a good, productive learning seesion is to use this meditation audio ‘Awakened Mind System’. You can download the audio book ‘Awakened Mind System’ immediately, just click on the link.

 

Use of Time

Time is a commodity that is precious. Time seems to be free and there seems to be plenty of it at first sight. But time that has passed is gone forever! This very minute you read this sentence will be over in 60 – no, now it’s allready only 50 seconds…. – and then – poooofffff….. GONE FORVER. WILL NEVER BE BACK.

GONE.

It’s just a minute, yes, and there are 60 minutes to the hour, 24 hours to the day. so in total there are 1’440 minutes every day, why worry about one single minute?

OK, you’re right: It’s no good to worry about a single minute, but you need to decide what you want to get out of this very day. If you let one minute after the other just dissolve into nothing, the end of the day will come and you’ll ask yourself ‘What have I done, enjoyed or achieved in these last 24 hours?’

I’m not advocating that you’ll now start to be your own drillmaster and race thought the day trying to catch every single second and fill all the time you have with something meaningful. You also need rest and sometimes to do nothing can be just as enjoyable as working or playing hard. Just be aware of time:

Take time to think and plan. Take time to study and learn.

Think about what you are reading, find ways to apply it to your life.

Use your time so that at the end of the day you can lean back and say: ‘I’ve use my time in a good way!

The audiobook A Guide To Time Management by Andy Guides offers great advice how to make good use of your minutes and hours every day. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne is an other book that will show you how time can work for you.

 

Concentration – The Secret To Productivity

Concentration is the key element to productivity. Manage to concentrate on whatever you do right now, and you get it done faster, better and it’s easier.

Experiments have shown, that we are able to fully concentrate for approximately 15 minutes at the time, then the mind needs a short break. People who train hard, can increase this span to much longer times, but full, 100% concentration can not be upheld indefinitely. Chess players know how difficult it can be to concentrate for long time spans. We seem to reach a saturation point after which the brain overloads and refuses to focus on a single goal or task.

The trick therefore is to work in phases of high concentration and then do something else that releases the pressure on the system and lets you breathe for a few minutes and then work with a spell of concentration again.

The very same problem of upholding the concentration applies to listening. We tend to listen to others for a short time and then our thoughts wander off….. Misundertandings are the results. If you want to increase your listening skills, concentration is key.

In her audiobook ‘Listening: The Forgotten Skill’ Madelyn Burley-Allen shows you how to acquire active, productive listening skills and put them to work for you – professionally, socially, and personally. With her time-tested techniques, you’ll learn how to:

• Eliminate distractions and improve your concentration on what is being said.
• Locate key words, phrases, and ideas while listening
• Cut through your own listening biases
• Interpret body language clues
• Ask constructive, non-threatening questions that elicit real information
• Get others to listen to you
• Master a whole range of listening skills that you can use on the job and in your personal life

Sure Listening is only one area where concentration is VERY important. Just ask yourself how often you are drifting off in your thoughts whilst talking with others and whilst you really should be listening. Maybe you should make an effort too?

 

Purpose – Achieving Your Goals

Purpose is important if you want to reach anything in life. Purpose give your actions direction and sustains your efforts.

Write down the goals you want to achieve. If you could have anything, what would it be? Don’t say ‘This is not possible anyhow…’ – Just tell yourself: ‘I’m capable of anything, so let’s see what I really want.’

Once you have your goals written down, select the three most important ones. If you try to achieve everything at the same time, you’ll overload. So just select three goals. Write every one of these goals on a big sheet of paper and hang it where you can see it at all times.

Now read that goal every time you see the sheet of paper. Every time! Repeating will help you get that sense of purpose and to get focused on the goal.

The audiobook ‘Every Move Must Have a Purpose’ by Bruce Pandolfini goes much deeper on the subject and will help you understand how important purpose is in life. Bruce Pandolfini is one of the world’s most sought-after chess teachers, and one of the most widely read chess writers working today. He was the analyst for PBS’s coverage of the match between chess superstars Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. Bruce Pandolfini was portrayed bythe actor Ben Kingsley in the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, and more recently was featured in the New Yorker and Fast Company. He is a regular columnist for Chess Life, the bible of the chess world, and continues to professionally coach young chess players and consult with CEOs from Fortune 500 companies. Bruce Pandolfini lives in New York City.