10 Daily Habits That Will Actually Make You Smarter

10 Daily Habits That Will Actually Make You Smarter10 Daily Habits That Will Actually Make You SmarterYou might be under the impression that intelligence is a fixed quantity set when you are young and unchanging thereafter. But research shows that youre wrong. How we approach situations and the things we do to feed our brains can significantly improve our mental horsepower. That could mean going back to school or filling your bookshelves (or e-reader) with thick tomes on deep subjects, but getting smarter doesnt necessarily mean a huge commitment of time and energy, according to a recent thread on question-and-answer site Quora. When a questioner keen on self-improvement asked the community, What would you do to be a little smarter every single day? lots of readers- including dedicated meditators, techies, and entrepreneurs- weighed in with useful suggestions. Which of these 10 ideas can you fit into your daily routine? 1. Be Smarter About Your Online TimeEvery online break doesnt ha ve to be about checking social networks and fulfilling your daily ration of cute animal pics. The web is also full of great learning resources, such as online courses, intriguing TED talks, and vocabulary-building tools. Replace a few minutes of skateboarding dogs with something more mentally nourishing, suggest several responders. 2. Write Down What You LearnIt doesnt have to be pretty or long, but taking a few minutes each day to reflect in writing about what you learned is koranvers to boost your brainpower. Write 400 words a day on things that you learned, suggests yoga teacher Claudia Azula Altucher. Mike Xie, a research associate at Bayside Biosciences, agrees Write about what youve learned. 3. Make a Did ListA big part of intelligence is confidence and happiness, so boost both by pausing to list not the things you have yet to do, but rather all the things youve already accomplished. The idea of a done list is recommended by famed VC Marc Andreessen as well as Azula Altucher. Make an I did list to show all the things you, in fact, accomplished, she suggests. 4. Get Out the Scrabble BoardBoard games and puzzles arent just fun but also a great way to work out your brain. Play games (Scrabble, bridge, chess, Go, Battleship, Connect 4, doesnt matter), suggests Xie (for a ninja-level brain boost, exercise your working memory by trying to play without looking at the board). Play Scrabble with no help from hints or books, concurs Azula Altucher. 5. Have Smart FriendsIt can be rough on your self-esteem, but hanging out with folks who are more clever than you is one of the fastest ways to learn. Keep a smart company. Remember your IQ is the average of the five closest people you hang out with, Saurabh Shah, an account manager at Symphony Teleca, writes. Surround yourself with smarter people, agrees developer Manas J. Saloi. I try to spend as much time as I can with my tech leads. I have never had a problem accepting that I am an average coder at best and there ar e many things I am yet to learn... Always be humble and be willing to learn. 6. Read a LotOK, this is not a shocker, but it welches the most common response Reading definitely seems essential. Opinions vary on whats the best brain-boosting reading material, with suggestions ranging from developing a daily newspaper habit to picking up a variety of fiction and nonfiction, but everyone seems to agree that quantity is important. Read a lot. 7. Explain it to OthersIf you cant explain it simply, you dont understand it well enough, Albert Einstein said. The Quora posters agree. Make sure youve really learned what you think you have learned and that the information is truly stuck in your memory by trying to teach it to others. Make sure you can explain it to someone else, Xie says simply. Student Jon Packles elaborates on this idea For everything you learn- big or small- stick with it for at least as long as it takes you to be able to explain it to a friend. Its fairly easy to learn new in formation. Being able to retain that information and teach others is far more valuable. 8. Do Random New ThingsShane Parrish, keeper of the consistently fascinating Farnam Street blog, tells the story of Steve Jobs youthful calligraphy class in his response on Quora. After dropping out of school, the future Apple founder had a lot of time on his hands and wandered into a calligraphy course. It seemed irrelevant at the time, but the design skills he learned were later baked into the first Macs. The takeaway You never know what will be useful ahead of time. You just need to try new things and wait to see how they connect with the rest of your experiences later on. You cant connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future, Parrish quotes Jobs as saying. In order to have dots to connect, you need to be willing to try new things- even if they dont seem immediately useful or productive.9. Le arn a New LanguageNo, you dont need to become quickly fluent or trot off to a foreign country to master the language of your choosing. You can work away steadily from the comfort of your desk and still reap the mental rewards. Learn a new language. There are a lot of free sites for that. Use Livemocha or Busuu, says Saloi (personally, Im a big fan of Memrise once you have the basic mechanics of a new language down).10. Take Some DowntimeIts no surprise that dedicated meditator Azula Altucher recommends giving yourself space for your brain to process what its learned- sit in silence daily, she writes- but shes not the only responder who stresses the need to take some downtime from mental stimulation. Spend some time just thinking, suggests retired cop Rick Bruno. He pauses the interior chatter while exercising. I think about things while I run (almost every day), he reports. More From Inc.The 8 Best Industries for Starting a Business No. 1 on the Inc. 5000 Meet the Fastest-Growing Co mpany in America Looking for a Great Business Idea? Try This Photo of brain courtesy of Shutterstock.

5 Tips for Career Change Resumes

5 Tips for Career Change Resumes5 Tips for Career Change ResumesChanging your career field often means taking an entirely different and fresh approach to your resume to highlight how your experience and skills translate to your new career. Career change resumes can be something of a work of art, in fact, as you re-prioritize and set your sights on new goals.Its important to take just the right, targeted approach if youre re-writing your resume for a career change. When youre transitioning to a new phase of your career, and your life, your resume is one of the most important vehicles to get you where you want to be.Read on for unterstellung five tips for career change resumesBe forward-thinking.Obviously, your resume is a showcase for past accomplishments, but as a career changer, you want potential future employers to be able to envision you in a new role. Highlight any skills that are transferable or will play well in your new field.Combine and conquer.Rather than writing a function al, chronological resume, craft a more descriptive resume that centers on your skills and your qualifications, without going into a chapter-and-verse account of each and every phase of your career. This is especially good advice if youre moving into an entirely new career area and need to demonstrate how your past achievements make you a good candidate for the new career you envision.Do away with the irrelevant.When youre listing your achievements, be really self-disciplined by only including experience thats relevant to what you want to do in the future. That doesnt mean selling yourself short It means highlighting whats meaningful, including up-to-date skills that will resonate in your targeted new field. Consider using a bulleted format here to give potential employers a quick but comprehensive list of your talents and experience.Know your targeted market.Youll reap big benefits if youve done your research and know what educational criteria and technological skills are in demand in your new field. Great career change resumes reflect knowledge of the field, speak the language, and, at their best, let hiring managers know that youre conversant with their terminology and with what they do.State your career goals clearly.When youre knocking on the door to enter a new industry, be as clear as possible with potential new employers about the specific job you want or the kind of job experience youre seeking. Setting your career goals and being as specific as possible in targeting your next job title will go a long way in helping you meet your career change goals.Looking to change careers? Start your job search here

7 Ways You Can Control Your Job Search Progress

7 Ways You Can Control Your Job Search Progress7 Ways You Can Control Your Job Search ProgressSearching for a job is a lonely experience. If you have come to the decision that you want to leave your current employer and search for a new position, you need to be very circumspect about the whole process, lest the wrong people find out at the wrong time. And, if you are unemployed while searching, youll find that no matter how much you are networking and interacting with friends and even your family, you are ultimately on your own. Your family and friends, no doubt, want to be supportive and help. However, sometimes they arent in a position to know how best to do that. Add another layer to the sense of isolation that you may experience. You have a choice to make. On one hand, you can allow yourself to flounder, perhaps making sporadic progress. And you can blame others for not putting opportunities in front of you while you passively wait for just the right thing to come along. Not recommended Alternatively, you can take control and act as the CEO of your own job search geschftliches miteinander enterprise. As with any great leader, youll need to determine and articulate a vision of your professional future. Youll need to figure out how to operationalize and ultimately execute that plan in order to transform your vision into reality. When you approach your search from this perspective, you can empower yourself to move forward in a positive fashion. Here are some questions youll need to answer in order to be successful1. What are your key strengths, specific skills and identifiable achievements up to this point in your career? What role do they prepare you to fill with distinction? In what context would a hiring authority value all that you bring to the table?2. What are the key network resources you have to support you in your search? What is the nature of your professional network? How can you make people understand what specifically they can do to help? And what can you do to motivate them to do so? 3. How will you position yourself in the marketplace? How can you create and present a compelling case for people to want to interview you? Is yourrsumaccomplishment-based, or are you simply asking people to guess what youve actually done inyour various positions? Is your LinkedIn profile complete in all regards with a professional picture and your story well presented?4. How will you structure your time? How much time each day or week will you devote to your job hunt, and how will you divide your time between all the tasks of job hunting? How much time will you commit to working on LinkedIn, engaging in personal conversations and so forth?5. What kinds of skills do you need to acquire or enhance to become a better job hunter? Who can help you? It might be that someone in your family or professional circle can help with yourrsum. Or maybe you would be better served bygoing to a professional who has a broader view and more current exper ience.6. What can you do in the coming day, week and month to keep up to date in your field or to broaden and enhance your skill set? It might be as simple as watching a few online how-to videos or reading professional journal articles. Would perspective employers expect you to have certifications you currently lack, and if so, how can you obtain them?7. What will you do to keep yourself accountable for your own progress? Will you commit to setting specific goals on a measurable timeline and sharing what youve done with your coach, spouse or lebenspartner? Perhaps you only need to schedule a time to ask yourself each day or week what you have done recently and what benchmarks youve yet to fulfill. Of course, there are things that will always be outside your control. Yet, when you create a formalized process and hold yourself accountable to it, you are far more likely to identify and maximize the opportunities open to you. Youre also more likely to take on the new role your next emp loyer is dying for you to fill. Happy huntingArnie Fertig, MPA, is passionate about helping hisJobhuntercoachclients advance their careers by transforming frantic Ill apply to anything searches into focused hunts for great fit opportunities. He brings to each client the extensive knowledge he gained when working in HR staffing and managing his boutique recruiting firm.