Mind Performance Hacks

How This Book Is Organized

The book is divided into several chapters, organized by subject:

Chapter 1

This chapter examines ways to improve your ability to remember information ranging from the periodic table of elements to phone numbers, maps, and spatial locations—as well as how not to leave your keys and your cell phone at home.

Chapter 2

It has been remarked that we live not in an information economy but in an attention economy. If you have a broadband Internet connection, for example, you have access to more information than you could ever use, but your attention is comparatively scarce. This chapter contains hacks to minimize the demands on your attention by maximizing your ability to process this deluge of information.

[Hack #19]

Creative thought means the generation of new ideas, from making the space shuttle safe to writing a poem for your kid's birthday. This chapter contains some useful techniques for almost any creative challenge you might encounter.

Chapter 4

This chapter examines basic hacks to do mental math, including the four-banger operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), how to check your math, how to count to large numbers on your fingers, and some practical applications, such as calculating the day of the week for any day on the calendar.

Chapter 5

Making decisions with limited data is a problem that everyone faces. The hacks in this chapter will help you separate high-priority from low-priority issues and decide how to take action on those priorities.

Chapter 6

So, you've got some great ideas. How are you going to get them across? This chapter will teach you to do so in ways that are clear, creative, or cryptic.

Chapter 7

Passionate emotions can cloud our intellectual clarity, causing us to think poorly. Our thoughts can also be riddled with fallacies and self-contradictions. This chapter contains hacks for gaining the emotional and intellectual clarity and perspective needed to solve problems and make good decisions.

Chapter 8

This chapter contains hacks intended to keep your brain strong and flexible overall, no matter what your age.