10 Goals, 1 Year

Time to Focus

 

Since I first became ill in 2012, with this rare brain illness; Nmda Encephalitis. Things changed in my brain, and the way I carry out tasks every day. I went from being such a well organised, productive and focused person to then suddenly becoming a very unorganised scatter brain who can’t focus on one thing for long. It’s like my mind gets super bored easily and I get distracted very quickly by noise, sounds or random things. My mind races too fast from random old memories that have no relevance to new ideas and exciting things. It can be good sometimes, but 90% of the time it is not a good thing. I just want to shout STOP at my brain and get it to slow down, concentrate, and finish the task I am meant to do without procrastinating.

I have decided to do something about this. It’s been 2 years with this illness, and I don’t want any more years like this, not being able to focus for long.

I am going to attempt to change, I started listening to a podcast before bed by ‘Paula Sweet’ and she had topics on ‘productivity, staying focused etc.’ she mentioned she had read the book ‘Eat that frog’ by Brian Tracy.

I decided to start reading this book too.

“The first rule of frog eating is this: if you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first.”

This applies to; when you avoid certain tasks that need doing, and do other tasks instead that aren’t necessarily a priority. This quote means you should do the task you least want to do, first. This way you will have a greater sense of accomplishment and achievement and are not wasting time.

Things I have learnt are that to be productive you need these 3 qualities;

• Decision
• Discipline
• Determination

The most important thing is; clarity, knowing what your goals are or what needs to be done and the order it needs to be put in.

For me, I have lots of determination, and the discipline but lack the quality; decision making. I am very indecisive, and quickly change my mind with lots of things. It’s the ability to make a decision which I find extremely hard, it just doesn’t come naturally to me.

The Seven Simple Steps

• Decide exactly what you want

• Write it down

• Set a deadline for your goal

• Make a list

• Organise the list into a plan

• Take action immediately

• Do something every day towards your goal

 

The next thing the book advised to do, is the ‘10 goals, in 1 year’

I have a some from my list, here:

1. Do 1 sketch/painting every day for 365 days
2. Learn 2 new words every day for 365 days
3. Learn to cook new recipes (1 every week, 4 every month, 48 in a year)
4. Tone, get fit & build muscle (exercise x4 days a week, review monthly)

I will go through the short and long term plans of my goals so I can achieve them. I am excited to do this. And will keep record of it on this blog & Instagram as I go along.

Start it with me this new year, get motivated 😀

#10goals1year

My Memory(or lack of)

So after finding out I didn’t do too well on a cognitive and memory function test in the hospital, taken at the end of November 2014.  One of the questions in the test was to draw/copy the picture of a cube, I did this perfectly(my art had come in handy here) So I think I did very well on some aspects but very poor when asked to remember a name and address etc. I’ve decided to do a bit of research and some more practice to improve my memory.

If I am honest, It doesn’t come as a total surprise, as I have been struggling for a while, not being able to read a book from beginning to end, and if I do, i cant remember the story, same with films. Constantly having to take photos of things to remember(the reason why I constantly use Instagram, it’s like a memory diary) or I write everything down, if I don’t do this then I don’t remember, simple as. Constantly losing things which makes me irritable and angry. And I always seem to think someone else has moved the object I’m looking for. But It did come as a little shock when I actually thought I had done good on the test, as I have been practising with the app called ‘peak’ for the last month which is brilliant and includes daily workouts, it has showed my main weakness’ are memory and problem solving. My strengths seem to be focusing.

It made me think…surely if you have the ability to focus and good attention that you should have good memory skills also? But I guess it is not always the case. What I have learnt about myself, is I can focus extremely well on any tasks just not for a long amount of time and I have also noticed I don’t really retain the information I have learnt or what I’m focusing on. It is almost like my brain is not absorbing the information into my memory at all.

So I’ve decided to do some research about memory and how it can be improved. Taken from the book ‘Use Your Head’ by Tony Buzan.

I did a test called the ‘Recall during memory’

I have to read a list of words once, quickly. Using a small card to cover each word. Then to turn the next page and fill in as many words as you can..

Here were my results:

1. I remembered 7/27 words
2. ‘The’ & ‘and’ appeared more often but I didn’t notice this
3. How many words in the last five did I remember? 2 words
4. Do I remember any word that was different from the rest? – Leonardo Da vinci
5. How many words from the middle of the list to I remember now? None.

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I was then asked to draw a graph including amount of recall and from when learning starts to where learning ends.

To be honest it took me a while to understand this? I still not sure I understand it not sure how you can precisely map on a graph about the amount of words you learnt during the beginning or end of the learning.

I guess it’s just to show I seem to learn more at the beginning and end rather than the middle?!

Memory and understanding

They do not work in the same way, as time progresses, all the words were understood but not all of them were recalled, this is why so many people find they don’t recall much after learning & understanding. The reason being recall tends to get worse as time goes on, unless the mind is given brief rests.

What I have learnt is I need to practice these sort of tests more, I find I get a ‘block’ of nothingness when I try to recall… nothing is there, no matter how hard I try. It is incredibly frustrating but I will not let this stop me doing anything in life, I believe you can improve your memory skills, it just takes hard work and time.

So I shall be posting updates of the tests I do and see if there is any improvement over time.

Problem Solving and Creativity

I have been doing some Psychology Research about Creativity and Problem Solving, taken from the book

‘Simply Psychology’ by Michael W. Eysench

If you think about it, every day in life we use our problem solving skills without realising, when we try and think about what to cook, what to watch on tv, then there are more complex issues such as whether to split up with someone, or improving fitness , moving house, taking on a new job. A lot of problem solving can be related to the ability to make a  decision.

Some of the terms I have learnt:

Convergent thinking

Logical thinking in which there is only one correct answer e.g. Maths equations

Divergent thinking

Thinking involving the ability to think of many useful ideas in novel situations or problems where several answers are possible. e.g. Art, English

Creativity

The ability to produce original, useful and ingenious solutions to problems

Originality

The tendency to produce a large number of unusual solutions to a problem these solutions may be useful or useless.

I have learnt that problems can be; Fairly trivial and short term VS important and long term.

According to Mayer(1990, p.284) problem solving is “cognitive processing directed at transforming a given situation into a goal situation when no obvious method of solution is available to the problem solver”

This definition proves there is 3 aspects to problem solving:

1. Purposeful, in the sense that it is goal directed
2. It requires the use of cognitive processes rather than automatic processes
3. A problem only exists when someone lacks the relevant knowledge to produce an immediate solution

This reminded me that in Nursing, we have what is called SMART Goals; Specific, Measurable, Attainable,Realistic and Time.

Which enables the person to set a goal that is thought through(using cognitive process not just automatic), and are realistically able to reach the goal and something you can measure the progress and the time in which the problem will be reviewed to see if the solution has worked.

So lets get back to; Convergent thinking, this is rational or logical thinking, in which there is only one answer. E.g. Arithmetic problems such as 4×8 = ?  618-479 = ?

Guilford (1987) argued that convergent thinking should be distinguished from divergent thinking.

Divergent thinking involves non-logical processes, and there may be many relevant answers.

To assess divergent thinking by asking people to think of as many uses as possible for a brick or to think of some of the effects of humans having tails. The ability to think of numerous useful ideas in novel situations, is of great relevance to creativity. There have been many definitions of creativity. It clearly involves the ability to produce original, useful and ingenious solutions to problems.

Intelligence is necessary but not a sufficient condition for creativity, creative individuals need to have the good knowledge base found in those with high intelligence in order for their divergent thinking skills to be put to best use.

If you would have asked me a few years ago if I was a Convergent thinker or Divergent thinker my answer would have been Convergent. I was very into science and maths , I liked how they had set answers that I could learn and I liked using logical skills. I did A Level Maths and Biology loved doing equations and learning scientific facts.

Have you noticed in life how Convergent thinkers tend to stick together and the creative/Divergent thinkers (such as those who do English/media/ art /fashion etc) tend to mix more?

Since being struck by a brain illness in 2012 ; NMDA Encephalitis and still have it now, just a couple of  symptoms include ; Bipolar Mania & memory problems. I have become more of a Divergent thinker, very creative , I have a number of different solutions but I have too many and sometimes its hard to narrow down and focus on one option.

I have been both a convergent and divergent thinker. I do think it is possible to be both but in terms of hobbies and career, one tends to overtake the other.

I also think to be a convergent thinker it relies a lot upon good memory skills. But they can have a lack of imagination, originality and creativity because they like to follow set logical processes with set answers. Complete opposite to divergent, who are the creative ones, who have so many ideas they don’t know what to do with! Like it says above being creative doesn’t necessarily require intelligence but if they want to put their divergent skills to good use then intelligence is required.

Hope you have learnt a bit from this and it will make you spot those straight away who are convergent or divergent thinkers and also how problem solving is such a big part of life.