Target Working Memory to Learn New Skills

When learning a new skill, leapfrogging over tough times, or ready to take a risk, it pays to draw from potent dynamite stored in your working memory.  Ready to propel your life and leadership to new heights? Then it’s time to tap into the wonder of  working memory. How so?

It’s designed to increase focus, as well as offer you the brief facts you need most at any given moment. While it takes skills to use it well, it holds two types of short-term memory. On one hand, it’s a notepad of sorts, with key verbal and spatial hints written there when you reach for them.

Don’t be deceived by its small size when you working memory offers you only one bit at a time, because its mental capacity holds that key fact while you solve complex problems.

Several hot spots in working memory can easily detract from its advantages unless you realize where these lie, and deliberately avoid them.

Watch those at work today who win in tough times, and you’ll see amazing solutions illuminated by their working memories in action, while losers see mostly problems.

Do you operate from a business-as-usual approach, or do you expect the wonders that come daily from a working memory in action?

Check out recent research at Monitor on Psychology to see why working memory problems and possibilities are hot spokes in intelligent circles. Do you lead with the working memory in mind?

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17 Comments on “Target Working Memory to Learn New Skills”

  1. #1 Brainpower for Financial Growth – Brain Leaders and Learners
    on Oct 23rd, 2008 at 8:42 am

    [...] Build new neuron pathways toward lasting wealth that’s accompanied with economic strategies for coping. The brain is [...]

  2. #2 Micheline
    on Oct 28th, 2008 at 11:15 am

    Great work.

    Michelines last blog post..Homeowners Insurance Is Top Legislative Issue

  3. #3 Age Gracious or Voracious? – Brain Leaders and Learners
    on Oct 29th, 2008 at 10:34 am

    [...] Inquiring minds spark more working memory less available to those who settle for age or  revert to ruts that shape old [...]

  4. #4 Obama Leads with the Brain in Mind – Brain Leaders and Learners
    on Nov 10th, 2008 at 9:00 am

    [...] projects that empower humans. Obama used mental skills to let attacks go, so that he freed his working memory to consider alternative [...]

  5. #5 Frantic or Focused? A Brain’s Choices – Brain Leaders and Learners
    on Nov 17th, 2008 at 8:15 pm

    [...] card, add numbers to show priorities, and slip the list in your pocket. Target lists are a bit like outsourcing your working memory, and that’s how targets can help the brain to free your working memory for creative work that [...]

  6. #6 Einstein Saw Reality’s Persistence - You? – Brain Leaders and Learners
    on Nov 18th, 2008 at 11:04 am

    [...] also shows how we activate the working memory as a tool to leapfrog over persistent illusions that mask as reality. I wonder if Einstein knew the [...]

  7. #7 Question to Refuel Finances Past Media Fears – Brain Leaders and Learners
    on Dec 28th, 2008 at 1:24 pm

    [...] Smart skills, for instance,  combine traditional hard and soft skills to create tools for a new neuron pathway [...]

  8. #8 Questions to Leap Over Life’s Ruts – Brain Leaders and Learners
    on Dec 28th, 2008 at 7:30 pm

    [...] ruts and rejuvenation. Whenever you operate new parts of the human brain you also triggers your working memory which is that area that helps you learn and do life in different [...]

  9. #9 Martin Walker (of Brain Fitness Pro)
    on Dec 29th, 2008 at 7:25 am

    I’m so glad that I found your blog, Ellen. I like your focus on mindful awareness and jumping out of ruts. Critically important to feeling alive.

    On the particular subject of Working Memory, your readers may be interested to know about Susanne Jaeggi and Martin Buschkuehl’s study on Brain Exercises Improve IQ Training Working Memory” which recorded substantial increases in working-memory and mental agility (fluid intelligence) in just 19 days.

    I was so impressed that I contacted the research team and developed a software program using the same method so that anyone can achieve these improvements.

    Martin Walker
    http://www.mindsparke.com

  10. #10 eweber
    on Dec 29th, 2008 at 7:41 am

    Thanks Martin, it would be fun to see what we are both doing that is even more similar. All the best with your fascinating work, and thanks for your interest in mine! Many people are needed to facilitate these living ideas!

  11. #11 Reflect Peace to Trump any Battle Plan – Brain Leaders and Learners
    on Feb 15th, 2009 at 1:36 pm

    [...] Working memory - equips your brain to operationalize peaceful tactics in order to lead calmly in spite of personal [...]

  12. #12 Ode to Power of Practice – Brain Leaders and Learners
    on Feb 20th, 2009 at 10:17 am

    [...] talented change agents tend to rely more on their working memories, a short term memory system that maintains relevant information in active status, which can be [...]

  13. #13 Social Media Helps or Hurts Brainpower – Brain Leaders and Learners
    on Feb 25th, 2009 at 11:24 am

    [...] benefits. Each time you step up to new plates to learn, you stretch and exercise the brain’s working memory for more of the [...]

  14. #14 10 Tragic Traits in Mind of a Cynic – Brain Leaders and Learners
    on Mar 7th, 2009 at 7:29 pm

    [...] Working memory sits unused and often remains mute for the cynic, who finds no need for mental equipment that [...]

  15. #15 Brain Parts Promote or Stomp out Change – Brain Leaders and Learners
    on May 18th, 2009 at 8:59 am

    [...] advantage of working memory and watch people take informed risks to move beyond conflicts into creation and productivity - even [...]

  16. #16 No Brain Left Behind – Brain Leaders and Learners
    on May 31st, 2009 at 9:57 am

    [...] No Brain Left Behind: takes advantage of novelty that stokes memory, and engages working memory that may hold few new facts only,  yet leads to [...]

  17. #17 Expect Value Added with Name Calling – Brain Leaders and Learners
    on Jun 24th, 2009 at 1:40 pm

    [...] your brain is more equipped to forget a name than to remember one. Why so? New names enter your working memory which holds very few facts at a time. New information in a conversation, for instance,  will spill [...]

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