People are very familiar with dieting. It makes sense to most people that if you want to be healthy, you have to eat healthy.
Most people understand exercise. If you feel out of shape, it makes sense to run and test your endurance, or lift weights and increase your strength and muscle tone.
Your brain is hungry and you need to feed it
Your brain is constantly receiving stimulus and interpreting data. It’s been estimated that humans have between 3,000 and 70,000 thoughts per day. If we related to thoughts as we do calories, we’d be much more selective about what we choose to think about, or the stimuli we choose to consume.
Your brain is a muscle and needs exercise
Even though your brain is constantly thinking, without the occasional workout, the brain loses it’s capacity to store new information or process complex stimuli. It’s important that the brain is stretched to find solutions to problems. Playing chess or sudoku are a vastly different usage than passively watching Keeping up with the Kardashians.
Putting yourself on a diet
Well we’ve reached that point haven’t we? You feel like your brain is out of shape. So it’s time to start balancing it all out with some better consumption habits and regular exercise.
Here’s your two part plan:
1) Watch one video from Ted.com per day.
Videos require a time commitment of 5-25 minutes of focused attention. Watch one at random or pick from the homescreen, the key is to do it once per day.
2) Read 3 blogs per day
I recommend going to Alltop and finding a category you are interested in.
3) Talk to 3 total strangers per week
Each person that you speak to is a chance to learn something new. Each person that you speak to is a chance for you to work on being able to connect with people. Being able to connect with other people is a very important skills in one’s business and personal life. The final reason to do this is that the other two items are online activities and it’s always good to go out and speak with real live people!
I’m on this diet
I’ll be watching one Ted talk per day and sharing it on Twitter (I’ll be adding the hashtag: #smphila)
I’ll be reading–at the bare minimum–3 blogs per day which I will also be sharing on Twitter using the hashtag: #smphila.
Feel free to subscribe to the following Twitter search in your RSS reader: “from:jgibbard #smphila”
I already talk to at least 3 strangers per week. It’s kind of always been my thing. Maybe it’s the reason I’m comfortable with public speaking, or meeting new people.
What do you think? Will you join me in the diet?