Skill Management Needs Only 7Habits

1. Take care of your body.
General health is conducive to mind power, of course, but you should also develop a few specific habits, like eating fish and other brain foods daily, or taking walks three times a week.
2. Take care of your brain.
A routine of weekly chess matches, regular reading, intelligent conversation, or crossword puzzles can exercise the brain and keep it strong. If you find music that help you think, get in the habit of using it.
3. Question everything.
Make it a habit to identify reporter biases every time you watch the news, or to challenge the assumptions hidden in every conversation.
4. Identify essentials.
McDonalds doesn't make better burgers, so why are they successful. Start looking at every concept, thing and situation with the question in mind, "What is essential here?"
5. Be a problem-solver.
A fun and possibly productive habit, is to look at everything with the thought, "How can this be done better?" Practice a few specific problem-solving techniques until you find yourself using them "before you know it."
6. Be self-aware.
It's crucial to maximum mind power that you learn to see your own strengths and weaknesses. You also need to know what's going on in your head, just below consciousness. There will be more on this in the next lesson.
7. Use your knowledge.
If you don't put your thoughts into action regularly, your brain may engage in fantasy more than productive thought. You're basically telling it that thinking isn't relevant to the real world. Play mental games for fun and training, but also be sure to apply the lessons learned to real problems.


You probably noticed that each of these 7 habits is really a collection or category of habits. Don't stress over how many you develop or how fast. The important thing is to just keep working on yourself.


"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle