You’ve probably heard the saying: if you don’t like the results, do something different. Well… sometimes, things that you least expect to help you produce surprisingly positive outcomes. I’ve recently read two posts that seem to support this phenomenon.
Lifehack featured the post How to Get Started on Anything from Smart Graduate School Applications. It discusses how sipping coffee motivates the author to begin a task that is not very appealing otherwise. The positive emotion generated by the coffee spills over to the project at hand. So, next time you need to start on something boring, trick your brain first by doing something that gets you excited. Your attitude towards the task may improve as a result.
The second post deals with the effect of emotional words on memory. According to ScienceBlogs, If You Want Someone to Remember What You Said, Cuss. Experiments show that we remember swear and taboo words better than neutral words. More importantly, the emotional words enhance memory of the context in which they are used, so it appears that we remember the boring stuff better if it is sprinkled with words that trigger shock or surprise. If there is any study group out there that decides to try this one out, let me know if it works.
Do you have similar tricks that enhance your learning? I’d love to hear them.
Dear Anastasia,
I am delighted to have discovered such a cool law blog, and glad to pass the good news along to readers at Out of the Jungle. When my sister was in law school, she came up with a theory that in our normal state, we have a resistance to learning. Her solution was to relax that inhibition with a drink. I'm not sure it works for everybody -- I made it through law school with low alcohol AND caffeine intake. But if it helps you pull up your socks and tackle the reading du jour, maybe it qualifies as a life hack!
Posted by: Betsy McKenzie | December 31, 2006 at 05:44 PM
Thank you, Betsy. I have to admit I need a caffeine kick, especially in the morning. Alcohol would not work for me because it makes me sleepy.
Posted by: Anastasia | January 01, 2007 at 12:24 PM