How to think like a genius

Enriching Your mind :

Figure out your learning style. Some people are visual learners, while others are better listeners. Whether you’re learning something new at school, work, or on your own, try to notice when something really sticks and when you have a harder time processing something.

• For instance, you might find that information goes in one ear and out the other when you can’t read along or see visual aids. When someone teaches you how to do something, you might find it easier to learn by doing that task instead of hearing about it.
• When someone tries to teach you something, let them know how to present information in a way you can digest.
• When learning on your own, go for media, such as YouTube videos or podcasts, that fit your learning style.

Educate yourself about diverse topics. Learning about a broad range of topics can help you get a bird’s eye view of how things work. From documentaries to how-to articles, there are plenty of resources at your disposal. As you learn about different disciplines, think about how they connect to one another.

• For example, suppose you watch a documentary about how hurricanes form. You might think to yourself that a hurricane looks like a galaxy and wonder about how the laws of physics shape things like hurricanes and galaxies. Look for connections and let one topic lead you to another.
• Remember to tailor educational resources to your learning style. If you’re a visual learner, documentaries and guides on Netflix and YouTube could be great options. If your ears are great at soaking up information, listen to podcasts, like StarTalk, TEDTalks, or Radiolab.

Read as much as you can. While there are diverse media at your disposal, don’t discount the value of the written word. Reading spurs the imagination, improves concentration, and strengthens critical thinking skills.

• If you’re not interested in reading a long novel, pick up a book of short stories. Try reading the newspaper, essays, poetry, or magazines (such as science, technology, or arts publications).

Maintain your physical health. Thinking takes a lot of energy, so it’s important to eat a healthy diet, exercise, and get enough sleep. If you don’t maintain your physical health, you could have trouble concentrating and coming up with new ideas.

• You can find your daily nutrition requirements, recipe tips, and other resources on MyPlate: https://www.fns.usda.gov/tn/myplate.
• Try to get at least 30 minutes of exercise per day. Try walking, running, or riding your bike.

Adopting Creative Thinking Strategies :

Let your mind wander without judging your ideas. Take some time every day to let your mind run free. Brainstorm, daydream, or just relax and contemplate life. Don’t assess or evaluate your thoughts, even if they seem silly - just let your imagination run wild.

• For example, suppose you start thinking about a cloud city that hovers hundreds of feet in the air. Don’t just judge it as impossible and stop thinking about it. Imagine details like how the people there live, how the city manages to stay in the sky, and how people get to the city from the ground. You might come up with a great idea for a novel or even a new technology!
• You can also put on some music while you let your mind wander. As long as it’s not too loud, ambient noise can help encourage creativity.

Think critically and question conventional wisdom. Great ideas sometimes fly in the face of conventional wisdom, so think outside of the box and open doors others ignore. Instead of blindly accepting something as true, ask questions and approach information critically.

• Blindly accepting something just because an authority figure says it’s true isn’t a good way to learn. When someone tells you something is absolutely true all of the time, try to imagine exceptions to the rule.

Use diagrams and images to visualize problems. Albert Einstein famously used images and visual thought experiments to solve problems. When you’re confronted with an abstract problem or feel like your thoughts are jumbled, use visual aids to help see the bigger picture.

• Flowcharts, thought bubbles, venn diagrams, and mind maps are great visual tools. They can help you organize information and spot connections between concepts that you might not have noticed.

Aim for creative knowledge instead of simple memorization. The psychologist Benjamin Bloom developed a framework called Bloom's Taxonomy, which breaks down the six levels of thinking. The updated version scales learning categories from remembering information to creating something new. The point is that you shouldn’t settle for simply recalling facts, but aim to use information to produce original work.

• Suppose you read a short story. You remember a detail about the story, understand the plot, and speculate why a character did something. To dig deeper, you consider how you would do something differently and evaluate the story’s moral. At the deepest level of thinking, you use what you’ve learned to produce something of your own, like a song or poem that tells the story in a different way.