Brain Fodder, Lunch-Dates, and Boredom?
Hello Friends!
This week – a startup that matches you with professional lunch mates, an article on “workouts” for your brain, and a Ted Talk on how boredom can lead to creativity.
1. Article I Found Fascinating
While I am guilty of opening up links with click-baity titles, every once in a while, I am positively surprised. This week was one of those times after I came across an article titled “6 Ways to Train Your Brain to Literally Get Smarter.” (To be fair Inc. published it and most of their content is pretty decent, so I had reason to click).
Source: Getty Images
The article discussed the usual waffle about hanging out with smart people because “you are the average of the 5 people you hang out with” and all. But it also had some interesting tidbits about getting into the habit of journaling:
Taking notes or only writing down things or ideas is creating an extension of your mind. Your thoughts will be recorded, and the routine of writing them down will enable you to think more thoroughly and improve your way of thinking.
I personally can vouch for journaling and taking notes since jotting down my thoughts has really helped me organize a lot of my scattered-thoughts into task lists and ideas. Another bullet I liked was eating what is often referred to as “brain food.” These items include fermented food like kimchi, miso, fruits, unprocessed grains, vegetables, and fish.
2. Startup Idea that Caught my Attention
I recently received an invite to join a new web-app called LunchClub. The tagline, as posted on the website is the following:
Lunchclub makes curated connections for 1:1 lunch or coffee meetings.
Curious to give the new concept a try, I made a profile with my basic info such as what I do, my interests, some timeslots I was available during the past week, and a couple of neighborhoods where I was comfortable commuting to meet someone. Soon after I was e-introduced (through an email) to a person who was available during the same timeslot. The email told me that he was a data scientist working in the city and was interested in finance, as well as about his other generic interests. I proposed a place, he accepted, and our meeting was set for Saturday at 1 pm.
We both arrived on time and after a couple of awkward minutes spent introducing ourselves and making small talk the conversation started flowing. We talked about work-life balance and career aspirations but also about places we liked going out to and music we enjoyed. All in all, a solid first connection and someone I would like to hang out with again.
My Take? As with all social network platforms, the app is only as good as the people who are on it. If LunchClub can succeed in building a strong community of users then I can see it gaining popularity and expanding beyond the handful of cities where it has initially launched.
3. A Ted Talk I Watched Again
Manoush Zomordi, a journalist, podcast host and author of the book Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive Self gave this Ted Talk in 2017. Zomordi primarily speaks on why we get our most creative ideas while performing mundane tasks like folding laundry, walking around, or doing nothing in particular. She explains the evidence behind this research in that:
When our bodies go into autopilot, your brain gets busy forming new neural connections that connect ideas and solve problems.
I recently rewatched this talk because I have been thinking about my bad habit of booking every single hour of my day with external stimuli, whether it’s some kind of social interaction or social media, reading and listening to music, or a podcast, the list goes on. For a change, I want to add more unstructured time to my day to allow my mind to wander and think about the thoughts/ideas that have possibly been neglected.
One of the ways I have identified that this can be done is that every once in a while I won’t listen to podcasts/music on my work commute and instead just look-around or people watch if it gets “too boring.”
4. Shower Thoughts of the Week
Here are this week’s shower thoughts (via Reddit):
Being attracted to people who wear glasses is the complete opposite of what natural selection stands for.
You know that your opinion on social media is unpopular if it has more comments than likes
Math is supposed to help you in real life, but they give you math problems with people buying hundreds of apples.
That’s all for this week!
Cheers,
Rohail
More of one thing, less of the other? Comment here or reach out on Twitter (@rwk93) - Instagram (ro.khan)