Improve Your Success By Losing Resources

blind DaredevilFor centuries stories have circulated of blind people with incredible hearing and smell. Japanese legends are filled with tales of blind ninja and it is a common myth that when you lose one sense the others grow to compensate. This is not true, but it can appear to be. The truth is that people with five senses split their attention between all five senses. When that attention is split between four senses you notice things from them that you missed before. The information is always there, but you are unaware of it.

You can use this same technique to improve your skills by getting rid of a resource that you depend on. If you have a task that you do on a regular basis, try doing it without the main resource that you usually rely on. For instance, if you have to routinely research issues, try doing it without using a search engine. If you design a flyer on a regular basis, try doing it without using a template or cutting and pasting from a previous version.

By doing this, you exercise skills that you always had access to but were ignoring. Exercising them periodically will allow you to improve your performance when you use all the resources at your disposal.