Boosting Your Potential
Boosting Your Potential
Editing is a dynamic field and conventions change; you don't want to be left behind!
Professional development is an important way to keep your information current and add to your skillset. This could involve taking courses online or at a local university or college; going to conferences, seminars, or professional association meetings; reading recently published books and articles in the field; or even learning a new skill or software. Try to devote a few hours a week to improving your skills. Some of these activities are expensive, but most are relatively cheap: there are a lot of free online courses, you can check out books from your local library, or you can join an online group in your field and participate in the discussions. Regardless of what or how you learn, getting into the mindset of continual improvement ensures that you're always moving forward. In fact, learning something that you're interested in outside your field (e.g., a course in logic or accounting) gets your brain working in new ways, prevents mental stagnation, and enriches your life.
Here are just a few places to start looking for free online learning:
Ted – http://www.ted.com/
iTunes U – http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/
Coursera – https://www.coursera.org/
Udacity – https://www.udacity.com/
The Saylor Foundation – http://www.saylor.org/
Alison.com – http://alison.com/
Open Culture – http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses
Udemy – http://www.udemy.com
Duolingo – https://www.duolingo.com/
Harvard University – https://online-learning.harvard.edu/catalog/free
There's an idea floating around out there that playing online games can help you improve your concentration and attention. Some web sites purport to whip your brain into shape with their special online games to increase memory and focus—like a boot camp for your brain.
Most of the research done concerning these online games is inconclusive, so there is no clear indication these kinds of games can increase your memory or attention. For the most part, they are short, light, and fun. If you're having fun, it's probably not doing anything for you that a video game wouldn't do.
Overall, if you like to play quick online games for fun or to take a break, there's nothing wrong with these games. However, you shouldn't assume that you'll drastically enhance your memory if you play a game a few times. It may be that these games are helpful, but that could also very well not be the case. What we know they are good for is taking a break.
Here are some websites you can go to for free online games that also challenge your brain.
Dual N-Back Game from Soak Your Head – http://www.soakyourhead.com/
Cool Math Games (These games are primarily for kids, but they provide a nice 5-minute escape from mentally taxing work. And let's face it, even though the games are for kids, they are pretty fun.) – http://www.coolmath-games.com/
The Globe and Mail Puzzles and Crosswords –http://www.theglobeandmail.com/puzzles-andcrosswords/
The Guardian Crosswords – http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords
Shockwave Puzzle Games – http://www.shockwave.com/online/puzzle-games.jsp
If you want to give your brain a real boost, learn a new skill or study something you've never studied before. Learning something new, such as how to play an instrument or speak a language, builds new neural connections. Step away from the computer: Play the guitar. Do a crossword. Speak Spanish. Speak Chinese. Your brain will thank you!
Sometimes your eyes just need a break. Thankfully, the podcast revolution has provided an almost limitless supply of quality ear candy. Here are some pods that the editors at Scribendi.com listen to regularly:
Editing and Writing:
The Editing Podcast – https://www.louiseharnbyproofreader.com/podcast.html
I Should Be Writing – http://murverse.com/subscribe-to-podcasts/isbw/
The Literary Salon – https://soundcloud.com/theliterarysalon
The Paris Review – https://player.fm/series/the-paris-review
The Subversive Copy Editor – https://www.subversivecopyeditor.com/blog/podcasts.html
The Writer Files – https://writerfiles.libsyn.com/
The Writership Podcast – https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/author-marketing-podcast/thewritership-podcast
English Language and Linguistics:
The Allusionist – https://www.theallusionist.org/
History of English – https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/
A Way with Words – https://www.waywordradio.org/
General Interest:
Design and architecture – https://99percentinvisible.org/
Humans and the environment – https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anthropocenereviewed
Short stories read by LeVar Burton – http://www.levarburtonpodcast.com/
This American Life – https://www.thisamericanlife.org/
Whatever your area of interest, there's likely a podcast for you that can offer hours of amusing (and educational) distraction for your overworked eyeballs.
What you drink makes a difference both to your overall health and to your mental alertness. What's your drink of choice—coffee, tea, or water? There are benefits to each.
Coffee can help prevent Alzheimer's disease, type 2 diabetes, and liver cancer. It reduces inflammation in the body and improves short-term memory. However, it contains a lot of caffeine, which can disrupt sleep, leave you jittery, and give you heartburn.
Tea contains antioxidants, which reduce inflammation in and damage to the body. It also protects against heart disease and several types of cancer, is helpful in weight loss, and has anti-aging potential. Green tea contains catechins and polyphenols, which boost dopamine levels, resulting in increased memory and concentration.
Overall, there are benefits to drinking both coffee and tea. In fact, many editors combine them to achieve the best effects, drinking one to two cups of coffee in the morning and then switching to tea in the afternoon. This gives you that pick-me-up in the morning but prevents the jitteriness and caffeine crash that comes with drinking coffee all day.
Whether or not you drink coffee and tea, you should be drinking water all day. Water is necessary for your body to function, and drinking enough of it prevents headaches, reduces the risk of cancer, relieves fatigue, improves alertness, helps in weight loss, boosts the immune system, aids digestion, and improves mood.
The old recommendation of eight times eight (eight 8-oz cups of water per day) is an easy one to remember, but the better recommendation is 3 L for men and 2.2 L for women (thirteen and nine cups, respectively). Keep a glass of water at your desk at all times and drink it steadily throughout the day. If you aren't sure you're getting enough, measure out your daily recommended intake, and keep it in a container in the fridge or at your desk. Keep refilling your glass from this, and when you reach the end, you know you've met your daily requirement. If you drink tea or coffee, make sure to subtract this, as contrary to popular belief, all drinks count toward your daily fluid requirements. Also, keep in mind that this is a general guideline; if you're doing something that makes you sweat (e.g., exercising) or if you live in the tropics without air conditioning, you'll need to drink more.
Last Updated: 10/01/2022