Exactly What is Good Thinking?

By Jennifer Goddard | September 16, 2008

BNET Australia Contributors

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BNET Australia Contributors

BNET Australia Contributors
Phil Dobbie has a wealth of radio and business experience. In his BTalk Australia podcast, he provides a lively and insightful view on business issues.
Brian Haverty is editorial director for CBS Interactive Australia and is responsible for the company's BNET and ZDNet Australia sites.
Robert Gerrish is a coach, author and professional speaker and the founder of Flying Solo, an Australian online community for solo business owners.
Melissa Lourenco is the HR manager for CBS Interactive in Australia.
Chris Golis is the author of The Humm Handbook: Lifting Your Level of Emotional Intelligence. He runs seminars and workshops on EQ.
Suzi Dafnis is Community Director of the Australian Businesswomen's Network.
Yvonne Adele helps organisations build a culture of ideas by teaching people at all levels to access their untapped creative thinking skills.

I am sitting in a conference room in Singapore listening Tony Buzan’s views on creativity, memory, innovation and good thinking. Buzan, the inventor of Mind Maps and author of 98 books, brings unique insight into how our brain works and how to get the most out of it. Here are some examples:

Creativity is your main thinking tool, helping you solve problems on a daily basis — if you don’t know how creativity works and its serious underpinnings, you can’t have good thinking.

If you apply the wrong formula, just like using all your strength to get out of quicksand, you will go down faster.  Thinking is the same — most of us use the wrong formula.

“Knowledge Management” is all the rage these days, but perhaps it’s more important to manage the manager of knowledge — ie, your brain.

So what is the correct formula? Here are a few instructions that should go into your brain’s Operator’s Manual:-

  • Play imagination games.
  • Normal is not natural — reawaken your child-like fascination for things. In creativity tests carried out in Utah in the US, Under 5s scored 95% while adults with degrees scored 10%.
  • Develop your multiple intelligences — creative, social, spiritual, personal (these three are considered emotional intelligences by Goleman and Gardiner), physical and sensory intelligences, as well as the traditional IQ: verbal, mathematical, spatial.
  • Learn how to learn and invest in your personal intellectual capital. Learn a new skill/subject every year.
  • Healthy body, healthy mind.  Good Food = Good Brain. Junk Food = Junk Brain.
  • Explore the universe in your head by playing imagination games and daydreaming.

What would you add as a “must have” in your brain’s Operator’s Manual?

Talkback 2 Talkbacks

RE: Exactly What is Good Thinking?
who thinks for others is a good thinker.
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ga.karthick
09/17/2008 09:13 PM
RE: Exactly What is Good Thinking?
Good thinking is making the best practical use of your mind to reach goal(s) you have set yourself. It uses all of the thinking time available before action must happen. It considers all relevant factors. It is aware of being dominated by unconscious assumptions. It uses both imagination and constructive critical thought in a practical blend. It watches its own thinking to see that it is being effective. It persists until it succeeds.
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Kevin Barry
04/04/2009 07:39 PM

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