By Ron Hale-Evans
First Edition
February 2006
Pages: 330
Series: Hacks
ISBN 10: 0-596-10153-8 |
ISBN 13: 9780596101534
(Average of 5 Customer Reviews)
Mind Performance Hacks provides real-life tips and tools for overclocking your brain and becoming a better thinker. In the increasingly frenetic pace of today's information economy, managing your life requires hacking your brain. With this book, you'll cut through the clutter and tune up your brain intentionally, safely, and productively.
Full Description
- Use mnemonic tricks to remember numbers, names, dates, and other flotsam you need to recall
- Put down your calculator and perform complex math in your head, with your fingers, or on the back of a napkin
- Spark your creativity with innovative brainstorming methods
- Use effective systems to capture new ideas before they get away
- Communicate in creative new ways-even using artificial languages
- Make better decisions by foreseeing problems and finding surprising solutions
- Improve your mental fitness with cool tricks and games
Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon
Featured customer reviews
Great book, great read!, November 01 2006
I'm still reading parts and bits and almost every hack is right on the spot. Sometimes a hack is not for me but then it is still amusing to read. I recommend it to all my friends, whether they read English or not. Keep up the good work!
Full disclosure: I choose the 5 stars because I liked is tht much ;-)
fascinating and helpful, September 11 2006
Mind Performance Hacks is much more than a "hack" book. I didn't expect to read all of it since you normally only read the "hacks" of particular importance to you at the moment.
I did read the entire book though because it was so fascinating and helpful.
The first chapter was somewhat of a disappointment since many of the memory hacks only fit with a natural ability for visual or musical talent, which I don't have. And 1 or 2 of the hacks were so complicated that you'd have to need to memorize a huge volume of material to make it worth while to work hard at the hack to get good enough to find it useful. This is certainly not the
fault of the author since he was only letting you know about the hack.
But I loved chapter 2 on information processing, especially the map your mind hack. I've done mind maps before but this book mind it more "how to" to really assimulate the information. It also had a hack for speedwords that looks very useful which I hope to implement soon.
The Math chapter was also helpful if you need to develop more of a "feel" for numbers and get to an
approximate answer quickly.
The book has a nice format. Each hack starts with a brief overview. Then the In Action section explains the details. Then the How It Works section explains how your brain is using the hack. The In Real Life section gives an example of how the author used the hack. Finally, the hack ends with lots of external references to web sites and other books.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to have a non-technical understanding of how their brain works and how to get more out of it. If you are a creative person and need to get more out of your thoughts, this book is for you. If you are an analytical person and need to make better decisions or be more intuitive about numbers, this book is for you. If you are just curious on a few hacks to have better recall, this book is worth getting. I bet you end up reading the whole book, like I did!
They Might Be Mentats, May 21 2006
A first-rate practical introduction to methods of working with rather than against your own brain: clear, readable, and extremely useful. I'd recommend it insistently for anybody who thinks -- and if you don't, it might just get you started.
one for dipping into, April 11 2006
This is a great little book, full of funky tricks and tips for improving, amongst other things, your mental arithmetic, memory, ability to brainstorm effectively and so on.
The hacks themselves are split neatly into eight sections: Memory, information processing, creativity, math, decision making, communication, clarity, and 'mental fitness'
Some of the hacks in the book are pretty intense, requiring a fair amount of legwork (or should that be brainwork?) to get them up and running. Some of the memory systems for example would clearly need you to remember the system before you could remember other things!
I loved the way that the hacks are set out - starting out with what the hack will achieve, how it would work 'in action', then applying it so that you can see how it would work 'in real life'
My favourite section was the Creativity section, with some great ideas and tips for getting the old grey matter ticking along. As with every O'Reilly book I've read, the author's style is friendly, clear and informative, not to mention funny.
You may not use all the hacks in this book, but I'll bet you a dollar you come out of it wanting to try more than a few. Top stuff.
Online reviews of MPH are collected on the Mentat Wiki, March 14 2006
This isn't really a review, just a link to the book reviews page (http://www.ludism.org/mentat/MindPerformanceHacks/BookReviews) of the Mentat Wiki, which collects book reviews of Mind Performance Hacks from blogs and other websites.
Full disclosure: I am the author of Mind Performance Hacks. I clicked the five-stars button when I posted this message because I had to click something.
Media reviews
"Do you want to stretch your mind's capabilities and understand how to get the most out of that thing we call a brain? Ron Hale-Evans has written a good O'Reilly Hacks book titled Mind Performance Hacks: Tips & Tools for Overclocking Your Brain...You won't adopt and use every one of these hacks, nor does the author intend you to do so. But you can think of this as a toolbox that you can use to improve your performance and understand things that often are unconsciously occurring to us on a regular basis. A very good read."
-- Thomas Duff, Amazon.com
"Mind Performance Hacks includes the usual fare of all memory books – various memory systems including the Major and Dominic Systems and variations of them. However, these authors go beyond the memory books by including many of the newer concepts in information processing such as mind mapping, dealing with cruft, ways of increasing creativity, capturing creative thoughts and using your creative self to resolve current issues. They also include some neat math tricks and techniques to quickly check the results of calculations for accuracy, estimate square roots, and other quick calculations. Unusual areas include better decision making and communications, bringing clarity to your life by working with emotional problems, and using meditation. And of course they include things to do to exercise your brain and keep it in tip-top shape. Mind Performance Hacks: Tips and Tools for Overclocking Your Brain is highly recommended and was well beyond what I had expected from the title."
-- , Midwest Book Review
"At FOO Camp last month, Brian Sawyer, editor of O'Reilly's Hacks series of books, gave me a copy of Mind Performance Hacks by Ron Hale-Evans. I've been dipping into it every chance I get and I'm delighted at every bit I've read so far. The book is like a user's guide to your brain complete with new "software subroutines" that you can run to optimize various mental processes like memory, creativity, emotional response, learning, and logical analysis. O'Reilly's online catalog has a handful of sample hacks from the book posted as PDFs here, and Hale-Evans also maintains a wiki for the book. Mind Performance Hacks is a thinking person's self-help book. Highly recommended."
-- David Pescovitz, Boing Boing
