#329 feeding your brain

So much emphasis is given to output that we often fail to take the time to think about input.   What portion of your time today/this week/this month did you spend putting new ideas into your brain?  How many new experiences or conversations did you use to learn instead of do?

Hopefully the two minutes you spend each day reading "leadership dots" helps populate your mind with some new thoughts and ideas.  I also hope that you replicate the thinking  process behind these blogs in your own life.  

This week I wrote about an observation at the grocery store, from the newspaper, at a movie and from a speech I attended.  Only the latter would be considered traditional input, but the other three experiences also generated new thought.  I believe this is thanks to a reflection component infused into my life -- trying to step back and think about the implications and meaning of things.  

I'll admit that my sense of attention has significantly heightened since I need to find a daily topic for this blog, but I think it was a skill that I had developed long before Blogger and I became acquainted.  I would challenge you to monitor your inputs for a week.  Have you taken the time to read?  Do you spend a few moments each evening reflecting on the lessons that day has brought?  Do you do evaluations and process events after the fact so you can learn from them?

Inputs and making meaning are just as important as a quantity of output.  Remember the old computer programming adage of GIGO -- garbage in = garbage out.  Give your cerebral cortex a gift today!

-- beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com