How personal brain training can make you more productive Personal brain training provides a unique way for anyone—child, teen, adult, or senior—to boost their productivity. For working adults, this is especially beneficial in a competitive field or where production can affect your profits, client relationships, or chances for a raise. Not sure how it works? Read on to learn more about some specific brain skills you use every day, how one-on-one brain training is designed to target and strengthen them, and ways in which stronger brain skills can boost your productivity. What are cognitive skills? Cognitive skills are the core skills your brain uses to think, read, learn, remember, reason, and pay attention. Working together, they take incoming information and move it into the bank of knowledge you use every day at school, at work, and in life. They include logic & reasoning, attention, processing speed, memory, and auditory and visual processing. Each of your cognitive skills plays an important part in processing new information. That means if even one of these skills is weak, no matter what kind of information is coming your way, grasping, retaining, or using that information is impacted. In fact, most learning struggles are caused by one or more weak cognitive skills. How does personal brain training target and train weak cognitive skills? Every new LearningRx client is given a Brain Skills Assessment. The results show which brain skills are strong and which need to be worked on. Although some cognitive skills can decline with age, you’re never too old to improve them. Using the results of your Brain Skills Assessment, we’ll create a customized program that pairs you up with a personal brain trainer. Your trainer will use fun but challenging mental exercises to target and work on any weak cognitive skills. How can productivity be increased with stronger brain skills? 1. Attention: Have you ever felt yourself distracted at work due to constant interruptions? Do you have a lot of incomplete projects you’re avoiding finishing? Are you regularly struggling to stay focused when doing two tasks at once? The problem could be weak attention skills. Sustained attention helps you stay focused and on task for a longer period of time. Selective attention helps you stay focused on a task despite distractions. Divided attention allows you to do two tasks at once. When any of these three types of attention skills are weak, productivity suffers. 2. Processing Speed: If you take longer than your peers to complete a task, it may not be an issue of “perfectionism” but rather weak processing speed. This cognitive skills enables you to perform tasks quickly and accurately. When it’s weak, you may fall behind your productivity goals. 3. Memory: There are two types of memory. Long-term memory enables you to recall information stored in the past. This may manifest as forgetting things you used to know or struggling to recall a client’s name or upcoming appointment. Taking time to brush up on vital information can lead to lower productivity. Likewise, short-term memory (a.k.a. “working memory”) enables you to hang onto information while in the process of using it. You may find yourself forgetting what a client said right after they just told you, having to read directions again in the middle of a project, or struggling to follow multi-step directions from your boss. Any form of weak memory that requires you to stop what you’re doing to remedy the situation can result in a lack of productivity. Want to learn more about our success with adult clients? Visit