Two Tips to Train Memory and Focus While You Work
Want to quickly increase your productivity, creativity and efficiency? Then a simple tip you can use is to move your mouse and put it on your left.
How can this possibly work you ask? Well for starters it forces you to use a different part of your brain  the right hemisphere to be precise which controls movement in your left side. Over time this can help encourage ambidexterity, and that in turn can have a number of positive benefits for your brain by increasing your spatial awareness, your memory and possibly even your creativity (it improves communication between your brain's two hemispheres which has been shown to be useful in a number of studies).
As you create more neural tissue to learn this left-handed dexterity (of course, youll put it on the right if you are left-handed!) your brain becomes better at adapting and changing, therefore making it easier to learn other new tasks.
At the same time though, putting your mouse on the left side will make it more annoying to use. This is a bad thing if you are sending work e-mails or doing other important jobs that require a mouse, but in other cases it can actually be a good thing. That's because controlling a mouse with your left hand will likely be enough to put you off going for a wander online or browsing YouTube. This in turn means that you'll probably focus more on the work you're doing and get it completed more quickly.
All those benefits just from putting your mouse on the left! What else can you do this easily to have profound effects on your ability to work productively and efficiently?
Stand Up
Just as using your left hand can enhance your creativity and memory, standing up may be able to improve your focus and help you to stay productive for longer. That's because standing up will help to encourage your heart to work harder which will promote the delivery of oxygen and nutrients around your body and to your brain.
At the same time standing up while working can have other beneficial effects outside of your productivity  it can help you to burn more calories for instance and can help to improve your posture and eliminate back problems that many associate with working in a desk chair.
Studies have shown however that sitting down promotes focus when engaging in difficult tasks, so the best way to work is to answer e-mails standing up and then to sit down when you want to sink your teeth into the meat of your working day.
Oh, and getting more exercise has been shown to boost memory across the board too!

