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Developing Your Analytical Skills To Further Your Career

During my time as a college teaching assistant, one of the skills (or lack of) that came to my attention was student’s analytical abilities. Analytical skills were sorely lacking in students prior to the rollout of the public Internet. All indications are that analytical skills are still not taught at any level of public schooling.

The shameful thing is that they are not particularly hard to develop, using a few relatively simple techniques. Anyone interested in personal or professional development for any career would benefit greatly from learning a few analytical skills. Or at least brushing up on what you think that you already know.

Much of the brainstorming value of specific techniques actually comes from writing on paper. There are those of us that believe that creativity is sparked more so on paper than via software tools. I personally believe that the act of holding and using a pen or pencil massages acupuncture points in the palm and hand in general. This includes painting with a brush. Writing and painting stimulates blood flow and thus helps with creativity. Lack of blood flow means lack of creativity. Remember that, when the ideas are not coming.

That said, once creativity is sparked, translating ideas from paper to the digital realm is achieved most efficiently using software. Combining paper brainstorming with software is the ideal way to productivity.

Fortunately, there are literally dozens of techniques for brainstorming and organizing your thoughts and plans. There are also countless software packages available. Before the Internet, there were only a few, and these cost a few hundred dollars. Now, many are free, others relatively low-cost, for the value they deliver.

I plan to cover some of the available software, focusing mostly on free packages, as well as websites that discuss brainstorming and project organizing techniques. Two of the websites that I came across recently are Inspiration Software, Inc. and Mind Tools.

Inspiration Software sells a brainstorming tool (with a kids’ version) that focuses on visual learning. The tool turns your software-driven diagrams into outlines and vice-versa. The bulk of the tools are actually designed for children’s learning and geared towards teachers.

The website even provide some guidelines on how to integrate Inspiration/ Kidspiration into a teaching curriculum. A free 30-day trial is available for both Kidspiration (Grade K-5) and Inspiration (Grade 6-adult).  Both versions run on a Mac or Windows. Inspiration also runs on Palm OS and Pocket PC PDA devices.

MindTools is geared more towards adult professionals, and offer numerous articles on a variety of problem-solving techniques and creativity sparkers. Each “section” of techniques can be purchased as a downloadable PDF file. So can the entire website. If you have the time, I recommend browsing at least the range of techniques available on the Mind Tools website.

I’m reiterating what I mentioned earlier: combine manual (paper and pencil) brainstorming with software tools. I’ve been working on memory and productivity techniques since the mid-1980s and I’ve never been as productive when using just software as when I combine manual brainstorming.

I will cover some basic brainstorming techniques either here or on one of my other websites (with a link from here) in the future.

Tags: richmanpoorman, rich man poor man, personal development, sparking creativity, analysis, analytical skills