“Have you ever tried to learn something that you were bored by, and then found that nothing sticks?” Dr. Tsipursky wondered. “No wonder,” he added, “researchers find that curiosity helps improve our memory. That means if you want to have a good memory, it’s valuable to stay curious and open-minded.”

Moreover, Dr. Tsipursky, who’s the author of multiple best-selling books, including Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams (Intentional Insights, 2021), The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships (New Harbinger, 2020), argues that if you find yourself bored by a subject you are trying to learn something about, don’t force yourself to learn it.

On the other hand, it’s wise to first find something that makes you curious about it, and then learn it. “Curiosity is especially important as we age to keep a healthy mind. Curiosity can also help us make good decisions,” Dr. Tsipursky explained.

One cannot ignore the fact that we live in times when there is so much information that people often lose focus. Many people, especially young, experience a lack of attention and distractibility, as well as the inability to concentrate. When asked what are his thoughts about it, Dr. Tsipursky said that challenges with attention and focus come from a lack of mental fitness.

“People go to the gym to train their physical bodies, but our minds are just as important – if not more important – for our success in the modern world, due to the overabundance of information and the fact that most of us do knowledge work rather than physical labor,” Dr. Tsipursky explained.

So in order to improve your focus, Dr. Tsipursky argues, “it’s critical to pursue mental fitness by learning about how our minds can lead us in the wrong direction and practicing mental exercises to address these problems.”

We also asked whether some people are more naturally gifted with curiosity, to which Dr. Tsipursky explained that since one of the Big Five personality traits is openness to experience, the answer is yes. However, “all of us can learn to be more curious: genes are not destiny, they may explain only up to half of our mental abilities,” he concluded.