How did my hobbies open new doors?

After writing about my highlights of 2019-2020, in this post, I would like to classify the hobbies I do for a while and the recent ones I just started (italic fonts). Between some parts, I would like to briefly mention how these hobbies opened new opportunities in my life.

Neuroscience

1. Social interactions
2. Cognitive overload
3. Meditation
4. Concentration
5. Instrumental musics and their synchronization with brain signals

Photography

• Analog Photography. It was not very practical for me.. So, I decided to move to another technique.
• Mobile photography…
• After a while, I decided to give up the photography and just feel the moment, don’t spend the best moments when setting the photo…
• Then, now, I decided to return photography after lockdown I will continue…

Since my undergraduate education, I have been interested in photography and neuroscience… During my master’s education, I worked on a project and wrote a thesis on neuroimaging which is the integration of neuroscience and photography.

Exploring

1. Observing people, nature, sea…
2. Discovering hidden places sometimes just next street, sometimes just under a tree.
3. Walking (fast and slow mixed rhythms).

Keeping calm

1. Breath exercises.
2. Praising.
3. Meditating, thinking calm at specific hours of the day (3-5 times).
4. Observing and thinking the sky (moon, stars) at nights at roof or terrace.
5. During the working.
6. Listening live music if possible with sea view.
7. Living simple.

Especially with the first 3 points, I am not only getting calm but also increasing my productivity at work. I just started to apply these techniques at work and discovered that it increases my energy and concentrate more…

Productivity techniques

1. Pomodoro, %80-%20 rules, adapting new habits, learning new taking note styles
2. Learning new scientific techniques to implement my life
3. Social media distancing

Writing

• Started with the diary.
• Move on digital but offline.
• Then, created a blog and change topics …
• Before it was more emotional and narrow and now, more business, lifestyle and different experience.

Writing is a great tool to describe yourself to you. First, I started by writing diary. When I look at those old pages written in 2013, I can easily do retrospective analysis and can see how I changed. Also, it encouraged me to open a website and write a personal blog.

Doing extra businesses

1. Robotics (courses, sales&marketing, project development).
2. Writing, project consultancy for Master&Bachelor degree students.
3. Seasonal digital businesses( hand-knitted shoes, etc.)

Thanks to these extra businesses, I had self-esteem as a new graduate employee in different companies. For example, I was very stressed, not happy and psychologically it was very difficult in terms of some conditions in one of the companies I worked in. After 15 months, I decided to leave the company without finding a new job. Since I planned that with extra businesses I could earn the same salary as a freelancer until find a good job. It was really not easy to decide since I was responsible for providing financial support to my family. Luckily (!), I was guaranteed my next 4 months planned revenue with the customers that I found in the first month… I was helping 4 master students’ graduation projects and theses.

Moreover, with these experience, I passed a lot of job interviews comfortably.

Technology

1. Wearable devices.

During my master’s, I also did an internship at a research institute in Spain and worked with the wearable neuroimaging device.

Exercise

1. Sudoku ( I call it as Brain gymnastics).
2. Work-out. at home
3. Medium level extreme sports (snowboarding and wakeboarding included since currently, even simple movements were quite extreme for me).

Reading

1. Learning languages
2. E-book experience
3. Reddit

Art

1. Reading poems.
2. Playing, singing and dancing while nobody is listening.
3. Dancing to fun music.