While you can spend all of your leisure time focused on brain exercise, in the hopes that it will make you smarter, there are many other activities that could improve your brain just as much. In reality, all of life is brain exercise. Playing piano, reading for leisure, or building a dog house are all great activities that develop different cognitive skills, just as well or better than playing a game on the computer. The truth is, there are all kinds of pleasurable activities that will make you smarter, but they all require effort. There is no improvement without effort. The key to success in any skill development is commitment to repeated practice. As the old saying goes, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.