5 Tips to learn faster
5 Tips to learn faster
Learning and learning to learn well is the most valuable skill in personal and professional life. So, begin to build these skills as early in life as is possible, preferably when you’re still a student. Rid yourself of the performance mindset and replace it with a learning mindset. When learning goals are in place and consistently worked on, will over time deliver on your performance goals. Cognitive science unravels how people actually learn and the findings are surprising and super helpful.
Here are 5 tips to learn faster:
Have a productive system in place
Without a solid foundation you can’t expect to build new learning skills and habits of lasting value. Lay these things down carefully before you start on your learning journey. And, don’t skimp on this tip because it’ll make everything else that follows easier, efficient and effective. Ensure that you’ve the following in place before you begin.
- Inculcate the habit of consistent and effective note taking
- Have a clean and uncluttered study
- System for storing learning material
- System for tracking your learning projects
Think and work on paper
In order to translate information into knowledge research suggests that you should write down what you learn by hand. Students who took notes with pen on paper learned more than students who typed notes on their laptops. Range of tests proves that pen and paper group was better at remembering facts, sorting complex ideas and synthesizing information than the lap top group.
The mere physical act of holding the pen to write on paper creates a stronger cognitive link to the learning material than merely typing which happens too fast for retention to take place. Writing down on paper forces you to confront ideas head on, so that they stick with you.
Practice, practice & practice
Skills follow the use or lose it principle. Therefore, having a strong work ethic makes a real and lasting impact on the brain. There is something really special to repetition. It builds grey matter in the brain. Neuroscientists call this pruning. It means building new pathways which are carved by doing an act over and over again.
Celebrate & study mistakes
Aim for excellence not perfection. And perfection is overrated. Learning is an iterative not, a linear process. It starts with intelligent attempts, followed by unforeseen failures and lastly dissecting those failures to find out what went wrong. Fear of failure and making mistakes is the biggest mindset hurdle to overcome without which you’ll miss out of a wealth of knowledge.
Teaching others helps you
Scientists call this the protégé effect. By taking something you’ve learned and putting it into your own words not only demonstrates your mastery of the idea, but refines and simplifies your understanding of it as well. To distill information that enables someone to digest you’ve to gain a profound insight into the subject. That is why according to a study older siblings are smarter than the younger ones because one of rites of the older siblings is to pass on the knowledge after having received it.
