We all want to be able to learn faster, retain more of what we read and comprehend more. In this short post I will be cover a 7 quick tips to learn faster so you can learn more in less time which means your personal growth will be more of a linear learning curve which also means you will be constantly improving
“Education without application is just entertainment.”
— Tim Sanders
1. What Is Your Motive Behind Wanting To Learn
What is your reasoning behind wanting to learn that particular subject? Think of a time when you were really motivated to do something what state were you in? Were you excited to do? What was the driving force behind it.
I often talk about finding your why and linking it to the particular thing you wish to learn. When you link your why to what it is your want to learn then there’s usually intrinsic motivation to do so.
2. What You Teach You Learn Twice
Once you have learnt something a very good way of seeing your have a good understanding of it is to go and teach others.
Also because you have the thought in your head that you will be teaching what your learning to others you tend to pay more attention. You concentrate more and by teach others in a way you get to learn it twice, because your confirming to yourself what you know
3. Summarise What You’ve Learnt
When you reading or have learnt something new go back over it and summarise it. Draw visual representations of what you have learnt. If you are able to make your learning visual you will be able to recall information easier, the brain see things in pictures not in words.
For example when you see a stop sign you automatically know to stop because you know the sign. Most people don’t read the word stop as they know what the sign is.
4. Use Flash Cards
One of the method I’ve found particularly useful is the use of flashcards. You can also use a technique called pegging which is where you label parts of your body and attach the word to that part. For Example you may have a list working form head to toe
1. Head
2. Nose
3. Mouth
4. Ears
5. Throat
6. Shoulders
7. Chest
8. Hands
9. Belly Button
10. Bum
So if you are use the pegging method it works by creating a list and for this example we will use places on our body.
Top 10 Brain Foods
Lets take your shopping list for example.
(if you can make the visualisations as crazy and bizarre as possible they will stick in your mind easier)
Lets say you want to get the top 10 brain foods at the supermarket you haven’t got a pen or paper to write your list. Using the pegging method what you would do is put your items on the ‘pegs’ using the list above
- 1 – Avocados (head) Imagine balancing Avocados on your head, your walking along trying to keep them on your head without them falling off.
- 2 – Blueberries (nose) You’ve got blueberries falling out of your nose, streams and streams of blueberries
- 3- Broccoli – (Mouth) visualise a huge bit of broccoli coming out of your mouth. The more vivid you can make the visualisation the easier you will be able to recall it
- 4 – Coconut Oil – Visualise coconut oil coming smeared all over your ears, or something like coconut earrings
- 5 – Eggs – As number five is eggs you could imagine eggs in your throat, instead of an Adams apple you have an Adams egg
- 6 -Green Veggies – for this one i like to imagine I’m wearing shoulder pads which are actually big leafy vegetables like, you could imagine yourself playing american football all dressed up with your leafy shoulder pads
- 7 -Salmon – For this one you could visualise wearing a salmon necklace.
- 8 – Turmeric – We all know how bad Turmeric stains look down at your hands and see how orange they are from the Turmeric
- 9 -Walnuts – Imagine looking down and your belly button and wondering whats in there? And then suddenly walnuts start falling out
- 10 -Dark chocolate – Well i will let visualise something for this one
There you have it, that is pegging and because you now know how you can use the peg method you can use to for remembering all sorts of things
5. Keep A Notepad With You At All Times
One of the things that’s really helped me is carrying a notepad around with me all the time.
When you are listening to audiobooks or podcasts it is essential to be able to take notes and write down your thoughts also If you are sitting at your desk studying its vital to have a pen and notepad to hand for note taking which can then be transferred onto index cards which you can later test yourself on virtually anywhere
6. Use The Pomodoro Technique
If you aren’t familiar with the Pomodoro Technique its a great way to split up your study session. When you try and cram everything into one session its going to be very difficult for you to retain all the information so by breaking the study session up your effectively creating multiple sessions,.
Also by splitting up the sessions we are using the Primacy/Recency to our advantage. What studies find is that we tend to retain more at the beginning and the end of the session and the part in the middle is often forgotten.
For instance when your at a party and you are introduced to a lot of people. How many of there names do you remember? Most likely those you first meet and maybe the last few.
7. Ask Lots Of Questions, Your Questions Are Crucial To Your Learning
When reading a book how often are you stopping and asking questions? When you were in school and were asked to write a story do you remember the 5 W’s? who what where when why, try and use this in your learning, a lot of the time people finish a book and think to themselves, well what did i actually learn?
The trick to remembering more and learning more from that book is to ask question, what is it you want to get from the book, how will it benefit you? when would you use what you’ve learnt? how can this be applied?
I hope you have taken something away from this post and have enjoyed our 7 quick tips to learn faster. If you have found it useful please leave a comment below with what you found most useful also let us know what is your favourite way to learn?
If you liked this post check out the other blog posts using the link below
https://fivestarthoughts.com/blog/
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