what is the best way to learn something
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Learning new things is a huge part of life -- we should e'er be striving to acquire and grow. Simply information technology takes time, and fourth dimension is precious. So how tin can y'all brand the most of your time past speeding up the learning process? Thank you to neuroscience, we now have a better understanding of how we learn and the most effective ways our brains process and concord on to information.
Science Photo Library | SCIEPRO | Getty Images If you want to get a leap outset on expanding your cognition, hither are 10 proven ways you lot can commencement learning faster today.
1. Accept notes with pen and newspaper.
Though it might seem that typing your notes on a laptop during a conference or lecture will exist more than thorough, thus helping you larn faster, it doesn't work that way. To speed up your learning, skip the laptop and accept notes the erstwhile-fashioned way, with pen and paper. Research has shown that those who type in their lecture notes process and retain the data at a lower level. Those who take notes by hand actually learn more than.
While taking notes by hand is slower and more cumbersome than typing, the human activity of writing out the data fosters comprehension and retention. Reframing the information in your ain words helps y'all retain the data longer, significant yous'll have amend recall and volition perform better on tests.
Related: Your Lousy Handwriting Might Really Make Yous Smarter
2. Take constructive note-taking skills.
The better your notes are, the faster you'll acquire. Knowing how to take thorough and accurate notes will help you remember concepts, proceeds a deeper understanding of the topic and develop meaningful learning skills. So, earlier you learn a new topic, make sure you larn unlike strategies for note taking, such as the Cornell Method, which helps you organize class notes into easily digestible summaries.
Whatsoever method you utilize, some basic tips for annotation taking include:
- Mind and accept notes in your own words.
- Get out spaces and lines betwixt primary ideas so y'all can revisit them afterwards and add information.
- Develop a consequent organization of abbreviations and symbols to save time.
- Write in phrases, not complete sentences.
- Learn to pull out important information and ignore piddling information.
three. Distributed practice.
This method involves distributing multiple practices (or written report sessions) on a topic over a menses of fourth dimension. Using brusque, spaced-out study sessions will encourage meaningful learning, equally opposed to long "cram sessions," which promote rote learning. The first pace is to accept thorough notes while the topic is being discussed. Subsequently, have a few minutes to await over your notes, making any additions or changes to add together detail and ensure accurateness.
Practise this quickly, once or twice following each class or period of instruction. Over time, you can begin to spread the sessions out, starting with one time per day and eventually moving to iii times a week. Spacing out practice over a longer menstruation of time is highly effective, because it'southward easier to do small study sessions and you'll stay motivated to keep learning.
Related: 3 Ways to Go a More than Effective Learner
4. Study, slumber, more study.
Y'all accept a big project or a major presentation tomorrow and you're not prepared. If you lot're like many of u.s., you stay upward besides late trying to cram beforehand. Surely your hard work volition be rewarded, even if yous're exhausted the next mean solar day… right? However, that'southward non the about efficient way for our brains to procedure data.
Research shows a strong connection between slumber and learning. Information technology seems that getting some shut-eye is an important chemical element in bolstering how our brains remember something. Deep slumber (non-rapid-eye-movement sleep) can strengthen memories if the sleep occurs inside 12 hours of learning the new information. And students who both study and become enough of sleep non simply perform better academically; they're also happier.
Related: Study Finds the Less You Sleep the Less People Like You
5. Modify your practice.
If you lot're learning a skill, don't exercise the same matter over and over. Making slight changes during repeated practice sessions will aid y'all main a skill faster than doing it the same way every time. In one study of people who learned a computer-based motor skill, those who learned a skill and so had a modified practice session where they proficient the skill in a slightly dissimilar style performed improve than those who repeated the original task over and over.
This only works if the modifications are modest -- making big changes in how the skill is performed won't help. Then, for instance, if you're practicing a new golf swing or perfecting your tennis game, try adjusting the size or weight of your club or racket.
half dozen. Try a mnemonic device.
Ane of the best ways to memorize a large amount of information speedily is to utilise a mnemonic device: a pattern of messages, sounds or other associations that assist in learning something. I of the most popular mnemonic devices is i we learned in kindergarten -- the alphabet song. This song helps children remember their "ABCs," and information technology remains deeply ingrained in our retentivity as adults. Some other is "i before e except after c" to help u.s. recall a grammar dominion.
Mnemonics help you simplify, summarize and compress information to make it easier to acquire. It can be really handy for students in medical school or law schoolhouse, or people studying a new language. Then, if you lot need to memorize and store big amounts of new information, try a mnemonic and y'all'll find you recollect the data long past your examination.
Related: v Apps to Boost Your Brain Power
7. Employ brain breaks to restore focus.
Information overload is a real thing. In order to larn something new, our brains must send signals to our sensory receptors to save the new information, only stress and overload will prevent your brain from effectively processing and storing information.
When we are confused, anxious or feeling overwhelmed, our brains finer shut down. You can see this happen when students listening to long, detailed lectures "zone out" and terminate paying attending to what'due south being said.
They simply aren't able to finer conduct that information into their retentiveness banks, and so learning shuts downward. The best style to combat this is by taking a "encephalon break," or just shifting your activeness to focus on something new. Even a five-minute intermission can salve encephalon fatigue and help y'all refocus.
8. Stay hydrated.
We know we should drink water because information technology's good for united states -- it's expert for our skin and our immune system, and it keeps our trunk functioning optimally. But staying hydrated is also cardinal to our cerebral abilities. Drinking water can actually make us smarter. According to one written report, students who took h2o with them to an examination room performed better than those who didn't.
Aridity, on the other paw, tin can seriously affect our mental function. When yous fail to drink water, your brain has to work harder than usual.
nine. Learn data in multiple ways.
When y'all use multiple ways to learn something, you'll use more regions of the brain to store information about that discipline. This makes that information more interconnected and embedded in your brain. It basically creates a redundancy of cognition within your listen, helping yous truly learn the information and non simply memorize it.
Yous can do this by using unlike media to stimulate different parts of the brain, such as reading notes, reading the textbook, watching a video and listening to a podcast or sound file on the topic. The more resources y'all use, the faster yous'll learn.
10. Connect what you acquire with something y'all know.
The more yous tin relate new concepts to ideas that you already understand, the faster the yous'll learn the new information. Co-ordinate to the book Make It Stick, many common study habits are counterproductive. They may create an illusion of mastery, but the data apace fades from our minds.
Memory plays a cardinal role in our ability to comport out circuitous cognitive tasks, such as applying knowledge to bug nosotros oasis't encountered before and drawing inferences from facts already known. By finding ways to fit new information in with preexisting knowledge, you'll notice additional layers of significant in the new material. This volition assist you fundamentally understand information technology better, and you'll exist able to call back information technology more accurately.
Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, uses this method. He said he views knowledge as a "semantic tree." When learning new things, his advice is to "make sure you understand the principles, i.east., the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to." When you connect the new to the old, you give yourself mental "hooks" on which to hang the new knowledge.
Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/323450
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