Do you know our brain can potentially memorize 2.5 petabytes of information, which is roughly the equivalent of 3 million hours of YouTube videos.
In order to use some of that staggering capacity a little more effectively when you learn, here are some tips that are based on my personal experience and widely accepted to research by neuroscientists and learning experts.
1. “Spaced Repetition": To maximise your learning, study short but often. Neuroscientist proved that synapses, the million billion connections in your brain that make you remember and understand stuff, grow mainly at night when you are asleep. This means that it is more productive to study regularly with sleeping breaks in between. It is like building up the muscle. Practice something for 15 minutes every day rather than workout 1 hour once a week, and you'll be surprised by your progress within just weeks.
2. Find Your Own Style: Some enjoy watching videos over reading books, others study with friends and some like sitting in silence among a million books. Everybody is different.
3. Good Night's Sleep: Sleep and dreams are vital to processing and storing new information. A Harvard study showed that students who had a good night’s sleep remembered their study materials 35% better than those who studied in the morning to take a test in the evening
4. Focus: If you tend to procrastinate, which means that you tend to switch from doing something hard like studying maths to something easy like browsing the web, protect yourself from distraction. One way of doing this is to shut down your mobile phone or go to a quiet place like a library.
5. Pomodoro Technique: Set a timer to 25 minutes when you focus entirely on your studies. When the timer rings, relax for 5 minutes. If you want to continue just set the timer again. The small breaks in between are relaxing and motivating to keep going.
6. Hard Stuff First: Do the things that are difficult first. Because if you are like most people, you have the strongest willpower in the morning. Once you are done with the hard stuff you will feel better for the rest of the day and probably more motivated to get other things done.
7. Space Your Studies: In order to remember things for a longer time, repeat the material in spaced intervals. Facts or vocabularies for example are best learned if you review them the first time 1-2 days after the initial study and then again after 1 week and after 1 month.
8. 30% Read 70% Recite: if you have one hour to learn to recite a poem or prepare for a speech spend 20 Minutes of the time on studying the text and 40 minutes on practicing to recite. This ratio usually leads to the best results. In the case of an emergency, put a glass of water next to you. Take a sip whenever you lose it.
9. Instant Self-Test: after you study finish up with a quick quiz. Immediate recall in form of a test or a short summary on what you’ve just learned can increase retention by as much as 30%. Because it’s much harder for your brain to reflect than to read, that extra effort creates deeper traces in your memory.
10. Don’t Force it: Motivation is like hunger. You cannot force yourself to be motivated just like you can’t tell someone else to be hungry. So if you are not hungry right now, don’t worry. Take a break and do something else.
In order to use some of that staggering capacity a little more effectively when you learn, here are some tips that are based on my personal experience and widely accepted to research by neuroscientists and learning experts.
1. “Spaced Repetition": To maximise your learning, study short but often. Neuroscientist proved that synapses, the million billion connections in your brain that make you remember and understand stuff, grow mainly at night when you are asleep. This means that it is more productive to study regularly with sleeping breaks in between. It is like building up the muscle. Practice something for 15 minutes every day rather than workout 1 hour once a week, and you'll be surprised by your progress within just weeks.
2. Find Your Own Style: Some enjoy watching videos over reading books, others study with friends and some like sitting in silence among a million books. Everybody is different.
3. Good Night's Sleep: Sleep and dreams are vital to processing and storing new information. A Harvard study showed that students who had a good night’s sleep remembered their study materials 35% better than those who studied in the morning to take a test in the evening
4. Focus: If you tend to procrastinate, which means that you tend to switch from doing something hard like studying maths to something easy like browsing the web, protect yourself from distraction. One way of doing this is to shut down your mobile phone or go to a quiet place like a library.
5. Pomodoro Technique: Set a timer to 25 minutes when you focus entirely on your studies. When the timer rings, relax for 5 minutes. If you want to continue just set the timer again. The small breaks in between are relaxing and motivating to keep going.
6. Hard Stuff First: Do the things that are difficult first. Because if you are like most people, you have the strongest willpower in the morning. Once you are done with the hard stuff you will feel better for the rest of the day and probably more motivated to get other things done.
7. Space Your Studies: In order to remember things for a longer time, repeat the material in spaced intervals. Facts or vocabularies for example are best learned if you review them the first time 1-2 days after the initial study and then again after 1 week and after 1 month.
8. 30% Read 70% Recite: if you have one hour to learn to recite a poem or prepare for a speech spend 20 Minutes of the time on studying the text and 40 minutes on practicing to recite. This ratio usually leads to the best results. In the case of an emergency, put a glass of water next to you. Take a sip whenever you lose it.
9. Instant Self-Test: after you study finish up with a quick quiz. Immediate recall in form of a test or a short summary on what you’ve just learned can increase retention by as much as 30%. Because it’s much harder for your brain to reflect than to read, that extra effort creates deeper traces in your memory.
10. Don’t Force it: Motivation is like hunger. You cannot force yourself to be motivated just like you can’t tell someone else to be hungry. So if you are not hungry right now, don’t worry. Take a break and do something else.
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