You can be the next ‘prodigy’
Have you ever seen genius peers who seem to excel in everything? Do you ever wonder what they do so differently from you?
To dismiss them as prodigies is an easy shrug, instead we can understand their learning strategies and journeys. Turns out most of them are like us only with different learning methods. There is no best learning method as every learners have their own commitments and preferences. Finally, I found a course on learning methods and implementing them has given me a long stride in productivity so far.
Eat your frogs first. Start with the most daunting task in the morning. Then continue with the rest of the tasks one after another. Although, the reverse could be you start with an easy task to gain confidence on a lazy day.
Controlling your habits. Procrastination is finding temporary comfort away from tasks that makes you grimace at the thought of doing them. Small habits cement the foundation of your lifestyle. Focus on the process and not the product by controlling your reactions to the four parts of habits: the cue, the routine, the reward and the belief. Plan your routine in advance and keep your workspace free from the cues of procrastination. Challenge yourself and surround yourself with new ideas and new communities.
For me, my biggest cue is a pop up notification on my personal phone. During focused mode, I keep it away to avoid risking distraction. If you can control the first part of habit, you have a good start.
The two modes. Use the focused and diffused mode of the brain functions. The focused mode is essentially your undivided attention on the tasks at hand. When there is a block in focused mode, free your attention from it. A good way of solving problems is taking a walk, a physical exercise or some other activities. When you free yourself from the focused mode of study, your brain is in a relaxed state known as the diffused mode.
To put this in practice, try the pomodoro study technique where you will dedicate 30–40 minutes of intense focused study followed by a 5–10 minutes of relaxation. Instead of non-stop long hours of study, pomodoro is more affective in fact, the diffused mode helps to generate new ideas about the problems you are trying to solve.
I spend my own 5 minutes diffused mode outside my study room to watch the park outside or water the plants. It can be anything literally. What is great about the pomodoro is that you can customize it to your own needs.
Grasping the bigger picture. The habit of neural chunking, which is uniting small bits of information then forming a pattern of these bits. Attempt problems on your own to gain mastery over some concepts. Repeat this with other problems to both related or unrelated concepts.
This will help you understand the types of problems you deal with and whether you can implement certain concepts. The concept of chunking is to understand where to apply the things you learnt and where not to.
Avoid illusions of competence. Simply rereading study contents has proved inefficient for long-term memory. Instead what you can do is test yourself and recall the concepts you have learnt in consecutive spaced timings. This studying technique is also called interleaving. Your neural chunks go through reconsolidation from short term memory to long term memory when you practice active recall.
Instead of simply repeating the contents of your study, close the book and try to recall what you just learned. Go back to the same topic some time later and try to recall them then revise. Research has proved this method of active recall to be more effective to retain memories for the long term. It is okay to make mistakes on the first few attempts, learn from them.
Sleeping helps. Sleeping washes away harmful proteins in your brain which forms during waking hours. Lack of sleep induces low productivity as well as increases the risks of Alzheimer disease. Your brain undergoes the diffuse mode during sleep and forms new synapses of neurons to strengthen your neural links.
Think of sleeping as a charging activity and your brain is a battery. Do not cram the night before the exam! I used to do that regularly in high school. It’s not helpful and has proved to be more counter-productive.
The above mentioned study techniques can be applied to any type of learning whether you are preparing for exams, learning a new language, or any subject. Happy to share!
Check out prof. Barbara Oakley’s course on Learning how to learn here: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn/home/welcome
Her speech about learning: https://youtu.be/O96fE1E-rf8
