We are living in an era of unparalleled change, advancement, and evolution. Business has become a science all of its own if you want to stay competitive and ahead of the curve. High school and college graduates take online tutoring today have to invest continuously in learning and improving new skills right through their careers just to stay relevant since they started learning and improving in their early twenties. No longer do we have the option of developing expertise in one skill area and continuing that for the rest of our lives!
A hot topic like learning new skills has so many methods available for doing it that it may be impossible for humans to take them all on. To help you make learning a lifelong habit, I’ve selected some of my favorite, tried and true techniques.
Tried and tested brain hacks to learn faster:
Say out loud what you want to remember
Unlike reading or thinking silently (as if there is no other way to think), the act of speaking boosts memory for selected information more effectively than reading or thinking silently.
Involving the brain in the learning process and retaining information improves memory and learning. We are able to expand the long-term memory of a word by adding an active measure or an element of the production, which makes the word more distinctive and thus more memorable.
It has well said that while it is good to mentally rehearse, it is even better to rehearse in front of an audience.
Take notes by hand, not on a computer
There are a majority of people who are quicker at typing than they are at writing. Consequently, they type in a more neat manner.
Nevertheless, research shows that writing your notes by hand will lead to a greater amount of learning. The strange thing about writing notes by hand. Taking notes by hand is a better way to retain information. Perhaps because instead of just taking notes. You need to put things into your own words if you want to keep up.
In other words, you will probably remember what you heard a lot more after listening to it.
Chunk your study sessions
There are many things to do in your busy schedule. Hence your time consumed with learning more about things. You need to know at the last minute: a presentation, a sales demo, an investor pitch, etc.
I think it’s a bad idea. A study found out that “distributed practice” was a more effective method of learning.
Assume that you are preparing for your investor pitch and you want to nail it. Whenever you have drafted your pitch, go back and re-read it at least a couple of times. Make sure you correct any mistakes and make the necessary revisions before you submit it.
Then step away for a few hours, or even for a day, before you repeat the process.
Do distributed practices work? If so, why do they work? As you successfully retrieve something from memory each time, this memory becomes harder for you to forget. This known as the “study-phase retrieval theory.” When you review your presentation repeatedly. A lot of it will remain fresh in your mind, saving you time by preventing you from having to recall it from memory.
There also a theory pertaining to “contextual variability.” Some context encoded with information when it stored in memory. The context in this case gives important clues as to how to retrieve that information in the future.
The fact that distributed practice absolutely does work, regardless of the way it implemented. To ensure success, you should space out your sessions as widely as possible. It will improve your efficiency and effectiveness.
Test yourself
The use of self-tests has shown to be an extremely effective method of speeding up learning.
It is partially because of the increased context created by the additional text. The more you practice this type of test, the more likely you are not only to remember the correct response after consulting a dictionary, but also to remember what to check next. A mistake can serve as a good reminder for you to avoid it in the future, especially if you tend to be too hard on yourself.
Rehearse your presentation, but don’t overdo it. Practicing what happens after your intro will allow you to be more confident. List your five main points to added to your presentation. Describe key statistics, or cash flow projections, or sales estimates.
Additionally, you’ll be more confident about how much you actually know, as well as more eager to learn what you don’t know.
Change the way you practice
It won’t only hinder your ability to progress as quickly as you might, it could actually decrease your skill. When you keep repeating anything over and over again, you won’t master that task as quickly as you could.
You will learn much more and faster if, instead of practicing the exact same thing repeatedly, you practice a slightly modified version of what you want to master. There possibility that the process of reconsolidation responsible, a process in which existing memories modified by new information.
Exercise regularly
It has been found that regular exercise may help to improve memory recall, as this study has shown. In order to stay fit and to improve your memory, you should do periods of high-intensity exercise. This has been found to significantly improve high-interference memory performance when it is provided with exercise. Whenever you are trying to recall information that is similar to the information that you should be recalling, you run into interference.
People who want to make connections can learn how to remember faces, an example of high-interference memory.
Despite the fact that exercise increases BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), a chemical whose function, growth, and survival are dependent on the health of the brain, exercise also caused an increase in other chemicals.
You’ll feel better and improve your memory if you exercise.
Get more sleep
Memory consolidation occurs mainly while we sleep, which is when the majority of our memory is synthesized. Because of this, even a short nap can help you recall information more quickly.
During one of the studies, participants were asked to memorize illustrated cards while being tested for their memory. One group took a 40-minute break after memorizing the set of cards and then napped while the other stayed awake as they rehearsed the set of cards. Upon returning from the break, both groups were tested on their ability to recall the cards. Those in the sleep group retained more patterns than those who remained awake, with an average retention rate of 85 percent against the 60 percent achieved by those who slept.
Additionally, sleep deprivation has been found to impair one’s ability to commit new information to memory and consolidate short-term memories.
Learn several subjects in succession
You should learn or practice several subjects or skills in succession during a learning session, rather than focusing on the same subject, one task, or one skill each time.
A process called interleaving is used to accomplish this. In parallel studies, students study the same concept or skill simultaneously. Interleaving indeed proves to be a more effective method of training the brain as well as the motor skills of a person.
Interleaving is thought to improve your brain’s ability to differentiate between concepts or skills, which is mentioned in one theory. If you block out time to practice one skill, you can drill it till muscle memory takes over and becomes almost automatic, allowing you to acquire it with ease. You ensure that no one skill becomes mindless when you interweave several skills. However, you have to constantly adjust and adapt when you are combining many skills. It’s a constant process of seeing, feeling, and discriminating between different concepts or movements.
It lets you gain a deeper understanding of what you’re trying to learn, which contributes to learning what you’re trying to learn.
Teach someone else
Some research seems to suggest that people who are incapable of teaching are more likely to get better grades and retain more information, but in most cases, research shows both can be true.
When you even think about having to teach someone, you can really increase your chances of learning through this method. A teacher typically seeks out key points and organizes information into a coherent structure when the time comes to prepare for their lesson. According to our results, many students turn to the same types of effective learning strategies when they anticipate becoming teachers.
Education also helps create a better understanding of the world around us. Any trainer who has trained someone else will agree the experience was beneficial to them as well.
Build on things you do know
Associative learning entails relating something new to something you already know. In the associative learning process, not the kind where Pavlov’s dog mimics the learning process, but rather where a link between things that might seem unrelated is uncovered.
To put it simply, whenever you say, “Oh, I get it… basically this is the same thing,” you are applying associative learning.
Need to learn something new? Try to associate it, at least in part, with something you already know. It will then be much easier for you to learn the differences or nuances between them. You’ll also be able to apply greater context to the new information you’ve learned through homework help, and that will be useful for storing and retrieving it.
Hence, all of these factors will significantly reduce the amount of knowledge you have to acquire.
The science says that you will be able to be able to learn a lot more quickly if you follow this advice.