Learning how to learn

It’s not a secret that I love learning new things. So, when a colleague talked about an online course about “learning how to learn”, I was really excited to see how could I be more efficient in my learning and studying initiatives. The authors of the course are Dr. Barbara Oakley and Dr. Terrence Sejnownski. She is also an author of some interesting books as A Mind For Numbers and Mindshift.

I found the tips and the explanations so good that I have decided to register some of the main content.

1. Two different ways of thinking

Barbara Oakley starts the course explaining about the two different ways of thinking, the focused and the diffuse mode:

• In the focused mode, our brain tends to relate new concepts to other familiar ideas we already have.
• In diffuse, when we are in a more relax status, our brain is able to relate new concepts to some unexpected ideas. It can take to a broader perspective.
• Sleep and exercise help our brain a lot to provoke the diffuse mode!

2. Memorizing new things

The new things go first to our short-term memory (or working memory). But this memory is not very good to fix things and soon it forgets them… It’s necessary to move these new things to the long term memory, and it’s possible with consolidation and reconsolidation — working to fix them in our mind.

These new things can be group in chunks. They make them easier to remember. When you have these chunks, you can use them to build other chunks and fix new ideas in your mind. Also, chunks work as neural hooks that help a lot to recalling other informations.

To create the chunks, it is necessary:

• Focused attention to the new things.
• Understanding: things need to make sense.
• Practice: just seen once isn’t enough.
  Interleaving helps a lot in this step and means changing your way of practice from time to time, as spending time doing a test, quizzing a colleague, recalling the content etc. It is a good practice because you challenge your mind to think in different ways.

How we can do it:

• Testing yourself: when you are doing a test, you are more focused and pay more attention.
• Less highlighting: we thinks that when we highlight a lot, we’re going to remember everything, but it’s the opposite. Not everything is so important!
• Make mistakes is good!

Not once, but regularly

Studying hard in just one day is not efficient. It’s much better to study a little amount of content regularly. It takes time and repetition to fix the new concepts.

Also, when you are trying to memorize things, it is very good to associate with mnemonics and visual and/or familiar concepts. One of these tricks is the memory palace technique. In this technique, you visualize a familiar place, like your home, and imagine that you are storing these new informations in somewhere in this place. It works as a cue for you to remember them.

Place informations in familiar places

Use metaphors, visualizations, analogies. The more visual, the better!

3. Starting is hard

Sometimes the worst part is starting the study. Usually, we try to avoid it procrastinating. It’s very human, and when we procrastinate, it means that our brain is relating the task with something painful. It’s a temporary feeling and usually when we start the task, this feeling goes away.

What we can do to avoid the procrastination?

• Use the Pomodoro technique: 25 minutes of focus on your task and 5 minutes of relaxing and rewarding time. With this technique, you break big tasks in small amounts of time.
• Also, the technique helps to focus on the process and not on the product. Most of the time, the product is responsible for our pain because we focus too much on the final result.

Understanding your habits, the cues, routines and rewards, can help you to change the procrastination habit. There are some cues that start your zombie mode (another way to call our automatic modes). Identify what are the cues that lead to procrastination habits and figure out how to avoid them.

Also, doing some planning helps a lot to avoid procrastination:

• Make a weekly list.
• Daily, planning the tasks in the night before help you to mentally prepare yourself for the next day.
• Remember, the tasks can’t be too big, and eat your frogs first — start with what is more difficult.
• And it’s important to not forget: plan a quitting time for the day!

4. Last, but not least…

When you are too focused on studying, it’s easy to forget exercising the other muscles! Exercise your body, it’s really important because it also helps to strength your neurons!

Interested about the course? Find it at Coursera.