Effective Learning Strategies for Improving Productivity.
Learning is a lifelong process. You can consider your life to be flatlining if you don't constantly learn and evolve. It doesn't always have to be academic, it's a lifestyle choice.
Often when it comes to learning, each of us has our own approach that works for us. But are they always effective? Let's explore some learning strategies which have been scientifically proven to increase retention and improve test performance.
Keep Your Study Space Clutter-Free:
It is extremely important the space that we work or study in is as clutter-free as possible, so that our mind doesn’t get too distracted. It has been found through studies and psychology research that a clean and tidy environment promotes productivity in an individual.
- So keep your surroundings clean
- Clean up your desk
- Arrange your books, notebooks and stationery neatly
- Keep only essential items with you
- If possible, face a window so u get lots of fresh air and sunlight
Creating smaller actionable habits:
It has been observed that every New Year, we take out our journals and start making lofty resolutions, and then a month down the line we are back to where we were; unmotivated and unproductive.
It is however interesting to note that if you are not focused on unrealistic goals and divide them instead into smaller actionable habits which can be adopted one at a time it leads to much better results.
A habit takes 21 days to form into an activity that does not need motivation to perform, just like getting up in the morning and brushing our teeth. Leverage this to make it easier for you to reach your goals.
Use Music to your advantage
Music, when used intelligently can actually boost your memory. Many scientific studies as well as my interaction with really efficient students have led me to believe that classical music without any kind of lyrics can help in relaxing the mind and increasing the memory retention power.
According to a 2014 study, listening to classical music seemed to helped people perform better on memory and processing tasks. These findings suggest certain types of music can help boost memorization abilities and other cognitive functions.
As far as concentration goes, science dictates that classical music is the best for aiding studying.
You can find many such music libraries available on YouTube, Spotify, and in meditation apps like Calm
Pomodoro Technique
Pomodoro Technique is a popular time management method that asks you to alternate between focused work sessions and a break( a Pomodoro), which helps promote sustained concentration and ward off mental fatigue
It is said that “The most difficult part about doing a task is getting started.” and Pomodoro helps combat that initial resistance that we feel towards doing some work. Be it a paper that you need to turn in or that presentation at work, we always start procrastinating and putting it off to the very last minute coz we think “What if it’s not going to be good enough?” or “Oh, I don’t think I’m in my creative space yet to start the work“. Well, guess what? you just never know if it’s gonna be good enough until you start doing it. Right? And Creativity.. yes! you need a zone for that but how long can you really stare at a blank canvas? You need to start with an idea, revise it again n again till you get your desired output.
So here is what you could do, you could start with a Pomodoro of as small as 10 minutes with a 2-minute break. Avoid all kinds of distractions, zone out of your surroundings, and set a timer (so that your mind doesn’t have to wonder how long it has been, but it WILL, trust me, for the first few times) and only concentrate on your work. Don’t budge until your timer goes off, and then you will have realized that you have gotten into the flow of working. Reward yourself for this by taking a 2-minute break to stretch your legs. Don’t get on social media coz it will suck you right back in, and then begin your next session. Keep repeating and Voila! It’s not so difficult anymore right?
The technique is used to counter procrastination, can be used as a sort of work meditation. Traditionally a Pomodoro consists of 25 minutes of focused work followed by a 5-minute break but you could customize it to suit your convenience by making it shorter or longer. It generally stems from the fact that the human brain is designed to focus on a task for not more than 25 minutes.
To-do list: If it's not listed, it ends up not getting done
To-do lists can come in very handy if you are trying to get things done. For people like me who are kind of a scatterbrain. If I don’t write things down somewhere or note them, I tend to forget it or it usually gets postponed. Writing things down on a to-do list also makes you accountable to a certain extent. Like, if you don’t strike off things on your list it gets you to become a little more responsible towards your work commitments.
Parkinson’s Law
Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time we have allocated to it. If we don’t start blocking our time for certain tasks. We will end up taking the entire day to do it or procrastinating the completion in the pursuit of perfection for a very long time thus reducing our efficacy. So we must understand the need for time blocking in your calendar.
VARK Style of Learning
Find out the kind of learner you are: Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, and Reading/ Writing Learners.
Do you learn by watching videos?
Are you better able to grasp a topic if you hear someone explain it?
Do you get concepts better by getting your hands dirty doing it? eg. Maths problems, coding.
Or do you simply find it more effective if you read and made notes out of it?
Use your style of learning to make the most of your time and understand topics better.
Feynman Technique:
Richard Feynman was a renowned Theoretical Physicist from America. Has done exceptional work in the area of Quantum Physics and a Nobel prize winner. Now, Feynman had the unique ability to be able to simplify highly complex physics topics and explain them to a layman.
So, Feynman's technique states that if you can explain what you studied to a 5-year-old then you have understood the concepts well enough. Now a 5-year-old is basically a metaphor here. Hence if you can explain it to a friend or someone with no idea about your field then you are good to go.
Active Recall:
Active recall is a technique where you create questions for the matter that you are studying and then after completing the chapter. You go back to it. Hide the portion with the answer and try answering the questions that you have created. This will give u a fair bit of idea about how much u have remembered about what you studied.
Can be done the 1st time you are reading a topic as well.
Let's say you studied biology and the topic is the Endocrine system. You create questions like: What hormone does the thyroid gland produce? Its Thyroxine. And say, Which hormone is released when you are stressed? The answer is cortisol.
So on and so forth. In case there are a few questions that you can't answer, go back to it and try studying it again.
Spaced Repetition:
It has been observed that if you study something and leave it completely for some time. The retention in your memory of that material reduces over time. So if you go back to it say a month or two later when you have your exams, Half or more of it has already been forgotten and you need to sit down n study it all over again.
So how do we overcome this?
We space out the times we study the concepts to make them stick. When a topic is covered in class, make sure you study it once on the same day itself, Next, go back to it after 2 days and study again. You will see that you might have forgotten a very small portion of it. Don’t worry. Study again by skimming through it and the next time you need to go through it is after a week and then after a month and so on.
Apply this technique and see topics being fresh in your mind even till the final exams arrive.
So this time around, make use of these techniques and see your efficiency shoot up along with your grades.
