Do you often find yourself unable to remember the things you have learned? Or feel that concepts and topics are difficult to grasp and learn? Tutopiya is here today to share with our readers just 6 simple ways to help you learn things faster!
6 ways to help you remember and learn things faster
Whether you are learning a new skill or studying for a test, these 6 tips will help you to learn things faster and more efficiently.
1 – Sharpening the ax: Preparation
This is a famous quote by Abraham Lincoln, “ Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.”
What Abraham Lincoln is trying to imply here is that we should prepare to figure out the meta behind learning what we are about to learn. In other words, how are we going to learn this thing, concept, or topic?
We are learning how to learn and prepare to learn it. These points are strength multipliers. When you aim to perfect your skills beforehand, wonders will happen.
2 -The 2-minute rule
In the modern-day, many of us tend to multitask such as learning how to play the guitar with the television playing behind us.
This rule helps us not only prevent procrastination but also stick to good habits.
This rule is as simple as it sounds, you basically convince yourself to focus on doing the task for 2 minutes and after 2 minutes, you can choose to stop.
However, more often than not, 2 minutes is sufficient to help us get into the groove of things.
3 – Realising our weak link and fixing it
Knowing where your weakness lies in your studies is an important factor in helping you to learn things faster.
Realizing our weaknesses is not enough until we fix our weaknesses. You should focus on your weakest topics to begin your revision and be sure to drill yourself to ensure that at the end of your study session you are able to be better at it.
When we are studying or revising, we tend to work on the topics and concepts that we are most familiar with us. Much like how we are very tempted to start studying from page one even though we may already very well know what is on page one.
However, learning only happens when we fix our weakest topics and close up knowledge gaps. Hence, whenever you are studying or revising for an exam, it is a good tip to start working on your weakest area!
4 – Testing yourself – Active Recall
Testing yourself helps to learn things faster and make the things you have learned stick longer – active recall.
The idea behind the active recall is that we don’t learn to put information into our brain, but learn to take it out of our brains.
When we are testing ourselves, we are essentially learning how to retrieve the needed information for the concepts and topics. And this is what drives learning.
Retrieval practices are supposed to be tedious as our brain is not used to retrieving the right information for the right concepts. Hence, with enough practice, your knowledge of these concepts will also strengthen and you will also be comfortable with applying these concepts.
Read also: Active Recall and Spaced Repetition: How to Study Effectively
5 – Spaced repetition
There is a concept called the forgetting curve, basically, when we first learn something, we are only able to remember so much. However, as time pass, our memory of the thing we learn fades.
The idea of spaced repetition is to revisit the thing you have learned right before you forget about it. This way of studying helps you to build muscle memory and remember concepts for a longer period of time ultimately becoming a long-term memory.
6 – Concept of immersion
This tip is especially useful for students who are learning a new language. This concept requires students to fully immerse themselves in the language for learning the new language. Some examples are exposing yourself to people who speak the same language or surrounding yourself with the language by setting your phone or laptop language to the new language.
Only when you are fully immersed in the language and putting in the effort to learn the language, will you become fluent in the language.
In a nutshell, learning a concept and topic fast is not impossible, it simply requires a lot of determination and concentration. So keep your heads up and keep learning!
