Would you like to learn faster?
To learn a new language, a new sport, a new program - we all would like to learn faster. But in the day only 24 hours. Therefore, the key to accelerated learning is not to increase the number of hours. And to maximize the effectiveness of the time spent on training.
The analogy with a bucket and water
Imagine filling a bucket with water. Usually the bucket does not leak until the water begins to overflow.
But our brain functions differently. Most of the information that gets into our brain is quickly forgotten. Our memory is not like a bucket that stores everything that got there. It looks like a bucket that leaks.
The analogy with a leaking bucket is not too good, but this is completely normal.
If you are not born with photographic memory, your brain is not designed to remember every fact or experience that you have encountered in your life.
How to remember 90% of everything you learned
The creation of the Pyramid of Learning in the sixties is usually attributed to the NTL Institute in Maine. She explains how people learn.
Studies show that people remember:
- 5% of what they learned when they listen to lectures (at university / college)
- 10% of what they learned when they read (books, articles)
- 20% of what they learned from audio and video (applications, videos)
- 30% of what they learned when they saw demonstrations (experiments, etc.)
- 50% of what they learned when they were involved in group discussions
- 75% of what they learned when practicing what they taught
- 90% of what they learned when they used it immediately (or taught others)
And in life - how do most of us learn?
Books, lectures, and videos are passive teaching methods in which 80-95% of information flies into one ear and whistles out of the other.
Instead of forcing our brains to remember more information through “passive” methods, we should focus our time, energy, and resources on active methods that give better results in less time.
Want to learn how to speak a foreign language? Start talking with native speakers and get immediate feedback (instead of apps on your smartphone). Get in shape fast? Start working with a personal fitness trainer (instead of watching YouTube videos). Learning to play a musical instrument? Find a teacher in your city.
In the end, it comes down to this ...
Time or Money?
How many times have you heard someone say: “I don’t have time to do this and that ...” Many of us do this, and we say excuse for excuse about lack of time. But time is the greatest equalizer for all of us. It does not matter who we are, where we are, what we do or how we achieve efficiency, each of us has only 24 hours in a day. Each minute is unique, and when it has passed, it cannot be returned, unlike money.
You can wait, but Time will not wait. - Benjamin Franklin
Each of us has only 24 hours in a day. We need to learn how to use them as efficiently as possible.
For example, person A spent 1 hour learning the language and remembering 90% of what she learned. And Person B spent 9 hours studying and saving 10% of what she learned. The math is simple: person B spent 9 times more time than person A to save the same amount of information.
A: 1 * 0.9 = B: 9 * 0.1
Of course, you can argue about specific numbers, but the lesson is obvious.
We can learn more by not just using small victories. For example, watch a 5-minute video tutorial instead of a 15-minute one. We can really win a lot - if we choose the most effective teaching method from the very beginning. Do not look for free alternatives, but invest in a premium solution in order to save months and even years of struggle, mistakes, and most importantly - time. To get the most out of limited time, we need to focus on solutions that give maximum effect, and say no to everything else.
The ability to retain more knowledge in an era of endless access to information and endless distractions is a valuable skill that will help to achieve any goal faster.
By learning to remember more information every day, we can spend less time on the need to re-learn old knowledge, and focus on getting new ones.
We all lack time, and today is only the beginning of the day. The only question is: what is the best way to conduct it?
Traditional methods
- Yartsev's method (visuals)
Take a notebook. We write out the word translation in 2-3 columns. We give a number of synonyms antonyms examples. From time to time we read lists, just read, we don’t cram anything.
I don’t know how it works, but, for example, I didn’t cram German, but just read a notebook from time to time. The teacher did not suit dictations, he never checked us on the lists. And I still, after many years, remember a bunch of words.
It turns out that you do not strain, do not try to pour in 100 words in 30 minutes, just systematically, from time to time refresh the material. But you should immediately warn that these words should be found in textbooks, articles, i.e. you must, in addition to reading notebooks, somehow activate them.
- Card method
The second popular way. We take and cut a bunch of cards or buy square blocks of paper for notes. On the one side we write the word, on the other - the translation. For advanced users, we indicate examples. We drive cards in a circle, set aside those that we know well. From time to time, repeat what was done in order to refresh. Of the minuses - if there are a lot of words, but not enough time, you will spend a lot of time creating the cards themselves.
As an entertainment, you can put them into heaps of 10 pieces in different places of the apartment, from time to time they come across them and repeat. Audiences in this way must definitely add a pronunciation out loud. Cards are great for children, it can be turned into an interesting game.
2. Create an association
The presence of imagination is one of the most powerful tools for remembering information. Mnemonics greatly facilitate the process of memorizing important reports, presentations, texts, including in foreign languages due to artificial associations.
Take the word Monday. What frames are running on your inner screen? It can be morning, terrible traffic jams, a thought throbbing in my head, a day on the calendar, a diary page from my childhood, or a buzzing office anthill. What do you see?
To associative connections turned out to be strong and durable, you can use the five-finger rule. Each finger is tied to its own association, filled with one or another content.
| Fingers | Association |
| Big | "Raisins". Original, absurd, absurd |
| Pointing | "Emotions." Use only positive |
| Average | "About myself beloved." Feel free to associate the object of memorization with yourself |
| Nameless | "Sensations". Connect the senses: vision, hearing, smell, taste, tactile sensations |
| Little finger | "In move". Make your subject move. The brain remembers information faster in dynamics |
Thus, the necessary information is printed in your memory immediately at all levels of feelings, which will allow it to be used for a long time.
3. Trick the magic number 7 ± 2
The famous American psychologist George Miller established that short-term human memory cannot remember and repeat more than 7 ± 2 elements. The mode of constant information overload reduces this number to 5 ± 2.
Nevertheless, there is a simple way to deceive the laws of short-term memory: the application of the method of stories, which involves the logical linking into a single chain of disparate objects of memorization. You may have a funny, incredible and completely impossible story in real life. The main thing is that with it you can memorize more than 15 elements at a time.
As directed by the director in the next scene, you should swim in a pool filled to the brim with semolina. Yes, just imagine this madness in bright colors. Feel your skin as semolina sticks to your skin. How hard it is to swim in this warm slurry, although the porridge is not too thick. It smells like milk, butter and childhood in the air.
4. Repeat correctly
Our brain can be programmed - this is a scientific fact. To achieve the goal, you need its awareness and daily work in the chosen direction. Therefore, if you firmly decided that it is extremely important for you to learn English in six months, then the brain is already tuned in to intensive memorization. But in addition to regular training, it is important to regularly repeat the material.
Use certain time intervals for the best memorization: repeat the material immediately after training, then after 15-20 minutes, after 6-8 hours (preferably before bedtime) and the last time - after a week.
5. Tune in
Perhaps there is nothing worse when a person thinks of himself in negative tones: “I will never cope with this”, “It is impossible for me to remember this”, “I will not be able to learn such a complex report.” Use only positive statements when programming your brain for work and outcome.
Tune in correctly, tell yourself: “I remember!”, “I have a good memory. I will remember ”,“ I will remember and easily retell in my own words in two hours. ” Customize yourself. Resource state of the brain is your area of responsibility.
Knowing the five secrets of memory, you can easily learn to remember really complex and versatile materials. In addition, there are many interesting and natural ways for a person to train memory and consolidate the necessary objects of memorization, which Ekaterina Dodonova also talks about in detail in her book.
