Finding an effective learning technique is something everyone aspires to know thinking it might magically help them to learn more in less time. But it is not the path that you take that makes the learning effective, it is actually how effectively you use the path.
Let's be honest with ourselves, we all are not the topper of the class, who remembers everything they read for the first time. But mostly we are average learners with loads of distractions. Here, I will be sharing the most effective (a little primitive) way to learn a particular anything.
- Find a ‘Why?’
There will always be an initial point where something or someone motivates you to learn something new. It might a new literal language, a programming language, or a new subject. Now you have to broadly go into the factors that motivated you to pursue studying.
This will help you to have a clear vision before studying, because if not, then you might find the subject boring within the first few weeks.
2. Start Reading.
As soon as you decide what to learn, and sketch out the ‘Why?’, your next stop will be to just start reading and start building the initial interest. Watch videos of what you can achieve by Studying the subject. Do this for the first few days and you will start to find little correlation between topics of the subject.
3. Plan your Study.
After reading and becoming accustomed to a few beginner and high-level topics of the subject, you now must divide the whole subject into medium-level chunks. These chunks will contain topics in the proper order of studying. The chunks should be in the order of difficulty.
Now, take the first to-be-read chunk and make a roadmap/Study schedule/To-do list whatever you call it. I call it scheduling my topics.
4. Use Pen and Paper for Notes.
In an era where there are thousands of productivity apps, notes taking apps like Notion, I still stick to making my notes by pen on a piece of paper. You can also use Pencil to make notes so it will be easy for you to amend in the future.
Why Pen-Paper? It's not pen and paper that is helpful, writing something which you are studying by reading or watching a video keeps you enough attentive throughout your study sessions. And while writing something, most of us tend to whisper it to ourselves. Thus making writing super helpful.
5. Teach others.
We know revising what you have learned is very necessary. But reading the notes or going through the same lecture you have read before doesn't add up to anything. Rather, teaching it to others, maybe your peers, or teaching it to yourself in front of the mirror adds more value to revising the topics. You can also write what you learned in a Blog or make a youtube video sharing what you learned if you are not shy.
6. Take breaks.
Here I am not talking about breaks during study sessions, like the Pomodoro technique many use. Breaks between study sessions are up to you to decide.
I am talking about the time while studying something new, and encountering difficult parts we often find our mind just getting jammed with all the information. This is the best time to take breaks. Break of 1-2 days of being away from studying. Obviously, you would think about it and talk about it but don't start studying new topics.
7. Redo your notes but better.
After significantly studying a lot of portions, or maybe after completing the first chunk, it’s time to Redo your notes. More precise, more informative, and connecting the topics with each other. This is the final touch of Revision that you need before completing a section of the study.
Now you might test yourself, or take your own examination. But that is up to you.
8. Go to step 3 and continue to follow the path.
Now it's time to take up the next chunk and follow the same path till now. Repeat the process again and again till all the chunks are Done.
