Learn Better - 10 Ultimate Tips
Whether for a retreat, an exam or another test: At some point comes for almost everyone the time where we have to cramming. But how do you do that best? What should be considered and what are the absolute taboos when it comes to learning? I have put together the most important tips for successful learning here.
1. Not easy - plan the learning phase
When things get serious about learning, the stuff often appears as an insurmountable mountain, towering in front of you. That's not exactly conducive to motivation. Therefore, it is important to get an overview at the beginning: What do I need to know for exam or exam? Which topics occur?
It is best to make a list in which you write down the entire study material into meaningful sections. As a next step, it may be useful to mark behind the lessons, which could be more extensive or particularly difficult. Because that helps in planning how much time is needed for each step.
Important also: Do you save the "fear opponents"? particularly heavy or bulky topics? not until the end! That just makes frustration and creates unnecessary pressure. It's best to create a mix and put the big chunks in between a few lighter, shorter units. This ensures that in between you always have a sense of achievement. This keeps you tuned and the positive mood gives the brain new impetus.
2. Set fixed learning times
A regular appointment helps to get into the right learning mood? and is a proven remedy for the "Aufschieberitis". Depending on the extent of the substance, it therefore makes sense to keep a certain amount of time for learning on a day or a week. Important: This time is then there for learning alone? without distraction and "just fast again". It is best to choose the daily or weekly study time so that you can work concentrated and undisturbed during this period.
You should be careful to choose a time in which you have no other obligations and experience is fit. Early risers are often more receptive in the morning, and in the case of long-sleepers, the afternoon is likely to be more productive. However: Real night owls hardly exist. Late in the evening our brain is no longer very receptive for biological reasons. During the day, therefore, the learning time should already be.
Make sure that you do not finish the hardest tasks within the study time. Because then you are already exhausted anyway and not so receptive. Besides, is there a danger of getting frustrated at the end? and that messes up the well-deserved rest.
3. Sufficient breaks
Although time is of the essence, breaks are important. In between, our brains need time to process what they have taken and switch to "idle" for a short time. After 90 minutes you should therefore take a break of 10 to 20 minutes. It is best to stand up for a moment, walk around a bit and get the circulation going again through exercise. This also provides the brain with new energy.
These breaks are also great for drinking a glass of water and eating a piece of fruit. Because without sufficient fluid, it does not even slip in our brains. Eight glasses of water or unsweetened tea should be there by day? even if we do not feel very thirsty. A small fruit snack can also help the brain to jump again. Well suited are apples, oranges, pineapples, grapes and the like. Because the fructose provides energy for carrying on.
4. The right environment
Even if we are more of the chaotic type and not the neatest: learning is worth tidying up? at least on the work table. Because in an orderly environment it is easier to concentrate on the essentials. In addition: If we constantly have to dig in paper mountains and between stuff for the documents, it costs time and breaks the concentration. Therefore, it makes sense to banish distracting from the table.
It also helps many people not to study at home, where there are too many distractions. Instead, you can look for a place in the library, for example? the rest there additionally promotes concentration. The big advantage: The spatial separation of learning and recreation helps to put us in the right learning mood.
Speaking of calm: Music, a running in the background TV and the like are rather counterproductive. For even though we do not notice it, these stimuli prove resources of our brain that we might need for learning.
5. Ensure equalization
The better our brain is perfused, the more effective it works. While learning is usually silent, it is all the more important to balance it during breaks or in the evening. Studies show that exercise and regular exercise increase mental fitness. A jogging round the block therefore usually brings more than the tenth coffee. Then we feel more alert and it is easier to record new things.
6. Use the right channels
Not everyone learns in the same way: some memorize what they hear, others read and others learn best when they write down their own things. Usually it makes sense not to limit yourself to a learning channel. So you can record a complex relationship as a diagram or mind map - this helps to understand the abstract. Also loud reading aloud, colored marking passages or rewriting can help.
A proven classic are the index cards. Because even when writing out and summarizing the essential points we memorize the contents. At the same time, the cards make it easier to repeat the material: we ask ourselves, so to speak, and this consolidates the memory. It is also sensible to have a look at the daytime learning or to recall it in the evening. Because then the brain processes this information overnight and in the morning it is stored.
7. Learning in a team makes you smarter
Whether we have really learned something is difficult to determine in pure timpani. Because taking in information and then being able to retrieve what you have learned are two pairs of shoes. It is therefore all the more important not to study alone. Let yourself be interrogated by others and find a learning team.
Although the actual learning takes place independently? Everyone learns in their own time and place. But once a week or at other intervals you meet and ask each other what they have learned. The trick here: When we explain something to others, we memorize the substance more effectively.
8. Sleep well
Even if the temptation is to learn until late at night? do not do it! Because nothing is more important to our memory than sleep. Only in this break, the brain sets the long-term memory and sorts the daytime recorded. This creates space for new things and at the same time ensures what you have learned. If we suffer from lack of sleep, we forget more and can absorb less new. Make sure you get enough sleep? best sieve up to eight hours.
9. Schedule rewards
Learning costs overcoming? Everybody knows that. Just the prospect of having to spend days, weeks or even months with timpani is not exactly motivating. It is therefore all the more important to set milestones and to reward each other again and again. From the outset, plan days between lessons that you are free to do and treat yourself to something good.
10. Not until the last second
Even if it is scarce and the panic sets in: do not learn until the last second! On the day before the exam or exam you should no longer cram new content. Just repeat what you have learned and go to bed early. In no case should one try right before the test date still hectic to close the last gaps. Because that causes the opposite: the new information disturbs the brain while the previously learned to retrieve. In the worst case, a blackout threatens.
