5 Valuable Techniques To Learn Faster, Better, Smarter
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It’s ridiculous how fast things are changing these days. You need to learn about new tech each month, research for new projects each week, and understand new ideas each day. How can a mere mortal keep up with all of this?
There’s only one solution: learn faster. Learning quickly is not just about consuming lots of information in the shortest possible time. It also means gaining a deep understanding of what you need to know while discarding the things you don’t need to learn. It means being efficient as well as effective in your learning.
And like all things, there are many tools and tricks that you can use to learn better. So before burying yourself in research, first take a look at these five techniques for learning faster.
1) Use PQRST to Read Better, Learn Faster
Trade journals. Scientific papers. Government reports. Reading any one of these things fills me with dread. It’s like pounding your head against a wall of text. But there’s a way to slay this information Goliath and that’s by using PQRST.
PQRST stands for Preview, Question, Read, Summary, and Test. First, you skim and get a preview of the content, writing down questions that come up in your mind as you do so. Next, you read the content to find answers to those questions. After that, you summarize your what you learned, often by making notes or discussing with peers. Lastly, test yourself by trying to answer the same questions you made earlier without looking at the material to make sure you really understood the content.
I’ve been using this for a long time now though I discovered the name of the technique just recently. It’s a smart way to tackle a complex book so that you don’t waste time with unnecessary details while also maximizing retention of the parts that do matter to you.
2) Mind Map For Visual Learning
If you want to learn faster, you need to short-circuit your brain. Compared to just reading text, having both text and images in front of you increases your retention of the material by up to 42%. I’m not great at drawing myself so I settled for the next best thing when visualizing information: making mind maps.
A mind map is a web of ideas, starting with a core topic at the center and branching out to related topics from there. When you create a mind map, it stimulates the visual part of your brain which makes brainstorming and connecting ideas easier. I use mind mapping both when studying new topics and when trying to find answers to tricky problems.
All you need to make this work are some markers and a whiteboard though you can use pen and paper if you’re mapping by yourself. There are digital mind mapping tools as well like Mindnode and Coggle, which are great since I can access all my mindmaps when I have my laptop around.
See other Valuable Techniques To Learn Faster, Better, Smarter in full article
