How To Learn Faster and Smarter (Just 1 Tip)

Learning is great but learning if done ineffectively can be laborious, boring, and tedious. What if I told you I can increase your learning by 200% every day! Yep, that’s right I can show you how to learn faster and smarter with one tip. Are you ready for ittttttt! *drum roll*

Contextual learning!!

Not contextual learning where you learn based on the relation of the material to real-world applications, even though that is very effective as well. I mean contextual learning as learning based on your environment, where you are and what you are doing. You learn smarter and faster not by altering your day to study more stuff over more time. You learn smarter and faster by understanding how to learn based on where you already are.

The biggest factor in effectively using contextual learning is self-awareness. If you are not aware of your schedule, your likes and dislikes, your tendencies, and habits, good or bad, this technique will not work as well for you. So you may want to get that out of the way first.

I will use myself as an example to help you understand contextual learning a little bit better. I learn faster by taking in small doses of information all day long. Literally all day. The average human is awake 16 hours a day. I will be humbly generous and say 13 out of those 16 hours I am learning. Can you imagine sitting down and studying 13 hours a day!? You’re GPA would be insane!!

No, you cannot imagine sitting down and studying 13 hours a day because that is humanly impossible for the brain to do effectively. This is why contextual learning is so amazing! You can spend so much more time absorbing valuable information than you normally would with a traditional studying method. 

My mind is the most efficient, focused, and absorbent in the mornings usually before 6:30 am. This means I give myself time in the morning to do my hardest and mentally taxing work. I have the energy and fortitude at that time of day to understand things faster, think more clearly, and apply concepts better. If I wake up early enough, I also have minimal to no distractions because the rest of the world is still asleep. 

Now you might be saying “what if my peak hours aren’t in the morning?” It doesn’t matter when they are, you just need to know when they are. If you don’t already know, it might be easier to discover than you think. Just ask yourself what part of the day you are the most productive. That’s probably the answer. If your peak hours are in the midday use your lunch break, if it is late at night then be the night owl you were born to be. As long as you maximize on that time period you are on track.

After my few hours of brain sapping learning and application at my peak hours, I begin my day like a normal person. I make breakfast, I prepare for work, I workout, I drive around, I go to work, I come home, then I go to sleep. I have to say, I think that is the typical template for the life of an average human, at least in the United States or Canada.

So how do I constantly learn while doing all this stuff? l I thank God for technology because that is how I do it. We are blessed to live in an age where consuming information is easier than it ever has been. The knowledge of the world is literally at your fingertips. 

There are so many mediums of learning that can be utilized at any point in the day. Youtube, podcasts, audiobooks, skillshare, fact apps, blogs, LinkedIn, and even the world around you can all be used to make learning so easy you won’t even realize you’re still learning.

You learn faster and smarter based on knowing where you are and what you will be doing and having the self-awareness to know how your where and your what impact how you learn. While I am fixing breakfast, brushing my teeth, taking a shower and getting dressed my brain is still rather attentive. This is because all of the actions I am doing are rather habitual and do not require a lot of brainpower from me.

I do these things every day and can easily go on autopilot to do them. This allows my brain to focus on something else while I do those things. The absolute best way to learn while getting stuff done and moving throughout your day is AUDIO! Audio learning allows you to feed your mind without having to sit down or postpone your life temporarily.

Since my brain is still rather attentive during this time of day I listen to things that I know may require some thinking power or more energy to comprehend. I might as well use my brain energy while I still have it. Since I operate in the world of business and personal growth. I may listen to a book or podcast about personal finance, investing, or psychology. These are topics that are not simple but that I love to learn about. This is the best time of day for my brain to absorb that type of information. 

I hope you are seeing how I am tying together, where I am and what I am doing to how and what I am learning.

The next part of my day I am preparing and driving to work. The time and where depends on the day in my career, but I do know that work prep and driving in the DC area requires a little bit more of my mind. I am still mobile and active at this point so my medium of learning at this point, which is audio, has not changed. But based on what I am doing at this point of the day the content I am learning from and consuming has changed. I no longer have the brain capacity to comprehend psychological theories or financial formulas. I have dialed back my learning to something that still provides me valuable information but if I get a little distracted I won’t miss an important concept. 

 In my personal preference, I tend to listen to podcast interviews of successful people or podcasts that deliver news and points of view that I value or even challenge my values. This is a perfect balance of valuable information and entertainment for me. I also don’t want you to undervalue the importance of silence and quiet thought. Often times while I am driving, I will listen to nothing to simply give my mind space and opportunity to further comprehend and even conceptually apply what I had learned earlier in the day. 

Now the next part of the day may the hardest for most people to learn during and that is while you are at work. Most likely while you are at work, you cannot watch a youtube video, read a medium article, a book, or listen to a podcast. This is a challenge I love because it forces you to shift your point of view. There is always something to learn no matter where you are or what you are doing. 

In every situation you are in at work, ask yourself, “what can I learn from this?” This goes for the employed and the self-employed. If you constantly ask yourself this question in every situation you will be surprised at how much you do in fact learn. If you are reading about social skills, practice those skills on your co-workers at your job. Take the feedback and see what you can learn. If you love learning marketing or finance, ask yourself how you would market a certain product or service at your job. How would YOU increase revenue at your place of work? Apply whatever you have learned about increasing revenue if you work for yourself. There are so many ways to learn and apply while at a job that may not even be in your field of interest.

In the later part of my day, my brain is spent. I have been using it all day to solve problems but learning is still possible. Your drive home is a good time to do self-reflection. Ask yourself, how was my day? Was I productive? What did I accomplish? What would I have done differently? And what did I learn today? When you ask yourself these questions you will discover and learn things about yourself you otherwise wouldn't have realized, and you learn what you want to do differently the next day. Reflective and forward-thinking puts your learning miles ahead of the competition who is mostly only behaving, reacting, and making decisions at the moment. 

Once I get home I am sedentary again and my mind is tired. I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing but I love to watch a screen while I eat. My youtube subscriptions are full of educational channels that provide me interesting information that I love to learn while I eat. 

Before I go to sleep I usually journal my day and what I want to accomplish the next day. It is one thing to think about something but a whole nother to put it into the physical world. I lastly read my book of choice that feeds my mind one last time before I get ready to shut off the lights. I end the day the way I started. I read my bible to center myself and gain wisdom before I nod off.

This is the last step in my learning process for the day. Then I go to sleep, wake up the next morning and do it all over again. It never gets old or boring because there is always something new to learn and all the way you growing and refining yourself. It’s AMAZING!

Imagine learning for 13 hours a day, five days a week! Chill out a little on the weekends. 

You are increasing your learning by over 200% And you do this without disrupting your normal day in any way. You are working smarter not harder. That is how you learn faster and smarter.