Mastering the Art of Learning: Unlocking Your Brain’s Full Potential

The gap between high school and university is huge in Italy. In high school, you must study. At university, you juggle projects, evening classes, study groups — it’s chaos. Most students spend their first year figuring out how to survive. I made it even harder by experimenting with new study techniques.

High school stole my afternoons. University tore apart my nights. But I found a method that worked.

I tested countless techniques. Most failed. But by combining them, I built a system that changed everything.

Now, I want to share what I learned. Let’s start with the methods I tried.

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The world overflows with information. And knowing how to learn effectively has become a superpower.

You may be a student taking exams, a professional tackling complex projects, or an entrepreneur juggling countless responsibilities - it doesn't matter. You’ll fall behind if you don’t have an effective way to learn.

Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, believed that the best way to learn something was to teach it. His method forces you to simplify and break down complex topics. Here's how it works:

1. Pick a topic. Choose something you want to understand.
2. Explain it. Pretend you teach it to a child.
3. Spot the gaps. If you can’t explain something clearly, you don’t understand it well enough.
4. Refine and simplify. Go back, study the gaps, and rework your explanation until it’s clear.
5. Test yourself. Keep simplifying your explanation until it feels effortless.

It sounds simple, right? Well, It is.

Teaching forces you to break down ideas until they make sense. And while you pretend to teach others, you solidify those ideas in your head. You expose blind spots and fill the gaps.

Back in high school, I wasted hours re-reading my notes. I’d read, forget, and repeat — thinking that somehow, through brute force, I’d remember everything.

At the time, it felt productive. It felt like I was doing something important, and it was working. But it wasn’t.

Sure, I’d retain most of the information for a few hours — long enough for a test. But the next day? Gone.

And that’s because I needed spaced repetition to retain the information long-term.

That’s where spaced repetition changed everything. Instead of cramming, I used the Leitner System , which relies on flashcards and strategic review. Here’s how it works:

• Hard Cards: Study these three times a week.
• Medium Cards: Review twice a week.
• Easy Cards: Check once a week.

But that’s not all. As you improve, you will move cards to the next level. But if you forget, you will move it to a more frequent category.

Here's why the Leitner system works:

• Writing flashcards forces active learning. You don’t passively consume — you engage.
• You don’t waste time on what you already know. You review less frequently as you improve.
• You track your progress. The number of hard and easy cards shows how well you're doing.

The Leitner System prioritizes your weak spots and strengthens recall over time. You won't only remember information for a test but for life.

I made many mistakes studying in high school. But do you know which is the worst? Highlighting and underlining everything.

I’m not saying it’s useless — it can help you with quick reviews. But if you rely only on highlights, you will never remember things long-term.

The Active Recall Method flips the script. Instead of reviewing your highlights, you force your brain to retrieve information.

Here's how you do it:

• Quiz Yourself: Cover your notes and try to recall key points. Act as at an oral exam and build a speech that makes sense.
• Write What You Know: Reconstruct concepts from memory before checking your notes. Many people think summarizing the documents they are studying can help them. But it takes too much time.
• Speak Aloud: Explain concepts without looking at your materials. Listen to yourself talking, and you will recall information for longer.

The Active Recall Method strengthens neural connections. You force and train yourself to remember things.

The three methods transformed how I studied. But they weren’t the only factors that affected my productivity and speed.

Here are six other tips:

• Diversify Your Resources: Don’t stick to one source. Use books, videos, and podcasts to engage different senses.
• Draw Connections: Link new knowledge to what you already know. Analogies help ideas stick.
• Focus on Your Health: Sleep, exercise, and good nutrition boost focus and memory. Spending your day studying is less productive than rotating study and leisure sessions.

• Space Your Learning: Studying over time beats last-minute cramming. The pressure doesn’t help. And you won’t have enough time to memorize new ideas if you start studying today for tomorrow.
• Seek Deep Understanding: Don’t just memorize — dig into the reason behind ideas. What is the purpose of what you are reading? Why does it work like that?
• Chunk Information: Break down big topics into bite-sized pieces. Flashcards are the perfect example of chunking. It helps you organize and recollect ideas faster.

We’ve seen three different techniques and many tips in this article. But how can you get the most out of them?

Don’t worry — I've got you covered!

• Combine strategies. You don’t have to pick one and stick to it. Experiment with all of them, and use the best of each.
• Track your progress. Use tools like Notion, Anki, or a physical study journal (including this week’s infographic).
• Experiment and adapt. Everyone learns differently. And there are countless learning techniques you can use. These three worked for me, but you can find other methods to suit your style.

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