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Fixing your current studying routine
To perfect your studying routine, look at your current routine, and see what's missing. For example:
- An amateur painter will grow faster if they add instruction to their existing knowledge.
- Learning history by reading a lot: Why not write an essay or converse with other history buffs?
- You work correctly through a course, but don't space your learning: A ten-minute pop-quiz on previous topics can help you remember and save hours later.
MORE IDEAS FROM THE ARTICLE
It is often unhelpful to hear that the perfect routine is the one you can stick to to help you reach your goals. As everyone is different in personality, constraints, and preferences, the ideal method will differ.
Instead of outlining an exact routine, look at the essential parts of a routine, and season them as you desire.
- Instructions can be in the form of lessons, books, or tutoring. They are useful to avoid wasting time with trial-and-error.
- Retrieval involves deliberately remembering the knowledge, not just passively reviewing it.
- Spacing is repeated reviews, spread out over time. It forms part of a regular routine where you cover old knowledge along with new.
- Understanding. The goal of learning is for ideas to make sense. Explain the concept to yourself. When you get stuck, find a textbook or teacher to help you.
- Feedback. You don't have to get feedback from other people. When you can get accurate feedback that doesn't need another person, go there first.
RELATED IDEAS
Testing yourself, so you have to retrieve the information from memory, works much better than repeatedly reviewing the information, or creating a concept map (mind map).
After the first time learning the material, spend the subsequent studying to recalling the information, solving a problem or explaining the idea without glancing at the source.
Practice loops are useful as a concept to think about learning any skill. A practice loop is an activity or group of activities you repeat over and over again while learning something.
- In physics: a practice loop is every problem you solve.
- In business: it is each product or feature you launch.
- In languages: conversations, flaschards, grammar exercises are all loops.
- Rational motivation, which reflects our preferences. We're motivated by the opportunities we can notice.
- Biased motivation. We often ignore obvious ways to better our lives because we're short-sighted and lazy. We may be better off boosting our motivation.
We often lie to ourselves about our true motives to save face with other people. We have a hidden logic that fuels our motivations. If we don't feel motivated, we may have reasons we don't consciously understand. If we are hesitant, it may be owing to our options and not our character.