Learning – When you think about it. You might say, what’s the big deal about it? Isn’t it what we are doing since the inception of Humankind. We naturally know how to learn about anything. Our brains are built to learn in the most effective way possible. Which I completely agree too. 100%. But if you think about it, how we have perceived learning in modern times is not what humans used to do while learning early. Most of the learning what early humans used to do was learning by doing, cultivating experiences, and sharing it with other fellow beings. I was getting obsessed with how to learn things most constructively so that I can learn things faster.
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Why is there a need for exploration of this topic?
Everything is moving, changing, and getting disrupted at a very rapid pace because of technological development. They say that whatever we have achieved in the past 100 years, we surpassed the same achievement in the last ten years. The boom in the Internet Technology space has completely changed how we communicate and convey information to and from the world. The more we communicate, the faster we learn and adapt to new things. More and more data is being added to the internet every second. We are making our Machines smarter every day using Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to compile loads of data and present it invaluable information. The next decade of technological developments will be completely focused on Machine Learning and A.I. And seeing the current expansion in this space shows that if you don’t learn, you surely don’t earn.
At this stage, you cannot just sit on the heap of experience which you have gained so far and say that, Hey… I have several years of experience, and because of this, I hold good value in the market. Things are changing so fast that if you have not upskilled yourself with current developments, your experience will not take you any far from where you are currently standing. Of Course, I am not undermining the value of experience here. Experience is a great teacher. It teaches you things that cannot be taught by anybody or any learning system. All I am saying is if you don’t make your motto “Leaner for Life”. No matter what you do, your chances of growth in this rapidly changing world will be significantly less.
How do I relate to finding a better way of learning?
You might be thinking why I am adding so much drama to it. It’s Okay; I get that learning is essential and everyone should be updated with the recent developments whatever is happening around. But folks, trust me, I am not debating here, whether you should learn or not. My problem is the way that we learn anything at this current stage. I don’t think the current system can account for how we effectively learn things and justify our learning by utilizing them practically. Let me explain why I am feeling so much about the topic and why I think there is a need for it. I will share my own experience with learning here.
Most of my Professional life, I have learned most of the things by doing stuff, getting things wrong, rectifying them, and then again trying( trial and error) method. It was doing well for me for some time, but the problem was that it’s a time-consuming way of learning anything, and additionally, one needs resources on which you can apply your trial and error. What if you don’t have anything where you can do your experiments or minimal resources. You either have to create it or need to spend something to make it available for you. I hit the same wall. I was fine till I had the resources available, but once I utilized it to the fullest with my limited means, I got stuck. I wasn’t growing now. So I thought let me try out other methods now; i.e. learning from others’ experiences, which consisted of Books, Tutorials, Articles, Youtube Videos, etc. I took a notebook and started with the usual way of learning. I read, listened to audios, watched videos, and then put every important point down on my laptop. I was initially excited as there was so much to learn, and I thought that as I was writing down the crucial points in the notebook, I will keep things in mind, which was right for a couple of days but if I check back my notebook after 3-4 weeks, 95% of the things I didn’t remember at all. It was daunting. What’s the benefit of this learning if I don’t remember most of the things. I thought I have a bad memory, then I searched on the internet about the issue, and found out that this is not the right way to learn at all and the majority of the people forget most of the things they know like this. Our brain is wired like that. I dug further and discovered that the answer lies in how our mind grasps every information it receives and stores(memorizes) it for the long or short term.
Let’s deal with memory first !!
What is Memory?
Memory is usually acknowledged as an information processing system. It processes data or information, which is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It helps us process any information coming from the outside world, process, and store it, respectively. Memory processes anything in three different ways: sensory Memory, Short-Term Memory, and Long Term Memory.
Sensory Memory or Sensory Register: It’s an automatic response to storing the information for a brief period of time. Usually, less than a second. It helps in observing and memorizing things that are required for a moment or two. This type of memory is utilized momentarily, and information wipes out as soon as its purpose is finished. For example, if you see that somebody all of a sudden comes in front of you while driving, you will immediately hit the brakes without thinking for a second.
Short-Term Memory: Also called ‘Working Memory’ is where the information is stored temporarily. Data or information is stored within a few seconds and a minute. The brain stores the information for the time being, which can be repeated. It’s an active state of mind and information is immediately available for instant utilization. For example, recalling a person’s name with whom you shook hands or somebody’s phone number is only shared with you.
Long-Term Memory: This is the memory which takes care of the ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ of the memory, also called as episodic memory. Sensory Memory and Short-term memory information are not stored for a longer duration and have the minimal capacity. But in contrast, long-term memory can store vast quantities of data, and duration can vary between a few hours to years. Sometimes even for a life span. But don’t think that the information stored here is complete what the brain perceives from outside; it can miss a few things here and there. Also, information becomes weaker with time if that info is not recalled or repeated at regular intervals. It fades away.
How are memories formed?
It’s essential to understand what’s happening inside our brain as it will help us develop or identify a logical way of learning which is compatible with our brains functioning. This will help us grasp information faster and get stored in our memory for more extended periods of time.
Our brain is amazing in terms of storing information it receives from the outside world. If you try to remember what you had yesterday for dinner, you might not remember that. Still, if you try to remember any particular moment in your life, which you are attached to, you will remember it immediately, even if that memory is many years old. This is the true beauty of our brain. It just keeps the vital information that we feel is relevant to us and rest it only removes from our memory. This magic happens because of the phenomenon known as ‘Synaptic Plasticity‘.
In our brain, there are two crucial cells, ‘Neurons’ and ‘Glia’. Neurons are the significant components of the mind. They generate electric impulses to send and receive signals, sending commands to the body, etc. On the other hand, Glia are support cells that help in retaining and maintaining the various parts of the brain.In many parts of the brain, Glia cells outnumber neurons, and they help in producing Myelin(is a layer made up of protein and fatty substance, which surrounds nerve cells and help them insulate and protect our nerve cells) , maintaining homeostasis and these cells protects our nervous system as well. One Neuron is connected with several other neurons and other brain tissues with the help of ‘Synapses’. These are the junctions where one neuron transmits information to another. These synapses pass chemical and electrical signals to communicate between neurons and tissues. The connections among these Synapses can be stronger or weaker, depending on how frequently they were used. Synapses change depending on how active or inactive they were in the past. This continuous change that occurs in the synapses is called Synaptic Plasticity.
Earlier, many scientists believed that the change in synapses is tough to happen after 30 years of age. That is why the chances of our intellectual growth are very minimal as we grow older. You know what they say right ‘You can’t teach new tricks to old dogs’. But this has been proved recently that we can rewire our brain at any age and can learn anything. If we keep activating certain neurons or do any activity for a longer period of time, then our brain starts to change the connection between neurons and soon after this connection gets stronger with the insulating layer of Myelin. This proves that learning has nothing to do with age. You can learn anything anytime. But this does not mean that your memory will also become more assertive with age. It decays with time. But if your Synaptic strength is strong for certain things, then you don’t have to worry much about anything.
Few Techniques which will help you to learn Efficiently
Everyone is different, and the way you perceive any information completely varies from one person to another. Now that you have understood many things about our brain and memory. You can utilize any of these below-mentioned methods or combine them to develop the most effective way of learning for you.
For having a better learning experience and a thorough understanding of any concept, you should be having an interest or liking for the topic or subject, Unwavering Focus, the right technique of learning, the habit of deliberate practice, and getting into the flow. There are hundreds of methods and techniques out there that can help you learn. I read few of them, but writing about all of them will be a tedious task and a very lengthy article 🙂 . (God… this one itself seems like a never-ending one.. Hopefully, I am not boring you guys 🙂 ) So I am writing about the one I practiced myself and found them helpful in my learning journey. These methods have given me a good foundation in the learning process, and I am sure it will help you and have a strong foundation in your learning path.
The way to learn the most, is that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes. –
Albert Einstein.
Interest On The Topic Or Subject
To have better clarity and gain in-depth knowledge in any topic or subject, you should have a good interest in it or at least have a liking for the subject. Without any interest, it will be challenging to concentrate or grasp knowledge and get bored soon enough. Of Course there will be some parts where things are very theoretical, and it becomes tough to pay attention to it, but you can use some ways to make it enjoyable like relate the topic with your daily life or think how this topic can help you in the future or your career. Once you gain a little bit of interest, then it becomes easier for you to take further steps to gain traction on the topic.
Feynman Technique
If you want to understand anything well, explain it. This is the core principle of this technique. This technique was created by Richard Feynman (1918-1988), who was also called as the “great explainer” because of his ability to explain complex concepts and theories in easily understandable language. He was one of the greatest minds of modern times. An exceptional Scientist, physicists, an author, an intellectual, a storyteller and a very much loved professor. He pioneered the complete field of Quantum electrodynamics (QED).
He understood the difference between just knowing the name of something and knowing something. Most of us only know what it is called. But that is the wrong type of knowledge. Knowledge is when you go deep and understand something in such a way that, even if you explain whatever you have learned to a child, he/she should be able to understand it. One of his famous quotes was:
“You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatsoever about the bird. You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird… I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”
Feynman Technique : The idea here is simple, you take any information, understand it and convey it in a simple language. Instead of making things complicated and difficult to understand by using complex vocabulary and jargons, Feynman advocates using simple plain language to explain the concepts . The Feynman technique has majorly four steps:
- Identify the idea or concept you want to learn about.
- Explain it in such a way that even a child can understand
- Go back to the source of information to identify problem areas and review them.
- Pinpoint the complicated terms in the concept and simplify and tell them.
Step1: Identify the concept you want to learn about: You can choose any topic you want to know. Collect information from all the sources which you have at your disposal. It can be books, articles on the internet, youtube videos, etc. Then take a notebook, write down the heading of the subject, and then start writing in your own words what you have understood about the topic.
Step2: Explain it so that even a child can understand: A child will not understand the complex vocabulary or jargon you use in explaining your concept. He wants to learn or understand things the easiest way possible. He won’t even have enough attention span to listen properly if your explanation is dull or has heavy words. Just use plain simple language to convey the information.
For many of us, this is a difficult task to put our thoughts into paper, but it can help organize your thoughts and boost your creativity.
Step3: Go back to the source of information, identify problem areas and review them: One you wrote down about the concept in your own words, go back to the sources from which you have learned everything and check whether whatever you have written is right or not. Read it aloud and check if whatever you have written sounds simple or not. If not, then learn and write again so that it becomes more apparent in the second iteration. Initially, there are chances that the things which you have written down, the majority of it will go off-topic or will be partially wrong. But with time and practice, you will get the hold of it as Synaptic Plasticity of our brain will come into play, and with every repetition, your way of learning will get stronger and stronger.
Step4: Pinpoint the complicated terms in the concept and simplify and tell them: Now that you have learned the idea thoroughly, written it in simple language, reviewed it from sources, it’s time to get feedback from somebody else. You can explain the concept verbally to somebody else and see how they react. If the person you are explaining to can understand it then, you have certainly made it, and most probably, the concept will stay in your memory for quite some time.
Deliberate Practice
According to James Clear, who has written one of the best selling books, “Atomic Habits”.
Deliberate practice refers to a special type of practice that is purposeful and systematic. While regular practice might include mindless repetitions, deliberate practice requires focused attention and is conducted with the specific goal of improving performance.
The Word “Deliberate” means to do anything consciously and intentionally. Things which are done in a careful and unhurried way. In this practice, practitioners become aware of his or her shortcomings and improve one step at a time to enhance performance. Instead of just doing one thing continuously to spend hours and hours assuming that improvement will happen because of repetition, one can stop for a while and verify whether performance has improved. Analyze everything and strategically move forward, enhancing what is missing(even if its minute detail). It is an excellent way of practice and getting better at anything faster.
Unwavering Focus
I know, I know.. Everybody knows about the importance of Focus and how it can drastically boost their performance at anything. But the main problem lies in achieving that level of Focus. It is the biggest problem everybody is facing. With tons of distractions(especially when available right beside ourselves, 24×7), we are bound to get unfocused. At this current age, when everything is moving fast, and we get a lot of things that needs to be completed within a limited amount of time, we get trapped into an illusion of multitasking and try to do something with a minimal focus span. But, let me tell you, our brain doesn’t function like that. We are wired to do one thing at a time. One can think that he/she is doing multiple things at the same time, like writing an email to a client, preparing an urgent presentation, talking with his/her tech team, but as a matter of fact, they are just juggling between different tasks.
Like any other thing, Focus can also be enhanced with regular practice. One of the best ways to strengthen your Focus is to start practice of doing one thing at a time only. Rather than working on multiple things all at once, take one task, complete that and move to another one. Like when you are preparing a mail for your client, work on that, then move to create your presentation and then after completing that move to talking with your tech team. You will say then how I am gonna complete all my work. But trust me, give it a 15 days shot at it. You will see improvement in your daily activities, especially in terms of the quality of your work.
Getting In The Flow State
Also called as being ‘in the zone’ is one of the best experiences anybody can have while doing any activity. In this state, a person is completely immersed in the action which he or she is doing. They are fully involved with full energy and enjoying the complete process of that activity. It seems too good to be true, right. But actually, this can be experienced by anybody.
Have you ever felt where you are doing anything and completely forgot about time or what’s happening around you? If yes, then this visual state of mind is called the FLOW. It was coined by a Hungarian scientist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. According to him…
“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
In Order to achieve a state of flow, the following conditions should be met :
- Your goals are Clear.
- Feedback is immediate.
- There should be a balance between opportunity and capacity.
Achieving flow is not that easy, but one can do this to achieve it.
Before starting anything – Ask yourself these three questions
- What’s the goal?
- Is it too Easy?
- Is it too Difficult?
The idea behind this is, If anybody is clear about your goal, it becomes easy for our mind to visualize and create a map for it. After this, one needs to ask himself/herself, whether it’s too easy or too difficult. If the task is too easy, you might get bored and start procrastinating, and hence you will not be able to achieve the goal. The solution is to make the task a little more challenging. And if the job is too difficult or challenging, our mind starts to avoid the work, it gives you multiple reasons for how you will not be able to achieve it. Therefore, set a goal which is a little challenging but not a very difficult one.
CONCLUSION
Learning is an art. Suppose you know how to learn in a better way, and understand various techniques of learning. You will certainly achieve a lot more than you expect and make learning fun and exciting.