In this pandemic, I had a lot of time in my hands, and I wanted to do something different, so I started looking for ways to improve myself the past few months while in lockdown. I always loved studying but I realize that sometimes I would just learn something for college and the next semester I wouldn't remember anything useful, so I knew something was wrong.
So that's when I found the Coursera course Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects.
The moment I started, I knew I was in the right place. Dr. Barbara Oakley makes learning fun, and I going to speak about the improvements I did to my day-to-day life base on the course and how improved my learning ability and why it works.
The first change I made was waking up earlier, I use an app called Sleep Cycle to check the best moment to wake up, and I wake between 6-6:30 in the morning, and I read something fun, I really love fanfiction, so to motivate me I read fanfics in english about my favorite TV Show.
After that, I get dress, brush my teeth, eat, and go work out and run in my leaving room - I got a treadmill too - I have two reasons I do this right away:
The hippocampus is an important part in your brain for learning and memory, new neurons are born every day, and if you have enriched environments, the connections on those neurons are stronger. Since we are all lockup inside our homes you can exercise and run to increase the numbers of neurons being born and strengthen their connections
And I do this first thing in the morning because I hate working out, and if I think too much I will find some reason to procrastinate so I don't give my brain time to find a way out of it
Side note, I started this program a month and a half ago, and I already lost 10 pounds.
I'm at college but I also have a full-time job, so I have to eat, take a shower, and get ready to start my day, but before
I get any work done I take 30 minutes to do my Duolingo, I study English and French every day no matter what.
As you can see I'm pretty consistent with my Duolingo studies because I use the trigger of sitting at my desk to start work as a reminder to study.
I work using the Pomodoro technique, I use 25 minutes of focus work, and 5 minutes of diffuse mode work, go check my email or talk with my favorite coworker.
I eat lunch around noon, and I have a sweet tooth, so I use this want of something sweet after lunch as a trigger to study more English, but this time with an English speaker teacher online, I use Open English website for it and I really like. At the end of a 45 minutes section, I eat a little piece of chocolate as a reward. Give your self rewards its really important to associate a job done with something good.
Before coming back to work I take a 28 minutes power nap, yes, 28 minutes exactly, because I give my body some relaxation during the day without falling into a deep sleep.
I finish my day of work, and start my online college classes - Thanks COVID, you SUCK - and that's the IMPORTANT part you need to understand if you want you to improve your learning skill, you have to:
Consistency is key, you don't want to learn everything in one sitting, you will want to space out your study, don't rush, give your brain some time to create chunks of knowledge, the bigger is your chunk library in your brain the easier will be for you to learn something new
Don't keep studying the same thing over and over again, you don't need to keep studying the easiest parts, go for the hard difficult stuff, don't be afraid!
Use the Pomodoro technique, your brain have to modes of learning, the focus and the diffuse mode, and you need both to memorize and create that connections you need to understand something
Challenge yourself, mix questions of subjects you already studied with the thing you are learning today, don't make it easy for yourself and create an illusion of knowledge
I do not program myself to learn a complete subject, I program myself to study for a period of time is easier to focus on the process instead of the product
There is a lot more to it, but I'm oversimplifying things so I highly recommend that you go and do the course for yourself!
And I'm finishing my study day NO MATTER WHAT at 8:30 pm with the thing I love the most to study, Math. I reward myself with some math - don't judge, please.
After my studies, I like to clean my space and spend a few minutes creating my bullet diary for the next day, I create a list of things I need to do, and what I'm going to study, again to prepare my brain to accept that I will do these things and I will not procrastinate.
I get everything done for the next day, leave the books I'm going to need at hand, I leave the clothes I'm going to use and my snickers by my bed, so I can't give it some empty excuse to not do something.
After 8:30 pm I do whatever I want to do, mostly video games and Netflix.
And the most important part GO TO SLEEP EARLY, you need sleep, at least eight hours, so I go to sleep at 22:30 so by 23:00 I'm already deep in sleep.
That's it guys, all those changes were made this past few months, and for me, they are working great, but you should to the course and find something that works for you, believing in the process you use is also very important!
Really hope this helps someone as the course helped me!
And really sorry for the not-so-great English grammar but I'm making an active effort to learn more every day!
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