4 Easy Steps to Make You Learn Every Information Within Minutes
In today’s digital world, where everything goes faster than ever, where people are more busy than ever, there is one skill, that is probably the most important one and extremely valuable.
It’s the ability to learn faster.
In the age of technology and exponential growth, we prepare ourselves in the best way by commiting us to lifelong learning.
Who doesn’t educate himself will be most likely left behind independent of ones age.
Two years ago, when I started my M.Sc. in physics I randomly got stucked on a facebook ad, which advertised a speed reading course.
I just thought, how cool it would be if I had to learn just half of the time in comparison to the previous three years absolving my Bachelor. You may guess, physics isn’t the subject you understand while passing it smiling. I had to take a lot of effort into learning.
The first time in my life I thought “let’s try it out and if it isn’t good, just f*** these few bucks”. One year earlier I normally would have argued not to buy that course with something like “I can do that by myself”. Probably I really could achieve this skill on my own, but I am sure, this would have last much longer. Would I have started on my own at all?
So I headed up to speed reading, learned to control my mind and totally focus on the words I see in front of me. After some time I really felt comfortable with reading after never being the biggest reader.
Today I read about one book per week and don’t understand, how I couldn’t make use of this incredible source of knowledge and experience of the greatest people around the globe.
After absolving a productivity and time management course and several programming courses, learning has become a habit in my life — thank god!
Since starting with the speed reading course there was no time I didn’t do any type of course in parallel to going to university. I started loving making progress non-stop.
It seems like ages since I started my self learning carreer consciously. I really feel like this started even five years ago, but it was really just 2 years ago, even a little bit less.
Lifelong learning adds years to your life and life to your years.
I love this quote and I live it.
So while doing all these courses I started my own (mostly german) website, started writing here on Medium and on Quora and explore myself in a whole new way.
Honestly, in school I probably was a really bad writer. Although I am by far not the best one today, but I am confident enough to say, it’s getting better.
Further more I started reading nearly obsessively this year and really found new love for the matter of reading books. Because I really want to realize, what I am reading in all these books, I started learning about my brain and especially how to learn faster.
Now I want to share with you four easy steps to enhance your brain power in just a few minutes and start to remind your mind on what it’s capable of.
This craft of learning is comparable to the learning methods of children. Why children?
On our early years everything on this planet is new for us. We are simply overwhelmed, what this world contains and we are curious as f*** about getting to know everything. We are highly creative and motivated and our imagination is completely free. However the imagination and creativity when we are going to become adults and later is brand marked from our environment.
In learning, kids are really the best humans in the world and we either as young or old adults can learn a lot from them.
So let’s take us kids as a role model and use their craft of learning faster than everybody else for our own.
1. Turning information into a picture
We as humans think in pictures. I will repeat this one.
We as humans think in pictures.
And how do we learn in school and most likely still in university? We try to push huge amounts of words into us without any method or strategy to repeat them at an exam and forget them directly after stepping out of the classroom or the lecture hall.
Great system — NOT!
It’s so clear, that this is not the best way to learn and many people never question the system itself.
Turning information into a picture is such a simple, easy and — most important — a powerful method to manifest information in your brain — longterm.
If I tell you, that the old pharaonic Tutanchamun died at the age of 20 and tell you to imagine a half naked man with lots of jewelry on his body dances crazy on the top of the pyramides with a written “TUT20”- banner in his hands holding it into the air, I think you will never forget, that Tutanchamun died at the age of 20.
What did we do? We turned this information into a picture, we will definitely remember because it’s too crazy to forget it.
Interested?
2. Using the “Vowels”
The Vowels reminds you on a few properties your picture should have to keep that information stored within your brain.
- A-Action
- E-Emotion
- I-Illogical
- O-Outstanding
- U-Unusual
Humans like special things happening, which let arouse a remarkable emotion in the hearts.
Let’s check the Vowels for our example of the 20 year old dying pharaonic Tutanchamun.
- Action: He danced crazy on the top of the pyramides. I think there is action in it.
- Emotion: A dancing half naked pharaonic on the top of the pyramides seems to be funny. I guess you smiled at least a little bit.
- Illogical: A dancing half naked pharaonic on the top of the pyramides isn’t really logical, is it?
- Outstanding: Approved!
- Unusual: Approved!
I think you got the point.
Connect your information to a crazy action picture and it will be stored safely within your brain.
I would have loved to have this in school to learn all this boring history stuff.
3. Link information to familiar places
This method is also known as Loci Method or Location Method. It is very useful for remembering lists of information or even keypoints of a speech to present a speech without notes.
Use familiar places like your living room, your kitchen or your working place. You can even use your whole home and store several information in different rooms.
Link your information to the different places preferably with a system like going clockwise or from left to right.
Also use the Vowels for the linking. You will start smiling when you think of your TV in terms of a weapon of our crazy pharaonic Tutanchamun trying to kill 20 investement banker.
The Vowels are strong.
4. Create stories around your information
This one is tremendously strong when you have to learn abstract information in order or backwards.
Take the example of the periodic system of elements — a bunch of information with nearly no connection to each other.
Let me illustrate this method for the five first elements hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium and boron.
Imagine a big red fire hydrant representing hydrogen. Here you can connect the sound of the words hydrant and hydrogen or simply a hydrant jump starting into the air like in the movies.
Now imagine a huge amount of helium balloons flying away with this big red fire hydrant getting shot by lots of batteries (lithium).
These batteries are coming from a barrel (sounds like beryllium) used as a cannon with a big surf board (boron) next to it.
And again the Vowels are used. The Vowels are still strong.
Congratulations! You learned the first five elements of the periodic table of elements within 30 seconds.
Conclusion
Avoid underestimating your mind. Your mind is capable of incredible things, you simply didn’t explore yet.
There is no good or bad memory. There is only a trained and an untrained memory.
When you train your memory even though you might have some weeknesses, I believe in your enormous potential.
I believe if you answer the question “How bad do you want it?” in a strong and confident way, you can achieve it.
But anyway, these brain hacks above will help you during your day to remember things easily, if you train to use them.
Practice is key.
Be aware, that common sense is not common practice. You are already extraordinary if you train your mind regularly and these brain hacks will help you to explore your potential with fun.
You will be amazed, what you are capable of.
You are the key!
