The Art of Learning: Part 1

How do you grow as a person? How do you tackle depression?

While randomly going to coursera one day to find a course that would help me in my professional life, I found a course that helped me find the answers to these questions.

The answer is Learning new things.

Learning Effectively

As human beings we are born in different environments, culture and natural abilities. We naturally excel at some things and sometimes do worse than our peers. No matter what it is at some point in life we realize no matter how good or bad we are at things we can always learn about them and get better.

The key to find answer to any question is asking questions first and then improving those questions. Once you ask the right questions you can look for and learn the answers. In this modern era of internet learning is easier than ever. But we first believe that anything can be learned with proper approach and technique.

Anything can be learned with proper approach and technique

All of us have learned different subjects and concepts from our childhood. Have we ever stopped to think before learning these subjects, Do we know how to learn? What should be the proper approach to learn things effectively? Has any of our teachers or parents taught us how to learn? What are the techniques?

In this article I will try to share what I have learned from the course about learning and how I am trying to incorporate them in my life.

Thinking Modes

Often times when we try to study about a topic we read about it and keep reading over and over again thinking at some point what we read will stick. But this method is not entirely effective.

When it comes to learning our brain operates in two modes of thinking.

- Focused Mode

- Defused Mode

Our Operates in this two modes of thinking and at any given time our brain can only act in one mode. Its like hitting a table tennis ball with your bat with red or black side. You can only hit the ball with one side of the bat at a time.

Focused Mode

We are all familiar to this mode of thinking. This is the way we think when we are trying to learn something new or trying to understand a new concepts and focus intently. When we try to solve a problem our brain follows different pattern. For a given problem if the pattern is already known to brain in focused mode our brain can easily solve the problem as that is very familiar to it. Its like looking at an address and going there on a path that is known to you. But for problem that is unknown focused mode is not very effective as it hits all the barrier and not very good at finding new patterns in brain to solve the problem.

Diffused Mode

The Diffused mode of thinking is the new concept for us. This approach takes a broader view to look at the problem in order to find and create newer patterns in our brain. Its kind of looking for a address from an airplane or a drone, from a top view you already know where to go and you will be able to see all the paths that will lead you to the address.

This mode occurs when look at problem, understand it for a while then take a break and chill doing something else and let our subconscious take over and work on the problem in background. We do not think about the problem anymore while taking this break. You might find this weird but have you noticed often time when you take a run, play a game or take a shower and out of no where you find the solution to problem that you were working on? That’s the work of diffused mode of thinking!!!

Which mode to choose and how?

So now that we have an idea of two modes of thinking when do we use and how do we use them to learn something?

The idea is to switch between both. When learning something new we need to use both mode of thinking to create a strong neural pattern in our brains. We need our focused mode to concentrate and understand the problem but do since focused mode is good at solving existing problem and not so efficient at finding new paths in our brain due to obstacles we need to switch to diffused mode.

We keep switching our thinking modes by rotating them. Remember one thing

Learning something new and difficult takes time

Learning Obstacle: The “P” word

We all have to battle one of the biggest and common enemy when we try to learn something or just doing our day to day work. This problem decreases our efficiency, makes us ineffective and most importantly is one of the most dangerous habit in our path of learning or achieving anything worthwhile. We all know it, feel it but due lack of tools or understanding how to tackle or solve it we become its prisoner.

PROCRASTINATION

Whenever we have to do something the is unpleasant or something we don’t want to do, or might make us unhappy or uncomfortable our brain internally maps this as something that would cause us pain. As our body and brain is internally designed itself so that we can avoid pain or danger it naturally shifts its attention to something that would make us temporarily happy. This is a simple overview of how procrastination works. So when we have to work on a assignment instead of starting we do a little bit of social media, check a youtube video or check messages on our phone and out of nowhere suddenly 2 hours have passed and we haven’t done anything with our assignment neither do we have track of what we did all this time. Sounds familiar? It does to me :(

Whenever we start to learn something we often get distracted and end up doing something else. So our first question should be

How do you work without distraction?

Is there a way we can solve this? Ofcourse.

Pomodoro Technique

This technique helps us to make short intervals of focused learning. For example we use a timer for 25 minutes to work on a problem. Once that is done we take a 5 minutes break to reward our self with chocolate or activity like web surfing, something that gives us joy. Then we go back to work for another 25 minutes. Then Break. We keep repeating this. During this time blocks we stop all kinds of distractions like phone notifications or switching to a different task. You will be surprised how long this 25 minutes might feel at first, which is great for someone who always seems to be out of time but having done almost nothing for a long period of time.

This way of working at something takes time. To be honest I am only doing this for a few weeks and I have still not mastered this. But I am already seeing the positive effects of working on a task this way. I am writing this article with a pomodoro timer running in the background.

Learning anything new or difficult takes time. The more abstract the problem the more difficult it is to learn. It takes regular practice and a little learning everyday to master or grasp a new concept.

Learning something bit by bit everyday is always better than learning everything in a single day

When you learn a topic in fragments everyday that creates strong neural pattern in your brain and the structure is more solid. But if you try learn something in a single day that will create a weak structure and what you learned may not last long in your brain.

So when doing a task or learning something new its important to have a plan. The plan can always changed later as we move deeper into the topic, but its important to always have a plan. First break the task into logical blocks, then calculate how many pomodoros it might need. Once that is done start your pomodoro clock and get to work. There are different pomodoro apps in the google play or app store. Just find one that suits you.

There are other learning techniques as well but I will write about them in my future articles.