Ditch These 3 Learning Misconceptions Instantly
Read this now rather than later to avoid these mistakes.
My friend — let’s call her Olivia — has a problem.
Olivia was telling me how her new violin lay idly in the closet, gathering dust.
She’d attempted to learn how to play on her own, albeit unsuccessfully.
It was not that she was intentionally slacking off.
Before buying the violin, she’d had a perfectly reasonable plan for consistent practice.
Every day at 6 pm, without fail.
But what went wrong?
In this article, I’ll talk about some critical ideas that subconsciously shape our learning.
They may seem benign enough; unfortunately, they’re dead wrong.
I wrote this article specially for people want to create lasting and effective self-learning habits.
Misconception #1: Learn and don’t ever forget.
Most learners HATE the idea of forgetting anything they learn.
However, successful learners see things a little differently.
They see forgetting as their friend.
I know this is counterintuitive but stay with me.
First, recognize that forgetting is a necessary sanity mechanism.
Your brain forgets unimportant details and retains the relevant stuff.
Just imagine how chaotic it’d be if you still remembered every conversation you had in kindergarten.
Forgetting keeps you less distracted and improves cognition and creativity. [1]
Forgetting appears to be the enemy only when we want to retain information.
Even then, some forgetting is needed for effective learning.
What’s your go-to trick for memorizing an important phone number?
Do you repeat it over and over, in quick succession?
It appears to work because you still remember the number after 5, 10 minutes.
But give it a few weeks and it disappears like it was never there.
Rapid-fire repetition is like juggling the phone number in your working memory really fast. [2]
You’re not creating or strengthening neural connections for long-term retrieval.
Over time, you drop the number when something else takes over your attention.
Your working memory is only a temporary repository.
To remember what you learn after several weeks or even months, you need to allow some time to elapse between periods of repetition.
This is what learning scientists call spaced repetition. [3]
You learn a concept, allow some time to pass, and then revise.
Some people space out their repetitions over hours, days, and weeks.
As a busy person, I track four important days when learning a new concept I want to retain:
Day 0: This is the actual day of learning. I don’t waste time repeating the material an inordinate amount of times. I just study the material carefully and make sure I understand it in that moment. Then, I allow the memory to recede. In other words, I allow myself to forget.
Day 2: I don’t remember everything two days later, but that’s okay. I try to retrieve by translating (Spanish to English). You can use flashcards, complete a quiz, fill blanks, or write up a summary essay from memory, depending on what you’re learning. The more effortful the act of recalling, the better it is for strengthening the neural links.
Day 7: Try to retrieve the memory again. At this point, it’s usually much less effortful and it takes only a fraction of the time.
Day 30: At this point, you would have created strong retrieval cues and neural links. This recall session is your final verification that the memory is going to be there when you need it in the future.
This spaced repetition method is one I am currently testing out and it’s working amazingly well so far.
Feel free to steal it or create a revision system of your own.
Misconception #2: Learn whenever.
Most people work with the assumption that all time is equal.
‘Don’t think too much about when you’re going learn. Just choose a time that seems convenient and try to stick to it.’
I don’t fully agree with this.
As someone with a truckload of life and work responsibilities, you want to maximize whatever time you cut out for learning.
Convenience matters, but it certainly isn’t the only criterion for choosing your learning time.
You’ll need a bit more introspection and a lot of self-experimentation.
Consider these three factors when scheduling time for learning. [4]
Alertness
There are peaks and troughs in your energy levels during the day.
And procrastination is hard to resist when you’re mentally ready to shut down.
Do you remember how you feel immediately you get back from work?
For me, it looks something like this:
The impetus to learn is virtually non-existent.
I am tempted to savor instant dopamine hits from scrolling on social media.
Even on the days I force myself to learn, I would likely be forming less effective memory traces because I’m tired.
It’s harder to consolidate these memory traces into lasting long-term memories that can be retrieved later.
After a while, the whole learning endeavor seems pointless.
This is exactly what happened with my friend Olivia and her violin.
Let me tell you what I told her.
Schedule your learning or reading for a time when you are less tired and more alert.
For me, that’s in the mornings.
Before I step out into the whirlwind of life waiting outside my home, I have already completed one hour of Spanish lessons and revisions.
Distractions
You inevitably have ‘distraction-prone’ periods in your day.
Disturbances from noisy roommates or neighbors, calls from friends, etc.
It’s not possible to fully insulate yourself from all distractions when you’re trying to learn.
But by refusing to decrease the chances of getting distracted, you’re asking to be derailed in your learning progress.
Choosing to wake up an hour early is my go-to recommendation.
You gain a peaceful learning hour you probably wouldn’t have otherwise.
It depends on what your schedule’s like, though.
Pick a time when you can concentrate, set your phone to ‘Do not Disturb,’ and give yourself a full hour of engaged studying.
Consistency
Daily commitment is the goal when you schedule your learning times.
Inadvertently, life happens and you skip a session once a while.
Still, you want to set things up such that skipping is an exception, not the rule.
If you need to be out of the house by 7 am on three out of the five-day work week, 7 am is not a viable learning time.
Create a rhythm that you slide into effortlessly each day.
Choose a time that is available every day or, at the very least, 5 times a week.
Misconception #3: Learn and don’t sleep too much.
This misconception ↑ has come under a lot of fire recently.
And I’m all for it.
Obviously, you shouldn’t sacrifice learning for extra sleep.
But the flip side is just as unacceptable.
Don’t stay up learning at the expense of sleep.
Pre-learning sleep is just as important as post-learning sleep (I’m not just making things up) [5] [6]
The sleep you get the night before learning helps you stay alert and attentive.
Sleeping on what you’ve learned is also key.
By allowing yourself a full night of rest, you combine old knowledge with the new stuff.
Sleep is indispensable for encoding, consolidating, and reconsolidating memories. [7]
You’re allowing yourself to get the gist of what you have learned, form summaries of your learning, all with a creative spin on it.
Maybe you already know this.
You also know that you ideally need about 7 to 8 hours of sleep.
But knowing it doesn’t make it any easier to implement, right?
For self-directed learners with a 9–5, sleeping for 8 hours would mean having two-thirds of each day taken up by work and sleep.
And you feel like there’s a lot to squeeze into the remaining 8 hours.
However, learning for only one hour every day is sufficient.
With proper scheduling, you can fit everything else into the rest of the available time.
The bulk of learning is to unlearn and improve on what we know.
How do you feel about reshaping your perspectives around these three misconceptions?
Everyone appreciates a good TL;DR so here’s one for your highlights:
Misconception #1: Learn and don’t ever forget.
What to do instead: Review material after time has elapsed to help you retain more.
Misconception #2: Learn whenever.
What to do instead: Schedule your learning times based on when you’re more alert, less likely to be distracted, and your chances of committing daily.
Misconception #3: Learn and don’t sleep too much.
What to do instead: Recognize that pre-learning sleep is just as important as post-learning sleep. For the sake of your learning goals, don’t compromise on your sleep.
I write about purposeful and productive self-directed learning.
I send out free tips on how to learn anything effectively and productively, on your own terms.
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References
[1] Why Our Brains Are Designed to Forget
[2] Sleep On It. How Snoozing Strengthens Memories
[3] Spaced Repetition: the Busy Student’s Best Friend
[5] Sleep stages, memory and learning.
[6] The Role of Slow Wave Sleep in Memory Processing
[7] Sleep-Dependent Memory Consolidation and Reconsolidation
