Get 10x better at learning
Understanding the science behind learning and powerful techniques to help you learn better
“We all learn differently”
You would have heard this statement at least a thousand times in your life. But most of us don’t really understand what does ‘learning differently’ means and how to exploit it.
We all know that genius kid in school who got straight As in all subjects, was a debating champion and part of the college sports team. What is more amazing is the seeming ease with which he/she was able to do all these things.
Or that colleague at work you can count on to think up brilliant solutions that seem so obvious after you hear them. And the worst thing is, he/she is able to do this all the time. The person is able to effortlessly explain that idea that was just within your grasp but remain unarticulated.
What is the secret behind this?
Great genes?
Perhaps not.
‘The person might just have mastered the art of learning and the application of that learning in the right situation.’
There is science behind how we learn and grasp things.
I have been researching this topic of learning for over a decade in my career.
Like most kids I was not taught how to learn in school. It was presumed that if you put in the hard work, you would automatically get better. It was only in my adult life, I understood and practiced the science behind ‘How to Learn Better’.
Just applying few of these principles has made such an incredible difference in my life. Now I enjoy delving into new and complex topics because I know how to master them quickly and enjoy the learning process.
‘Learning How to Learn’ is a large topic but I will cover a few core concepts in this post.
There is a difference between ‘understanding’ and ‘learning’
You would have come across a situation when a new topic is being discussed in detail. You find the topic interesting and are giving it your full attention. You feel like you completely understand the logic and thinking behind it.
In fact, you may feel that your understanding is so complete that you are ready to apply that knowledge to real life situations.
While the topic is being discussed, your brain is approaching it from different angles and is able to come up with newer solutions.
It feels like you have learnt this new topic for life.
A week later you come across a situation where you need to apply that learning.
However, when you try to recall, you could hardly remember 10% of it.
‘The reason is that while you may have understood it at that moment, you had not permanently stored that learning in your memory to allow for later retrieval.’
To understand this better, let’s take the analogy of a computer.
There are two kinds of memory —
- RAM : short term memory
- Hard disk : long term memory
When you are working on a live MS Word document, the computer uses the temporary RAM for storage and fast processing. If you do not save the file, it will disappear once you close the window or switch-off the computer. To access that document later, you will need to explicitly save the file on the hard disk.
Similarly, humans have a limited amount of working memory (aka RAM).
Science has shown that we have 4 memory slots.
At any single point of time you cannot hold more than 4 thoughts in your brain. To make those thoughts more permanent would require a conscious effort to store them in your long term memory (aka hard disk of the brain) so that you can free your working memory for new information.
Human brain is incredibly complex and a lot of this processing happens in split microseconds for us to be able to observe it. But our brains are forever working and switching information between these two memory systems without us knowing it.
Which gets us to the point of how can we improve our long term memory so that we are able to remember what we learnt.
The answer is…
Active recall
Active recall is a great technique to store information in your long term memory for future retrieval.
What it means is that you need to run over that information a few times in your head over a period of time for you to learn it more permanently
This is how it works.
When you learn anything new, the neurons in the brains get activated and send signals to surrounding neurons.
This interaction of neurons lead to connections being formed in the brain which results in memory.
The connections become stronger as these neurons interact more frequently. And the strength of those connections determine how permanent that memory is.
Everything is finite.
And so is our brain power.
That is why our memory is very selective about what it stores and what it discards.
We do not remember each instance of our life or every thought that ever came to our mind. There are some memories which are more permanent than others.
Memory is a result of our actions that are forever making that choice of retaining a piece of information or letting it fade away.
The first time any thought occurs in your brain a new connection is formed.
As you dwell more on the same thought, the existing connection becomes stronger. The more times you recall that memory, the connection gets stronger and over a period of time it gets hard-coded in your brain.
That is how learning happens.
Using active recall technique, you can learn to store important information more permanently in your brain so that you can retrieve it when you need to.
Practice problems exist for this very reason.
You learn a new topic that results in a new connection being formed and practice problems help strengthen those connections. In school, our teachers would keep telling us to revise. Which is nothing but practicing active recall. The more you revise, the stronger connections you build. This results in better learning and you are able to easily tackle questions in the exam.
Now that we have understood how learning takes place, let us look at another interesting related to learning.
Role of sleep in learning
Here we understand the importance of sleep on our memories and the learning process.
Sleeps aids in flushing away the toxins which accumulate in your brain
During the day you are bombarded with a million sensory inputs — smell, sight, touch, taste, hearing — throughout the day. You think countless thoughts and make countless decisions as you go about your day.
Your brain would be a jumbled mess of connections with the amount of activity it goes through within the span of a single day.
You must have heard or experienced something called brain fog. When you are hard at work for hours going over an immense amount of information and material that you are not able to even think properly.
And someone will advise you to take a nap for a while to see clearly through this jumbled mess.
What sleep does is cleans itself up during a rested state.
In that state your brain will sift through all the connections formed during the day and identify ones that are important. It will filter out the unnecessary information what we like to call as brain toxins.
It’s similar to cleaning up and throwing away the trash each night. As more space is created, the brain sorts out the important connections and logically organise them.
This is where the real learning is taking place. Where your RAM is getting saved into hard disk. Connections are solidified and stored in long term memory for future use.
Once your brain is rested after a good sleep, you are suddenly able to make more sense of what you were reading about the previous day. You would be mulling over something the whole of last night and the answer comes to you in the morning.
Your brain is working while you are sleeping and trying to make sense of all that information.
That, my friends, is the wonder of sleep.
And why you should not try to cut out on it, especially when you are chasing a big project or an exam. You brain needs rest to process that information and you are able to get to better answers.
How too much learning can stifle creativity
Too much learning is also not a good thing, especially for creativity.
When you revisit a thought pattern over and over again, the connections becomes so solid that you can recall them without expending any energy.
Habits are also like that. Once they have been formed you can go about them in auto mode without having to think while performing that action.
When your mind becomes predisposed to those established thought patterns, it is really hard for new information to seep in. This is called over learning which experts are so prone to.
Over many years you perfect a solution after multiple iterations and come to a best fit answer which you by default apply in any situation where it is relevant.
The situation may change or better or more appropriate methods of solving that problem might come up. But our brains are so reliant on existing best fit solution that it does not let you see beyond it.
This was a boon for industrial society where learning was mechanised for large scale production of goods and services.
But it has become a huge liability in today’s knowledge economy.
Things are changing so fast that you need to constantly innovate to stay relevant.
Unlearning and relearning have become a huge part of learning.
In today’s new age organisations you need to keep aside the baggage of old thought patterns and find newer and better ways of doing things.
Nowadays, T-shaped learning has gained more prominence.
You have to attain both breadth and depth in learning in whichever field you are in.
You typically master 1–2 areas and build knowledge across multiple domains. In this manner you are able to apply knowledge in areas of expertise other than one’s own.
Some of the great thinkers like Plato, Leonardo Da Vinci, or Elon Musk did not limit themselves to a single domain . They gained knowledge of multiple disciplines and applied concepts from those inter related disciplines to come up with innovative thought patterns.
Knowing how our brains work can help us use it more effectively. Regardless of our age or situation in life, each one of us can benefit by knowing ‘How to Learn Better’.
Feel free to leave a comment below if you would like me to write more posts on this topic. Till then…
Happy learning!
