Have you ever thought about it before? We are trying to outrun Time to learn as many subjects as we can. However, we never tried to think about something more important than Time, that is the way we learn things.
I have read a book that changed completely my view on a very important topic in the life of every human in this age of information. The Book’s title is “A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (even if you flunked Algebra)” and its author is Barbara Oakley.
After reading this book, I realized I was doing too many mistakes that were hindering my progress. The subtle and simple examples and explanations found in the book made me gain insights about myself as well as changing the way I see Science.
I’m not going of course to talk about everything I saw in the book but I will give a good glimpse of its content. It was like a revelation for the mind.
Between Body and Mind:
First, the mind has two modes of thinking: the focused mode and the diffused mode. Maybe many of you know this but what is really important is your ability to alternate effectively between the two modes in order to solve problems.
If you are struggling with procrastination, then the Pomodoro technique shall be your friend. Define a certain short duration for a task at hand. Let’s say 20 or 25 minutes. In this duration, you do not do anything except doing the task. Only focus on that task. The shortness of the duration will trick your mind into starting working. After you complete it, You can rest. Highly productive people use this technique in a sequential manner: they work for a duration, get some rest, and repeat the process.
There are also two types of memory in the human brain: short-term memory (analog to RAM or Random Access Memory) and long-term memory (analog to Hard disks). For the information to remain for a long time in your brain, it has to pass from the short-term memory to the long-term one. This process is tricky because we think it is easy. In fact, passive rereading and getting distracted while studying the material will not help you at all.
Spaced repetition of studying, complete focus, and chunking the material at hand into small digestible parts are keys for you to master the subject in the long run.
Avoid distractions is not alone enough. You have to reward yourself from time to time. When you achieve small victories like understanding a certain concept or memorizing a difficult equation or principle, then there is no shame in feeling proud and having fun without any guilt!
There is one last piece of advice that was highlighted many times in the book and was considered so critical by the writer: Get enough sleep! Even if you apply all the learning techniques well enough, you will get nothing if you don’t sleep well! It is something that is absolutely and definitely necessary!
And finally,
I hope this article encouraged you to actually get a peek into this book. I highly recommend doing so. You can contact us to obtain a digital copy if you want! One last notice: what I said in this article is one small droplet in a large ocean.
