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Foreword
In modern society, learning has become vitally essential no matter who you are. The ability to learn fast and effectively determines whether you will be successful or not. In this article, I will walk you through the process of human learning and give you 14 ways to boost your learning outcome. Hope you find it helpful.
Learning In the Past vs. Now
Around a few decades ago, people could only gather new knowledge through books, news, and words from others, probably their parents and teachers. Their knowledge was limited since they were unable to approach new things. The situation has been significantly improved after the Internet was invented, and information nowadays becomes much more accessible.
Today, people could find what they need just by typing a few keywords on a web browser. The roadblock that hinders people from learning more has been tackled.
However, we have encountered another problem– low learning efficacy. The number of electronic resources these days has increased about twenty times when comparing to the past. And every day, we are passively receiving these enormous electronic resources through our devices. In this situation, our learning efficacy would be tremendously affected without filtering unnecessary information.
So, here’re the questions, how could we select our desire information from the flood of information and maximize our learning efficacy after we have filtered the information?
Recently, I have read a book named ‘学び効率が最大化するインプット大全’ (Input). It is written by 樺沢 紫苑 (Kabasawa Sion) , and it is about approaches we could take to filter information and maximize our learning in modern society. Here are the ways I found in the book that are the most helpful ones to answer our questions. Hope you could learn from it too.
What is learning? Learning= IN+PUT?
Learning is the process of gathering new information from the outside world and putting them into our brains. When talking about a word to visualize the process of learning, the first word that comes into my mind is INPUT, a word that is commonly used in modern society, especially after machine learning was invented.
How to enhance learning?
The process of learning is separated into two essential parts, the ‘in’ part and the ‘put’ part. If one of them is absent, we can’t learn anything.
| Process | What does it do? |
|---|---|
| IN | Gathering and filtering Information |
| PUT | Putting them in our brain |
To maximize our learning, we should enhance the way we gather information (IN) and memorizing them (PUT).
Gathering + Filtering information (IN)
The first step of learning, gathering information, determines what we are putting into our brain. In modern society, there is a multitude of electronic resources out there. If we are not cautious about what we are getting from the flood of information, it may cause harm to our spiritual health. For instance, things about succeeding, do you ever heard of people telling you not to try something since you will fail? If you are listening to them, that’s the time your spiritual health gets devastated.
More, sometimes, getting information that hasn’t been filtered may also cause harm to our mental health. Have you ever tried to search for any symptoms online when you are feeling sick? You may probably get something that frightens you. I remember I did search something about stomachache 5 years ago, and the search result told me I got cancer. (I was like WTF). At last, I got well after I went to number 2.
Approaches to enhance the ‘IN’ process
In today’s world, filtering information has become vitally essential. However, how could we filter or gather information effectively? How to lower the time taken, increase accuracy and accessibility when searching for information on the web? Here are some ways I learn from the book.
Here are some ways I learn from the book.
1. Searching for Real Content
Without any restriction on sending content to the Internet, fake information is spreading everywhere in the Internet world nowadays. To judge the content of an article is legit or not, one of the fastest and the best ways is to check who is writing the article. If you find the author has a good reputation or has numerous years of experience in that specific sector, his article is more trustworthy than other articles written by no one.
Of course, sometimes, you may not find any information about the author. Based on what I have said, you should close that website immediately. But wait!!! What if the author is providing good content? What if you are searching for something that is common or doesn’t require specific knowledge? What if you are searching for something that isn’t many articles writing about it? In such a case, you should give it a try first. See how he answers your question. See how he structures his content. See how he illustrate his content (image? words?). And you will find the answer after you did these approaches.
| Priority | Things you should check before learning |
|---|---|
| 1st priority | Who is the author? (Famous? Good Reputation? Experienced?) |
| 2nd priority | Good Content? (How is it structured? Examples?) |
(Something about our blog: We are not experts/professionals. We are here to record all we learn to become rich. That’s why our name is Be Rich Diary. We believe all successful people are started from scratch. They were once one of us. They succeeded since they are ambitious and persevering. You may not trust us, that’s fine. But you should first look at our content before judging. We promise all content we provided in our blog is trustworthy)
2. Finding a Real Teacher
Apart from distinguishing Real and fake content, another way that helps you to filter information effectively is to learn from a real teacher. Why? Since a Real teacher could provide you the best and the most practical stuff that you need. So that you could waste no time and effort to search or learn something useless. They know how to teach you since they had once scratched from the bottom just like you are now, and they know every obstacle you may face. By learning from them, your process of gathering and filtering information could become effective and fast.
How could you find a real teacher? What differentiates a real teacher from a fake teacher? The rule of thumb is to find someone who is successful in that sector, and they could show you how they apply what they taught in their daily life. I don’t think finding someone who is just talking about something theoretical is helpful for your learning, right? After found them, you could start learning from them by reading their books, meeting them, or the best ways nowadays, following their social media. The more you stick with them, the more you become the one you want to be.
3. Mind Mapping
Another suggestion for you maximizes your process of gathering and filtering information is to make preparation such as drawing a mind map before you start learning something. A well-preparation before learning allows you to find what you need next without wandering on the web. Things such as drawing a mind map could help you to learn better.
Here, you may ask how I could draw a mind map without learning anything. In such a case, you could ask someone on some famous forums such as Quora.com or search on Google.com with keywords such as ___basics, beginner guide, etc. They will give you a brief picture of what you need to include in your mind map.
4. Using Google Alert to gather desire information
Other than filtering information by yourself, you can use the Google Alert to cut down the time you spend finding information from the web/search engine.
Google Alerts is a tool that monitors the web for interesting new content. It sends you an email when something new about a topic is upload to the internet. To use the Google Alert, you need to input the topic you are interested in by typing a keyword in the Google Alerts search bar to create an alert. Since then, the system will send you an email to notify you whenever something is related to that field.
We did explain how to use the Google Alerts in one of our articles. If you wish to know more, be sure to check it out.
Related article: How to use the Google Alerts?
Do you know how our memory works? (PUT)
The second step of learning, memorizing, determines whether we could learn or not. How our brain remembers information and how our memory works have been continuously investigated throughout a long history. Many Scientists have put a lot of effort into figuring out how they work.
When talking about maximizing our learning process, we need to understand how our brain remembers information and how our memory works. However, they are really complicated stuff, and I am not writing too much about that. But in brief, our brain remembers things base on how impressive the information is, its connection with our memory, whether it will trigger our emotions and whether our brain deems it as a piece of important information.
The more the information being impressive, the easier we remember it. The more the connection between the information and our memory, the better we remember it. The more the information triggers our emotions, the stronger the memory. The more important the information, the longer we memorize it.
Further reading:
How Do We Remember Things And Why? How Does Our Brain and Memory Work?
How to improve your memory, according to neuroscience
Approaches to enhance the ‘PUT’ process
After knowing the basics of how our brain memorizing things, we could then go to the next part, how to maximize the “PUT” process. Here are some ways I learn from the book.
1. AZ (Read, Listen, Watch)
You may probably hear nothing about the AZ. It’s normal since it is a term created by the author of the book, 学び効率が最大化するインプット大, and it is invented base on the pronunciation of the first word of output and premise in Japanese. It is a method pointed out by the author that could maximize the learning outcomes of humans by learning under the premise of making outputs such as teaching others, writing a blog, and more.
The reason that AZ method could enhance the learning outcome of human is it develop stress in people. As previously mentioned, triggering emotions could strengthen the memory of people. When people are told they are to make an output after learning, most of the time, they will become stressed /frightened /panic, maybe due to lack of experience or whatever. This strengthens their memory since their emotions are triggered during the process.
Other than that, noradrenaline is also secreted in the human body when people are stressed. This allows people to become much more focusing and enhance their thinking ability, memory, and judgment.
So, if you are trying to maximize your learning outcomes, try to add some stress to yourself, maybe tell your friends what you have learned, write a blog, make a video, or else.
Apart from that, try to add as much stress to yourself as possible since it could further maximize your outcomes. An experiment conducted by the University of London shows that people could remember things better when they feel much more stressed. Therefore, next time if you are preparing for an exam/test/interview, you could try this.
2. Learning from the basic
How do you learn? Apart from the AZ method, another way to enhance your learning outcomes is to learn from the basics. As previously mentioned, we remember things better when the information is associated with our previous memory. If that’s being said, how could we make a connection between our newly learned knowledge and our memory? The answer is to learn something easy first, then increase the difficulty phase by phase.
The reason to do that is to let us build our foundation from what we are familiar with and further understand something hard. It’s just like how people construct a building. People build the foundation first, then finish the rest of the building. To give you a clear picture, let me give you an example of why we should learn from the basics. Imagine you are learning Chinese. If you don’t even know what pinyin is, how come you can read a passage in Chinese? Even if you spent 1000 hours, you still can’t understand that passage.
So, if you are trying to maximize your learning outcomes, learn from the basics first. You can also use a mind map to record what you have learned and connect them. It could refresh your memory when you are drawing it after you have learned something. More, it also helps you strengthen the connection between your memory and the information you learned. Kill two birds with one stone.
3. Make it relevant to your life
Other than learning from the basics, making the information relevant to our life could also boost our learning outcomes. As previously mentioned, we could memorize a thing better when the information has a connection with our previous memory. If so, why don’t we try to make connections between what we have learned and our daily life? Simply by turning them relevant to our life. For instance, when you are learning a language, you can use some vocabulary to describe what you are doing and connect it to your memory.
4. Find your best time to learn + Golden 15 minutes before bed
When do you learn best? Another way to enhance your memorizing outcomes is to learn things when your brain functions the best. For most people, the morning is always the best time for them to learn as it is a time that they have the most energy after sleeping. However, do you know people also learn well in the afternoon? According to science, throughout the day, human learning is most effective from 10am to 2pm and 4pm to 10pm. Learning in these two periods maximizes people learning outcomes.
Of course, you may find the time that has been mentioned may not suit you. It’s normal since the time that everyone learns the best vary. But it doesn’t matter since what I am emphasizing here is to tell you to learn at your best time. It could be in the early morning, late night, or midnight. As long as you are concentrated and could memorize things the best, that’s okay.
As previously mentioned, learning from either 10am to 2pm or 4pm to 10pm could enhance people learning outcomes. However, it becomes difficult for students or workers to learn in these two periods since they got their things to do and may become exhausted after finishing their stuff. So, is there anything they can do to compensate for what they have missed? The answer is yes, by making good use of the 15 minutes before they sleep.
Learning 15 minutes before bed is another time that important to boost peoples’ learning outcomes. According to science, people tend to remember things better when they learn 15 minutes before they sleep. People could manipulate this period to read books or rewind what they have learned on that day to strengthen their memory of related stuff. But keep in mind, do not use any electronic device during that period since the blue light that the electronic device emitted may elongate the time you fell asleep. Making the whole thing goes to the wrong way.
5. Review Repeatedly
Do you know reviewing what you have learned at least 3 times in two weeks could make you remember a thing for a long time? According to the book,学び効率が最大化するインプット大, our brain tends to remember a thing longer when it is deemed as a piece of important information. So, if that’s being said, we can boost our learning outcomes by “forcing” our brain to think a thing is essential. But how? The answer is through the Mere Exposure Effect.
The Mere Exposure Effect is a well-known psychological phenomenon and is often used in boosting advertising outcomes and interpersonal attraction. It is a terminology that depicts humans tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. In other words, humans tend to choose something they are familiar with rather than something they don’t know.
Apart from improving advertising outcomes and interpersonal attraction, this effect could also be applied in enhancing our learning outcomes. According to an article published in the BMC Psychology, people tend to remember things better when they see somethings frequently, so-called the spacing effect. You need not know the whole mechanism. But if you wish to know more, you can go check out the article.
After understanding the effect that the Mere Exposure Effect brings to our brain, “forcing” our brain to deem a thing as a piece of essential information becomes simpler. One of the approaches is to review what we have learned repeatedly for a period (two weeks suggested from the book, 学び効率が最大化するインプット大). The times for revision vary with different people, but basically, at least three times.
So, if you want to boost your learning outcomes, revise what you have learned at least three times in two weeks. It will help you to memorize what you have acquired better.
6. Don’t listen to Music when learning (White noise👍🏻)
Do you listen to music when you are learning? I believe many of you may do like learning with some background music. However, do you know listening to music while you are learning lowers your learning efficacy?
According to research conducted by Glasgow Caledonian University, people’s memory and focusing do their best while they are learning without “sound”. The reason for that is the irrelevant sound around us will affect the function of our brain, so call the irrelevant sound effect. Turning it from single-tasking (memorizing) to multi-tasking (memorizing and listen).
The situation gets even worse if you are singing along with the song. So, if you want to boost your learning outcomes, try to stay away from music/noise while you are memorizing things or focusing.
However, if you are the one who can’t focus in absolute silence or a crowded area, you can try to play some white noise such as raining sound, or whatever you like. According to research carried out by Stockholm University, listening to white noise music could ameliorate the situation that people do worse in focus. Make them become much focusing during learning. However, on the contrary, it worsens the learning efficacy of people who do well in concentration.
If so, should you listen to white noise when you are learning? The answer varies with different people. You could give it a shot, but keep in mind, the volume of the white noise you listen to should not be too loud, or else it does the same as what music does, as previously mentioned.
7. Schedule Your Time to Learn
What is your learning plan? Are you a won’t-rest-until-finish guy? I am. Often, I feel bad when I didn’t finish work or plan in one go. Therefore, seldom do I take a rest before I finished what I’m “supposed” to do. Do anyone is the same as me? Anyway, do you know it lowers our learning efficacy? A study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign points out that working for a long time without a rest worsens people’s productivity. If so, when should we take a rest during work time? The answer is using the Pomodoro Technique.
Pomodoro Technique, so-called the Tomato Timer, is a well-known method to enhance people’s learning outcomes. It was invented by Francesco Cirillo in 1980s. This method has been used by different people nowadays to schedule their time to work and learn effectively.
We did write an article about how to use the Tomato Timer to learn. If you wish to know more, be sure to check it out.
Related article: Tomato Timer: How to schedule your time to learn
8. Stay away from distractions when learning
Often, people are distracted when they receive phone calls/ notifications/ emails from their devices. It distracts them from what they are focusing on, lowers their learning efficacy, and further affects their learning outcomes.
Do you know how many notifications and emails people received every day? A study found that people receive, on average, 63.5 notifications per day. Apart from push notifications, another study also found that 319.6 million emails are being sent daily in 2021.
Imagine you are reading each on them every time they pop up. How many times will you be distracted from what you are doing? How long would it take you to finish reading them? Even if you are just glancing at them, it still takes you 5-10 seconds to load and peek at every email or push notification you have received.
In such cases, how come you could finish your task on time? More, you cannot schedule the time you receive emails and push notifications. You receive them from time to time. And they will distract you from what you are doing if you look at them whenever you received them.
So, how could you stay away from these time-to-time distractions? Simply by putting away your phone or turning on the do-not-disturb function in your devices. So that you can stay focus on what you are doing and never be distracted from other irrelevant stuff, meanwhile boost your learning efficacy and outcomes.
9. Memorizing 3 things in one go (3+3…)
You may probably have heard of what the RAM is. Random Access Memory, so-called RAM, is a form of computer memory that temporarily stores information in computers. It is often embedded in computers and wearables to drive systems such as Mac OS and Windows. And it will overload when there are too many tasks working at the same time. However, do you know our brain gets RAM too? Working memory, a thing that helps humans memorize and deal with the incoming information they received. It is the RAM we got in our brain.
We, humans, are all relying on the Working memory to remember stuff. Whenever we are learning, it helps us “hold” the memory and give time to our brain to process the information. So that we can memorize and acquire them. However, a bit different from the RAM of computers/wearables using these days, the memory size of our brain’s RAM is actually very small.
The author of the book, 学び効率が最大化するインプット大, points out that the RAM (working memory) of our brain could only allow us to deal with 3 pieces of information at once. And if we try to deal with more than 3 pieces of information at once, our brain will overload, and we can’t memorize in such a case. If so, don’t be greedy when you are learning next time. Keep in mind, target 3 things once, then acquire them and repeat.
10. Learning in different places
How often will you get out of your home and study somewhere else? Do you know learning in different places will boost your learning outcomes? A study from the New York Times found that learning in various venues can improve people’s productivity, recall, and memory.
The reason behind this is that changing the place of learning could stimulate the place cell in our hippocampus, a component in our brain, to activate our brain, and enhance our memory. Apart from changing the venue, according to the book, 学び効率が最大化するインプット大, we could also stimulate the place cell of our brain by walking or moving.
So, next time if you are trying to boost your learning outcomes, be sure to walk around when you are taking a rest, or study in somewhere else.
Final Thought
In the modern society, Learning quickly and effectively has become vitally essential. The ability to learn fast and effectively determines whether you will be successful or not. In this article, I have pointed out several approaches that you can take to maximize your learning. Hope you find it helpful.
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