The best time to learn is when you are relaxed and know how to deal with information.
And boy, I am learning this the hard way. With too many things happening simultaneously (at house, at work and with other extra-curricular activities) and with my curiously in-the-moment-wants-to-learn-everything stage, I experienced time and again burn-out to accomplish anything at all.
According to a trivia I heard a long time ago, Albert Einstein, one of the greatest minds that ever lived, actually used ONLY twelve percent (12%) of his brain. Imagine how much a human brain could actually do based on that fact! But, according to research, a human brain is like a sponge. It retains information the individual deems necessary to his well-being and filters everything out. At most times, the brain reacts with the conduciveness of the environment and a person’s well-being to easily adapt and retain information in his brain. That is why it is often pointed out to take good physical well-being into consideration within the process of learning something new.
Currently at my mid-20s, I’m experiencing some pressure in stabilizing myself in the not-so-distant future of approaching 30s. I admit I had previous years of leisure at my hands. Despite never-ending amounts of problems within the family, I was still content in the idea I had long years ahead of me to work for a good future. And yet, I feel I am presently zero on my goals and at this time I having the urge and motivation to take up learning’s I had deemed necessary before but never had the initiative to study.
I want to be the master of my current craft, which is Web Design. I want to be an expert on HTML, CSS and design layout techniques.
Afterwards, I will work on back-end sources, which are specifically PHP, MySQL and Actionscript for Flash.
There are also the vector techniques I want to learn for icon and illustration purposes.
Not to mention, I want to have a review on my Basic Japanese. It’s been so long since I last read a basic passage. I believe I’m not remembering much at all.
I had tried different ways to learn everything all-together in as little time as possible with the goal of updating my portfolio with what is recent and technologically advanced.
- I tried eating brain-foods while studying. But doing so with a sleepy mind does not help at all. Same thing with coffee.
- Waking up early morning to study is said to be effective since your brain is fresh and will easily pick-up everything. But if you slept really late from watching DVD and your mind diverts to focus on the work ahead of you, all that information you learned might easily go down the drain.
- Sitting alone in the living room on a lazy, bright Sunday afternoon with no harping family member, with only the sound of chimes as your music, and your book on your lap. And you end up dozing the whole time because everything is to relaxing to even think of reading.
- No, I didn’t take any every drink. Some say its effective but I don’t want to stay awake all day and sleep the whole of the next. I have responsibilities to accomplish each day.
It is hard setting up a routine for study especially for someone out of school for years and has responsibilities and obligations to think about.
At most, I have diverted back to a book that was given for free when I was in elementary on how to review well in any chosen subject. The author is a man who had a family at an early age. He was forced to work for his family and at the same time study in college. Amazingly though, when he was single, he was an average student but when he became a family man, he learned techniques for time-management and mind-enhancement skills to get straight A’s in all subjects!
Some of the techniques I remember (I haven’t read everything yet, I just scanned earlier) are the ff:
- Know how to find keywords that will help you remember facts.
- Always bring index cards with your notes and keywords in them. Anything of the day, when you are free, you can look at them and review. Making this a daily habit would end up you having your notes planted deeply in your brain without you realizing it.
With our latest technologies, index cards are almost obsolete in use. With cellphones, PDAs, and the internet, there are various ways to store information in selected gadgets and access them easily anywhere, anytime.
- Make it a point to subscribe to publications, RSS feeds, newsletters that is related to the subject you are studying. Make sure they have regular updates and you allot some of your time in actually reading them especially if they are daily RSS updates. Constantly reading an article about the subject would have you understand a lot of things. Facts, dates, procedures, news, etc.
- Who says you can’t study with background noise (e.g. tv, radio, etc.)? You can do these things while studying with the use of notes you recorded on a tape. You can listen to your notes while watching sports. One ear hears the commentator while the other hears your notes.
- Work in an environment you are most relaxed in. May it be in a park , beside a pool, in your room etc. As long as you are sure the environment could help you in studying and would not provide you distraction you hate.
- FOCUS AT ONE SUBJECT AT A TIME. This is the big boo boo I made. I may get to learn a lot of things but I can’t master one.
There are more ways to enhance our brain power and studying skills. But the bottom is, you must take into consideration which learning is a priority. Afterwards, you could proceed to another subject. It is best to learn study skills to aid in learning as well as maintain time management (especially for professionals). Ability to maintain a balanced life is also key for better learning.
