Can you remember what you had for lunch last week Tuesday? Probably not. Our brains are masters at forgetting information we don’t repeat regularly. But what can we do about it? I, like many others, had to painstakingly learn the art of learning as I went through college. Here are some of my tips for successful learning.
It is important to understand a subject first and then learn it. I work through a text in three steps. First, I read the text very carefully. I grasp the entire content and mark key points and passages. Then I read the text diagonally, i.e. I skim the text quickly and organize the key terms for myself. After organizing, I write down the most important facts and shape them. The more you play with the information, the better. At the end of your studies, it also becomes more and more important not to re-learn the things you already know, but just to fill in the gaps. Here it helps to read a text diagonally first and then decide how important it is.