For Self-Motivated Entrepreneurs With A Desire To Learn More, With Less Stress

(See link to a free course below - Starts Today 18th, Nov 2020)

Education or learning is extremely important to most people who believe in self-development. Learning new skills is especially important to entrepreneurs. 

Learning is living and living is learning. Most of us have had to learn new skills, like a new language, complex math formulas, physics, and at one time how to tie a shoelace. Today, I will like to share with you, three simple techniques to make learning anything easier and with much less stress. They are...

1. Focused and diffuse thinking. 

2. Chunking  

3. The Memory Palace 

These 3 quick study techniques I learned from an online course hosted by the University of California. The course was titled “Learning How To Learn”. These techniques provide a snapshot of what the course offered. Delivered by a university lecturer, Dr. Barbara Oakley, well known for her mathematical wizardry in the West Coast, USA. She is the author of the book “A Mind For Numbers”. 

She is a change agent in her field, she is an advocate for her new learning techniques. She believes that the brain can be trained to learn anything fast. The following are snippets of the course:  

Focused and Diffused Thinking: 

The mind thinks in two distinctive ways, like two sides of the same coin, it can be either focused or diffused. When focused, it can only focus on one topic at a time, whether it is an idea, a calculation, or reading material. Multitasking increases the time it takes to learn. Dr. Oakley has determined that the mind can focus intently for about 25 to 30 minutes, without distractions. This is followed by a period of at least 5 to 10 minutes of complete off-topic activity. This off-topic activity is what she calls “diffused thinking”. 

When diffused, your mind processing what you have been focusing on, and records it in your memory. Most likely, you have had the experience of trying without success to remember something, and then boom, while you are not thinking about it, the answer, the solution, the name or word, pops into mind.  

According to Dr. Oakley, that is how we learn and retain information. This theory is supported by another academic researcher who created a timer he calls the “Promodoro” Breaking up your study into time blocks is supported by the next learning technique..:    

Chunking:

 the act of breaking a large task into small parts. As a boy scout, our motto was “Be Prepared” and part of being prepared was to learn how to tie a variety of knots. I remember one knot, in particular, a reef knot. I still remember how to tie a reef knot. The reef knot is particularly useful because no matter how hard when it is tightened it can easily be unloosed. The reason I still remember it is that I learned to tie the knot in chunks. The process was lefthand over righthand, twist, then right over left, inside the hole; tied perfectly. By breaking the task down into small chunks, I never forgot how to tie a reef knot. Chunking can be applied to any subject, the topic process you want to learn. Chunk everything, learn it in parts then put the parts back together.  

And the third technique in the course is a technique that helps in memorizing lists of anything. It is known as…

The Memory Palace: 

Dr. Oakley shared a few memory techniques to assist learners in remembering ordered lists. Each memory technique should relate to the material being studied. As such, the Memory Palace technique is especially useful in remembering ordered lists although it can be used to remember any list of items. A Memory Palace is an imaginary location in your mind where you can store mnemonic images. 

The most common type of memory palace involves making a journey through a place you know well, like your home, a building, or town. Along that journey, there are specific locations that you always visit in the same order. These locations are associated with the items on your list and are easily remembered... For example, if you think of your home you can associate your door with the first item on your list. Next, as you open your door your dog may greet you associate your dog with item two on your list, and so on…

What I have just shared with you can help you learn anything faster. If you are an entrepreneur with a desire to learn more than you know now, then today is your lucky day.  

You can take the free course by Coursera.com online. Not sure of the lecturer, it may be Dr. Oakley. 

The course starts today, November 18th, 2020. Go take it and make your learning limitless. “Learning How To Learn”

Do you want to learn something new?