Notes taken from the excellent course how to learn

Thinking

Mind has two modes of thinking : focused and diffused.

  • focused mode :

when a person concentrates to learn.
part of the brain (prefrontal cortex) is activated where the neural patterns are strong.

When asked 2+2 to a person, the answer immediately goes 4 because of the strong neural path that is result of practice.

  • diffused mode :

More relaxed state of brain.
There is no defined neural patterns, hence one can think of topics very broadly.

Notes :

  • Human cannot be in same modes at the same time.
  • Learning something difficult takes time.
  • Practice makes permanent.

Learning

  • Learning means building a neural structure about a topic.
  • Think of it as building a wall.
  • strong neural structure about a topic can be built by learning in chunks, and letting it dry.
  • if things are learned by cramming at once then the neural structure is poorly built and likely to fade away.
  • Learning by analogy is best learning method

Procrastination

  • When the work-to-do is scary then part of the brain is activated that related to pain.
  • To relieve the pain and feel happier, the mind diverts attention to something that will give instant gratification.
  • Hence we keep off from tasks we are supposed to do now.

How to deal with procrastination ?

  • to make the mind understand that it can have instant gratification if it helps to do scary work for some time.
  • in this case pomodoro technique can help
  • do work, take break, gratify yourself and repeat

Pomodoro technique helps you to overcome procrastination

  • set timer 25min
  • focus
  • take a break, reward yourself

Memory

There are 2 types : working and long term memory.

  • working memory is related to hold objects about things you are currently working on.
  • Working memory is very volatile and needs repetition to retain things.

  • holds different objects and helps to understand by connecting them.

  • Long term memory
    the store house. very huge capacity.
    objects from working memory can be transfered to long term memory by spaced repetition over days.

Sleep

When awake the brain produces toxic content. When in sleep, the brain cells shrink and toxic materials are washed away.
The concepts are understood best over sleep or dreaming about it.

Chunk

compact package of information

Collecting all the small bits of information and storing it in memory as a abstract thought, is called chunking.