I have always been very curious my whole life. My browser history is still loaded with why’s and how’s. With a lot of curiosity, it was inevitable for me to learn new things. Even the things that have no direct impact on my life. I used to spend heavy hours searching for things and reading, watching videos that were not going to make life easier.
What is learning: A new way of seeing how we learn
What I found from my curiosity is that learning doesn’t require much effort. You can scroll over the reels and learn. I mean learning is not only associated with things that matter in life. Whatever we are consuming is Learning!
Take a look at your day, how did you spend most of the day! Did you work, spent time on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or maybe Twitter and not to forget YouTube? Yes, this is learning too, maybe not be aligned with your life goals.
Only when you know that you are going to learn useful things, your brain will start feeling lazy but overall learning is easy.
Do not try to learn everything that comes your way. Do not think that when you are sitting down opening up your book and starting reading is the only time you are learning. Learning is happening when you are breathing. It is just you are not aware of it. You become aware when you start reading and your mind starts suggesting it is boring. Come on! This mind has been learning 24/7, don’t listen to it.
Relationship between recalling information and revision
The problem is recalling the consumed information. Can you tell me how many videos you watched last time? Or maybe what kind of reels you were aware of watching, what were you reading here and there on the internet? It is difficult, right? Recalling is difficult because it needs revisions, the more you revise something, books, articles, and videos, the more you will remember it. So, watching something for a single time is literally wasting your time. You are surely not going to remember everything. I tried to experiment with it and found that sometimes, I couldn’t even recall a single Instagram reel that I had watched yesterday.
Mind’s quest for new and more every time!
There is another aspect of seeing it, the Mind wants something new in everything, but in order to learn, you should do it again and again. The mind wants to watch the very next video, and maybe go to the next shop for more shopping. The mind needs more, this is the way it functions. But it’s like putting apples in a bag that has a big hole on the other side. It won’t stick.
Mind consuming content for the first time – Fewer efforts
Mind wanting more, and stopping it from it – Difficult
Mind reading again the same thing (Revision) – not difficult but the mind says it’s not needed because it is against its basic nature i.e., “I want more and new”.
This way of consuming information is surely not going to help.
The power of revision
Learning needs revisions. Revisions are going to make the information stick in some place of your mind so that when needed you can recall the information easily.
We talked about learning, we talked about revisions.
Best way to revise or how to revise?
I think the first thing I want to clear you out is that there is literally not the best way out there for anything. Never fall for the best ways. I used to look for the best ways here and there and then I realized that we should look for the things that have worked with the people.
There is no best way to revise but there are a few things to consider.
- The first revision should come directly after you have learned something
- If you are planning to learn for 1 hour, keep 20% time to revise the same just after finishing it, for 1 hour, 10-15 minutes of revision is the necessity.
- The second revision should come in 24H, you can be a bit quicker this time.
- 3rd revision in 1st week and 4th revision after 1 month.
- Revision should be allotted its own time. Don’t revise while eating. Make your brain feel that this is an important task so that it pays more attention.
How you do the revision has little to no impact on recalling power. Just Revise!
