How to Learn Anything?- Proven Ways to Learn Anything New
In today’s computerized world, it’s crucial to have some extra abilities beyond what you learn in school. Every person should strive to learn new things, but doing so can occasionally be daunting. That is why we are introducing you to our blog with the expectation that it will enable you to acquire new knowledge regularly.
Why Learn Anything?
Before diving into the techniques to learn anything we would like to first address, “Why to learn anything?” In layman’s terms, the psyche of an individual is designed to learn by nature. Learning not only encourages you but also expands your mind so that you could live up to your full potential. It builds a person’s self-confidence and helps them both personally and professionally.
Even though applying knowledge to your life may not be easy, having the knowledge allows you to advance in it. You will profit fully from your education as soon as you discover how to put that into practice. Also, you never know when a skill or other knowledge you have, may come in handy for you in ways you never anticipated. Learning spurs development as a person and enhances mental and physical health. It sculpts and forms you into a better version of yourself, eliminates boredom, raises levels of contentment, and fosters personal growth.
Things are changing every day new technologies are emerging making it important to keep up with the changing times and also retain your edge over the competition. Learning need not always be degrees (though formal education at times is advantageous) learning anything may also be learning new skills yourself which is by the way simple in modern times where you find knowledge at the press of a button, resulting in your eagerness to progress. For example: in today’s digitized world any sort of online marketing skills may be useful for your upcoming life.
Techniques to Learn Anything
Since, we have answered our question, “Why learn anything and its importance?” we now will take a deep dive to look into a few handy techniques to learn anything and upskill yourself.
1. Seeking someone who is well-equipped
The first and foremost technique to learn anything is to seek people who are already equipped. Imagine you want to learn digital marketing for upskilling, the first step that you should take is to seek people who are already working in the field. A person who is familiar with the material can share some shortcuts and tips which may be helpful for you in the long run. It is necessary to talk to someone already familiar with the material because even the most complicated and non-theoretical subjects have alternative ways to learn it.
2. Learning in chunks
Chunk learning is a strategy used to reduce the cognitive load of information by grouping small achievable units so that the information is processed by a learner easily.
The chunking process depends on various steps namely breaking large pieces of information into small units, organizing the information, and identifying similarities and patterns. The technical and complex subjects can be broken into small units for you to process easily and understand better.
3. Study Nap
Study,
Nap,
Study
Sounds fun, right?
The cycle should go on to improve your memory recollection. Sleep is when most of our memory consolidation process happens. In a research, a number of respondents were to commemorate and learn by rote a few illustrated cards to test their memory strength.
The respondents were given a 40-minute break and divided into two groups after memorizing the illustrated cards. One group was supposed to stay awake while the other group napped during the 40-minute break. Once the break was over both the groups were tested on their memory of the illustrated cards.
Can you guess, which group did it better?
If you have guessed the group who stayed awake retained the cards better, well we may say that you guessed it wrong, because the group which napped retained their cards better that is 85 per cent of the patterns compared to 60 per cent.
Researchers also noticed that sleeplessness affects your ability to carry out new information to your memory and solidify any short-term memories that you have made. The study-nap process is a tried and tested technique to learn new things.
4. Teaching what you have learned
It is scientifically proven that teaching someone the thing you have learned helps you to retain your knowledge. It helps you to revisit whatever you have learned, from the base level and tests your knowledge about that particular thing. Explaining things to others speeds up their learning and their retention power increases. If you don’t believe whatever I have said, you can ask any teacher of yours if they have benefitted from teaching, they surely did.
5. Hand-written Notes
Writing long-hand notes help a better and deeper understanding of a topic. Once we have written notes by hand we tend to remember things better. It may be because we’re forced to repeat things that we hear and think in a written format. Some researchers also stated that notes taken in digital format don’t retain memory more than learners jotting down notes. While learning anything new you should take notes of everything that you can to promote cognitive processing of the material.
6. Try Pomodoro Technique
Among all the mentioned ways to learn anything, Pomodoro is one of the most important techniques to learn. Interesting right? Well, then, let’s look into what the Pomodoro technique is-
Pomodoro technique is a time management technique where we divide our day into small units that is 25 minutes of work and a 5-minute break. The break is generally called pomodoros and after four pomodoros we take a break of 15-20 minutes. Coined by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s it is a kitchen timer method to break the work hours in intervals following short breaks throughout the day. Making the technique a part of your life could be helpful if you want to learn anything.
7. Be Consistent
Whatever you are learning it may be anything starting from learning a new language to learning how to use a device, you must be consistent from the first day. Being persistent with your work is crucial to achieving lasting success that is in this case learning something. As mentioned earlier, the human minds by default are designed to learn new things but with consistency and determination, the learning process becomes simpler. Consistency is the key to learning anything.
8. Say out Loud
Have you seen children reading their lessons aloud, and pondered why? The answer is simple when you say out loud the things that you want to remember it boosts the memory and helps you to memorize things which in turn helps you to learn anything. Saying out loud not only helps the children it helps the adults too.
According to a research by Professor MacLeod and his collaborators, humans remember words or a text better (that is 87% of the words retained by 7-10 year children and 27% of the words retained by 67-88 years adults) when they read it aloud than when it is done silently. It helps in increasing retention power among people of all ages. It is a great way to learn anything.
Encouraging Books to Read to Learn Anything
Motivation is equally important to learn something new, though we have shared some techniques to learn anything new. Books, on the other hand, are said to be man’s best friend and if you are a reader we suggest you, read the following books to encourage yourself plus follow the stated techniques to learn anything new. The books mentioned here examine the lives of either the author or some historical figures.
- Mastery– Authored by Robert Greene, the book encourages you to learn by breaking down the learning process in the following stages:
- By finding your life’s task
- By completing an apprenticeship
- By experimenting in the creative-active phase and
- Combining all your skills to achieve mastery.
In short, Greene Observes the formula of mastery as:
Mastery = Time + intense focus + self-belief.
- The Art of Learning- The book by Josh Waitzkin is essential if you want to learn how to excel and truly master something. It is an auto-biography cum self-help book. He subtly takes us through the ideas and tools that helped him in his personal life. Firstly falling in love with the learning process and the second thing is to speed up and strengthen its effectiveness. Waitzkin also emphasizes distraction in his text (embracing distraction rather than trying to minimize it).
- Wooden and The Score Takes Care of Itself- Here, Wooden and Walsh, respectively, look into their philosophies of learning and leadership. True excellence can only be attained when it is a part of the process and not the only destination is what this book talks about.
- Mastery: The Keys to Success And Long-Term Fulfillment- Authored by George Leonard, it is useful because of its simplicity just like Greene’s Mastery is impressive for its depth. Leonard gives us five keys to mastery:
- Instruction- the role of teachers and being surrounded by greatness.
- Practice- how masters of the game are generally masters of the practice.
- Surrender- of arrogance, of pride
- Intentionality- by combining focus, enthusiasm, and grit.
And by putting the four keys together we approach – - The Edge- a point where the ability of our skills exceeds the boundaries.
Some People to Follow-
Motivation can not only come from books but following the right person too can motivate you to the core. With the right person guiding you, you can excel in certain fields. There are certain well-known people whom you can follow to encourage yourself for learning anything, we have listed a few of them-
A writer, chess grandmaster, tai chi push-hands world champion, and a Brazilian jujitsu black belt under Marcelo Garcia motivates you to learn anything.
An Indian entrepreneur, content creator, public speaker and author of the book ‘Do Epic Shit’ gives you an insight into how to manage your finances to lead a better life.
A New York Times bestselling author, a top influencer on the web, and a marketer teaches you a new marketing tactic each day. He has created a hundred brilliant companies.
A keynote speaker, executive branding coach, marketing strategist, podcaster, and an author to follow if you want to get an insight on social media marketing.
Summarising it all Together-
Learning opens your mind, increases your mental power, and gives a deeper understanding of the topic. Learning is directly related to curiosity, a trait that has led to major advancement throughout history.
In modern times, there is the availability of a massive pile of resources at the touch of a button which makes learning much simpler than in other eras. As knowledge is easily accessible there can’t be any excuses for not taking advantage of it. You should use the internet to its full potential so that your skill doesn’t languish and your importance increases. Learning new things at intervals will give you a sense of pride and accomplishment. And now that we have shared some techniques to learn it may be a bit easier for you to learn things.
So, what are you thinking, go grab a cup of coffee or your favourite beverage and start learning anything
Happy Learning!
Being said that, we have come to the end of this blog, thank you for sticking with us, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the end of our journey. Here at Gryffindor, we have curated some blogs for you that might make your learning process easier. If you are interested in the nuances of digital marketing we have got it all covered.