How to Learn Faster & Better

A. Improve and Maintain Your Health
    1.    Exercise. No time? Get up and shake a leg for 1 - 2 minutes. Increased blood flow, increases your ability to concentrate.

    2.        Eat breakfast. You don’t drive your car without gasoline, so don’t start your day on an empty stomach. Your brain needs fuel...and contrary to popular belief, it’s not caffeine. :)

    3.    Eat light. Instead of 2 - 3 big meals per day, eat small amounts of food throughout the day. Three small meals with two to three snacks in between or about every three hours.

    4.    Reduce stress. Stress can affect your ability to learn and retain information. You may not be able to control everything that happens to you, but you can control how you react.

B. Strive for a Balanced Life
    6.    Quality sleep. At the University of California, San Diego, scientists specializing in sleep discovered the during the REM, or rapid eye movement, of the sleep phase the brain attempts to solve problems. In fact some successful people sleep with a pen and paper at their bedside so they can jot down notes as soon as they wake up.

    7.    Stop for a break. Break your focus from work or studying, for 5 - 15 min and take a break. You’ll come back renewed, refreshed with a new perspective and insight. Try to take a quick break every 90 min. for optimal performance. Focus on something fun, grab a snack or go for a short walk.

C. Change Your Perspective
    8.         Meditation can provide another perspective on things. Try meditating while your sitting, standing or walking to relieve stress, strengthen your focus and develop new insights.

    9.         Be present. Whether you are working, studying, or playing try to focus on the present and immerse yourself. Multitasking can reduce efficiency. Many adults forget how to play, to lose themselves in abandonment. The next time you wash your car, have a water fight. Forget about what the neighbors will think, forget about having to change your clothes and forget about the watermarks that will mess up your floor as you make a dash to get out of your wet clothes.  Be present, laugh and have fun.

    10.    Pamper yourself. No money? Think outside the box.

D. Increase Your Ability To Recall
    11.    Listen to music. Background music can enhance learning and for recalling memories. 

    12.    Speed read.

    13.    Acronyms and other mnemonic tricks. Leveraging acronyms and mnemonics can help you remember information.

E. Visualize the information
    14.    Dream board. Draw, sketch, compile a collage of pics online or from magazines of your goals and dreams. Seeing is believing.

    15.    Mindmap. Sometimes it’s easier to get a comprehensive view of your project, plan, goals etc. but creating a mindmap, online or on paper, to see the overall relationship between ideas.

F. Motivate Yourself
    16.    Be positive. Reward yourself for your good ideas, continually recognize your good ideas and as you focus more on the results you want, you will stimulate more good ideas. Don’t be critical of yourself...there will be enough people who will do that for you. (Note: Constructive criticism and plain criticism are two different things - one is positive and useful, the other one worthless).

    17.    Know the “WHY”. What is your inspiration? Why do you want to learn? Why do you want to succeed? If your “WHY” is not crystal clear, you will be swayed by distractions.

    18.    Goals. Even a poorly defined goal is better than no goal.

    19.    Reduce or minimize distractions. If this is difficult, start with the smallest block of time and work up.

    20.    Be your own cheer team. Unfortunately, not everyone in you life will support you in your endeavor to learn, improve and grow. It’s not a matter of them being malicious or mean. They may do it from the perspective of caring about you and themselves. For example, if you want to learn to skydive. Your spouse may adamantly oppose it because of the fear of an accident. The same applies to being successful in any other area of your life. With success comes the risk of painful failure or venturing into ‘unknown’ territory. Any success on a big level or in an area that is total new, may cause your family and friends to feel ‘uncomfortable’ or ‘uneasy’ because it’s outside of THEIR comfort zone. Fortunately, this does not happen too much.

    21.    Structure your learning environment. Stick to deadlines, limit your time spent on one idea, limit the number of tools or resources you’re working with and laser-focus your attention. You can accomplish more with less.

Other Tips
           22.    Read, read, read. For business and pleasure, aim to be a proliferate reader.

           23.    Think linear. Take ideas, principles and theories from totally unrelated areas and apply it to another area. You may be learning to build your affiliate website. Your hobby is in fishing and you frequent fishing websites. You may know of a popular fishing website and get design/layout ideas to apply to your affiliate website.

          24.    Failure is a powerful learning tool. Don’t give up, don’t give in. Keep moving!

          25.    Repetition. Some concepts are complex and require repeated learning over time. Be patient.

         26.    Critical thinking & complex problem solving. Develop good analytic skills to improve your ability to learn selectively. Learn the art of complex problem solving.

           27.     Flash cards are not just for kids. Using flash cards to quiz yourself will help to reinforce what you learn.

           28.    The basics. Be patient and focus on the basics first. The 30 Day Success Club - Getting Started Course lays a good foundation.

    29.    Teach. One of the best ways to learn about a topic is to teach it to someone else. Teaching forces you to learn because you have to digest and regurgitate the information in a way that it makes sense to both you and the person you are teaching.

    30.    Take action. Experience is the ultimate teacher.

    31.    Don't give up! There’s more than one way to learn.

    32.    Don’t aim for mediocrity. Put something on your list that makes you wonder if you can actually learn it. You’d be surprised to discover you may be able meet the challenge.

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"Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow." Ralph Waldo Emerson