Use These Learning Hacks to Improve Your Knowledge

You have probably heard the popular phrase, “knowledge is power” a few times over the years. The meaning of that phrase is knowing a lot of information can be helpful in so many scenarios. You can easily achieve great things if you take the time to learn something new each day. Of course, learning new things can be challenging. Thankfully, you can hack how to learn better and retain more knowledge. There are plenty of learning hacks you can choose from. All you need to do is use the ones that work the best for you.

Use These Learning Hacks to Improve Your Knowledge

1. Take notes

Taking notes is one of the best learning hacks. It was the hack your teachers taught you back in school when they had you taking notes of what they were saying. Nowadays, you may be tempted to type your notes into a word document or in the note section of your phone. Doing that can be helpful. However, you won’t retain as much of the information like you would if you wrote those notes by hand.

Skeptical? Try it out one day. Take notes on your laptop for one topic. Then handwrite notes on another topic. See which information you retain more of.

2. Rotate Your Learning Styles

You may prefer to listen to a person talking when you are learning something new. Doing that all the time though will hold you back from completely grasping what you are learning. The better learning hack is to rotate your learning styles. One day you can listen to the information. The next time, it would be better to read the information. You can do this via notes you took during the first session. Or if a transcript is available, you can use that.

Research shows that switching up your learning style results in remembering more of what you were taught. You may even want to consider trying new ways to learn. The result could be you stumbling onto a better way of learning certain topics.

3. Learn Small Chunks of Information at a Time

One of the best ways to learn is to break the information down into smaller chunks. Say you want to be a nurse or a doctor and need to take anatomy and physiology. Looking at the entire course book can be overwhelming. Breaking up the course into smaller chunks allows you to study one section of the body at a time. You will retain more information, because your brain is focused.

The next time you need to learn about a topic that is overwhelming, try to break it down. You might be amazed at how quickly you start to retain those smaller chunks of information.

4. Clear your mind for 10–15 seconds immediately after learning

This is particularly useful in relation to #3 learning small chunks of information at time. After learning something new in a focused 15–30 minute session, close your eyes and breathe deeply for 10–15 seconds.

Don’t even think about what you just learned, but instead just clear your mind and focus your breathing. Your mind will automatically review what you just learned 100 times faster than your introduction to the subject, and it will do in in reverse order.

5. Short daytime power naps improve memory

Sleep, in general has been widely known to help memory retrieval as well as many other health benefits. However did you know that a study by Saarland University shows that taking a 45 minute afternoon nap produces up to 5 fold improvement of information retrieval from memory?

6. Create a Learning Game

Our brains love games, especially when there is a reward at the end. So, take advantage of that as you hack how to learn better. Simply create a game that works well for the information you are trying to learn. Then set the rules and determine your reward for when you win.

If one game doesn’t seem to work, try another. The goal here is to find a system that works for your learning style.

7. Say Everything Out Loud

You might think you look, and sound, crazy when you try this learning hack. But it works! Reading information out loud will help you retain it much more than if you read that same information in your head. There is something about your mouth forming the words that helps you remember.

8. Try Teaching

Okay, so you may not have a classroom of students ready to listen to what you have just learned. You can still pretend to teach someone else though. If kids can teach their stuffed animals, so can you! You can even skip the stuffed animals and teach your cat or dog.

When you choose this learning hack, you must have a way to convey what you learned in a concise and informative way. If you can actually create a lesson plan and execute it, you will know you finally understand the information. And if you stumble, well, you will know you need to keep reviewing the information.

9. Create a Flowchart

Visual learners will love using flowcharts as their learning hack. Flowcharts can contain short notes, which are then easier to memorize. The goal is to write the information down in a logical manner, so you are building on information you already know.

10. Join a Group or Class

As you get older, you try to learn on your own. You believe you are too old for school and homework. But sometimes, the best learning hack is to go back to the classroom. Taking a single class on a topic you are interested in is an excellent way to learn it quickly.

Joining a group who is learning about the same topic as you is another excellent idea. Either one of these options will give you people to talk to about what you are learning. You can even ask questions, which will help you learn even more.

11. Become a Pro at Google Search

Searching Google for information can sometimes lead you down a rabbit hole. This happens when you don’t set up your search parameters correctly. One of the best hacks for learning better is understanding how to use Google properly.

A few tips for searching Google are:

• Quotation Marks — Use these when you are searching for a specific word or phrase.
• Dashes — Add a dash before a word you want to exclude from the search.
• Tilde — Add a tilde before a word when you want its synonyms to appear in the results.
• Site: — Use this whenever searching within a specific website.
• Vertical Bar — Use this to find websites that have any or all the words you are searching for.
• Two Periods — Using two periods between numbers will show results within those number ranges.

You will save so much time using these tips. And that time can be spent learning something else.

12. Take Regular Breaks

When you start learning about a new topic, you might be ready to dive in and never stop. That is the worst thing you can do though. One of the learning hacks that isn’t used often enough is taking regular breaks. Your brain needs time to absorb information. Your body also needs breaks to stay motivated and focused.

It is recommended that you don’t spend more than forty-five minutes focused on a new topic. Anything you learn after that timeframe will be lost and you will need to go back and relearn it again.

13. Meditate

An easy way to stay focused on a task is to meditate beforehand. It may seem strange, but meditating can improve your mental health. And improved mental health will allow your brain to retain more information in the future.

You can easily use these learning hacks to improve your knowledge. There are many other hacks out there, so you can easily find others to expand your knowledge even more. And as you hack to learn better, you will be surprised at how much more information you can learn in a shorter period of time.