How to absorb information faster. Absorbing and remembering information using the SQ3R technique

Of course, we would all like to absorb information quickly and efficiently.

Whether it's learning a foreign language, an unfamiliar instrument, or a new sport, accelerating the learning process has many benefits. But the problem is that we have a limited amount of time for this.

The key to learning faster, however, is not to dedicate more hours to studying, but to increase the efficiency of the process.

Memory is like a vessel of water

Imagine that you need to fill a bucket with water. Most buckets can easily hold and hold liquid until the water begins to overflow.

The brain functions somewhat differently. In fact, information, entering memory, then gradually escapes from it. And if you compare the brain with a vessel, then it will be more like a leaky bucket.

The analogy with a leaking bucket sounds, of course, negative, however, it is an absolutely normal phenomenon. And unless you were born with a photographic memory, it is useful to know that the human brain was not designed to store large amounts of information, every fact, answer or experience that it encountered in its life.

How to remember 90% of the information you study

In the 60s of the last century, the NTL Institute in Bethel (Maine, USA) described a learning pyramid that clearly depicts the effectiveness of learning and the brain’s ability to remember new knowledge.

Studies have shown that a person learns:

• 5% of information received through lectures (at universities, colleges, etc.);
• 10% of information read (from books, articles, etc.);
• 20% audio-visual information (applications, videos, etc.);
• 30% of information received through visual presentations;
• 50% learned during group discussions;
• 75% of information that was used in practice (skills acquired);
• 90% of the information was used immediately (and also if you needed to teach someone else).

How do most people learn?

Books, classroom lectures, videos are non-interactive ways of perceiving information with low efficiency, since about 80-95% of knowledge flies in one ear and flies out of the other.

The crux of the matter is this: rather than forcing the brain to remember information through passive learning, it is better to direct your effort and time into ways that use engagement in the process. The result will be more pronounced, and time will be saved.

This condition means that:

• If you are learning a foreign language, give preference not to mobile applications, but to communication with native speakers, since this is an opportunity for instant feedback in learning.
• If you want to get in good shape, then instead of watching workout videos on YouTube, work with a personal fitness instructor.
• If you want to play a musical instrument, contact a music teacher.

By and large, this is what it all comes down to. This should be recognized as the most “correct”, although not the easiest, approach to acquiring new knowledge and skills.

Time or money?

Of course, classes with individual instructors, teachers and coaches are noticeably more expensive than other training options. However, it is also much more effective.

For example, according to the data above, you can spend 1 hour studying and learn 90% of the material, and you can spend the same hour and only learn 10% of the material. The difference is nine times!

There is also a point that an individual instructor or teacher can give you advice based on their wealth of experience, which will be useful specifically for you. No amount of reading or watching videos will ever give such understanding and the difference in learning effectiveness can be much greater than 9 times.

To sum it all up: Knowing how to absorb more information makes us noticeably more efficient with our time. And time is our main life resource.

We learn throughout our lives, from childhood to old age. Playing the guitar, new software, raising a child - the human brain constantly absorbs knowledge, although this happens at different speeds. In childhood, information is absorbed very quickly, but the older we get, the more difficult it is to learn.

Below you will see several ways that will help you hack your mind and make it work faster and better.

Maintenance

Like any complex mechanism, the brain requires regular maintenance, and if you do not neglect it, it can cope with any task. A few good habits can help keep your brain in tip-top condition, so the learning process will be faster and easier.

Play sports

I don't trust a single thought that didn't come while I was moving.

Take a break from studying

You can’t do only one thing every day - work or study. It is important to periodically be distracted by something else so that the brain can take stock and process the information during this time.

If you decide to take up a hobby, choose activities that require concentration and hand-eye coordination, such as juggling. One study found that juggling has positive effects on brain function. True, positive consequences occurred immediately after people gave up a new hobby.

Have fun

Laughter is the best way to relax and avoid burnout, especially when you have to study at an accelerated pace. Laughter has been proven to help you find solutions to problems and be creative.

How to facilitate the process of cognition itself?

Brain workout

Before you dive into work, you can have a little fun, simultaneously tuning your brain to work. For example, you can mentally select rhymes for words or solve a simple problem. This warm-up helps you relax and tune in to more complex things.

Study together

If your training feels like storming a fortress, you can find someone to support you. Whether it's a group, a club or a friend - in a team it is easier to focus on the material and make the learning process itself more organized.

Robert E. Kennedy Library at Cal Poly /flickr.com

Arrange the place

The environment is very important for learning. Ideally, the space should be clean, quiet and fresh, but variety is a good idea. For example, in good weather, you can try working in a park or in a cozy cafe. The only thing that should not be mixed is training and. Even if it is very comfortable, the bed is subconsciously associated with sleep and relaxation, so it will be more difficult for you to concentrate.

Metacognition

Most tips for improving learning revolve around metacognition. This concept can be defined as the art of becoming aware of one's own consciousness. You evaluate your thinking, your ability to complete the task, and the goals that are appropriate for this.

You need to step back from your first impression of the material and evaluate how quickly you are absorbing knowledge, whether there are any problems and ways to study more productively.

Do one thing at a time

Multitasking is a real talent, but unfortunately it reduces your work efficiency. If you do several things at once, it is impossible to fully concentrate on them, so the time required to complete the task increases.

Don't be afraid of failure

A team of researchers from Singapore found that people who solved complex math problems without instructions or help were more likely to fail. However, in the process they found interesting ideas that helped them in the future.

This can be called “productive failure” - when the experience gained in the decision process helps more than once in the future. So don't be afraid of mistakes: they will come in handy.

Test yourself

Don't wait for the last exam - test yourself often or ask a friend to give you a short test. “Productive failure” only works with finding solutions, and if you fail an exam that required rote memorization, it will not help your learning, it will only hinder it.

Reduce material

It's helpful to supplement your notes with visual elements such as graphs, charts, or maps.

Think about where it can be applied

Very often, when presenting facts and formulas, the scope of their application is missed. Dry knowledge is quickly forgotten, and if you want to remember something for a long time, try to find application for it in real life yourself. Knowing how, where and why to apply facts in real life will firmly cement the information in your memory.

Use different methods

The more diverse the sources of knowledge, the more likely it is that it will remain in your memory.

The coordinated work of different areas of the brain improves the perception and retention of information.

For example, this could be reading articles, listening to audio materials, watching videos, writing or retyping by hand, or speaking out loud. The main thing is not to do everything at the same time.

Connect with existing knowledge

If you can mentally connect your knowledge with what you have learned before, it will help you learn faster and more effectively. Don't leave knowledge isolated - integrate it into the larger picture of the world that is in your brain.

You will succeed

Be confident and know that you will succeed. Not only because it's true, but also because belief in the power of one's intelligence actually increases it.

Let's continue to talk about working with information, about how to better assimilate information. But first, I'll tell you a little story. One day, by chance, on a tram, I saw a quote on the glass. You know, in many cities there are social programs in which excerpts from books, quotes from great people, and historical facts are pasted on the windows of public transport.

Gray clouds regularly floated past the window, making the sticker on the glass merge with the sky. But I really wanted to see what was written there. It was as if I was drawn to her. I took a couple of steps closer to the place where the words were more clearly visible and read

“To know, but not to apply, is like plowing, but not sowing.”

I couldn't see whose quote it was. But this phrase just stuck in my memory. These few words reflected my vision of knowledge! How accurately they got to the very essence of the phenomenon they were discussing.

Even mediocre information can open up thoughts, disturb the mind, and hurt feelings. Anything can get us excited - a book, an article, a TV show, a webinar, a small quote on a tram. But if the thought laid down by the author and understood by us is not applied, then like a plowed (but not sown) field, our thoughts are open to the winds that carry away the fertile layer of soil, and to the weeds that so quickly rise on the prepared ground.

The more we learn but do not apply, the more we become overgrown with information weeds, the less likely it is that truly valuable information will be USEFUL to us. This is why I talk so much not just about reading, but about assimilating information.

In the last article, I started a conversation about assimilation of information. Now we will continue it. Let me remind you of one simple but very effective piece of advice.

If you see advice in a book that is useful to you, place the book open, pages down. And let it lie with you until you try this advice in practice. Don't continue reading a book or start new ones until you put into practice what you've learned.

Now let's think about what it means to assimilate information? For me, assimilation consists of several components. Here they are.

Now let’s talk about how we can put all these components into practice.

How to remember facts and understand the meaning of information

Have you noticed that each text is perceived and remembered differently? We grasp some things on the fly, but others we cannot understand and remember the tenth time. Before we move on, let's understand why this happens.

Any information can have 2 main criteria that are important for assimilation. Knownness of information and the degree of its imagery. Roughly speaking, information may be known, partially known, or unknown; may be figurative, partially figurative, or abstract. Of course, in reality there may be many intermediate options.

So, take a look at the diagram, which reflects how the combination of each of the criteria makes it easy for us to read and remember, or, conversely, it is very difficult for us to perceive.

Now you understand that all types of information are different in their perception. What conclusion can be drawn from this? Don't treat all information equally. Complex and new information for you, replete with terms, abstract concepts and twisted verbal structures, is read slowly and poorly absorbed. Don't pressure yourself to remember this information quickly.

Most often, problems arise precisely when working with complex and new information. What can be done?

How to understand complex information

1 - Set a reading goal. We talked about this in more detail in the previous article about. The very act of setting a goal encourages your brain to look for what you want in the text. You are the captain of a ship, set the goal of your sea voyage.

2 - If your goal is to understand the key meaning, main thoughts and ideas, then act according to algorithms for working with information. Spiral algorithm (), differential algorithm, integral algorithm. Practice using them on 10-15 texts and after that you will be able to isolate the main ideas almost automatically. The captain's job is to ensure that each team member does what he knows how to do in order to achieve a common goal.

3 - In order to make it easier to perceive new information, find small data “for dummies” on this topic. A simple and concise summary of the main ideas. And then move on to more complex things. The captain needs a map of the new area to navigate where to sail. Without a map, it's easy to get lost in a new place.

4 - Increase the imagery of the text. Try to imagine the material you are reading in pictures, sounds and sensations. Even if it is very abstract. Create images for basic terms and concepts. Any captain knows the unique and memorable elements of the area (wonderful mountains or rocks, a special unusual bay or three small islands standing in a row). They are like beacons that help you navigate the waters of the world’s oceans and not get lost along the way.

And then your ship of knowledge will reach its intended goal.

Application of information

This is not all, but the very first exercises that will help you understand complex material. What to do next? How to assimilate information more fully? Of course, apply it.

What can be done?

• If this is possible, then immediately apply the advice, change something in your behavior, physically put into action what you read about.
• If it is not possible to implement the idea right now, then write down a plan for implementing your new actions.
• Retell what you read about. Insanely effective method. It is especially effective when you know in advance what you will be retelling.
• Write down a quote or interesting thought if you liked it.
• Make a summary or mind map of the material. This will help both structure the material and remember it.

So, I have already written so many tips that you will not be able to apply them all at once. Therefore, I’ll end here so that you can learn the material and begin to apply it in life. I really hope that these tips will help you absorb information better.

Next time we will continue the topic, but for now you have time learn information about learning information.

See you!

This article is part of a series of articles on working with information

2. How to absorb information [you just read it]

A good memory is a source of pride. In the modern age, we perceive tons of information every day. It’s just that you can’t remember everything. Needless to say, lately people have become accustomed to putting everything into telephone memos. But still, the most powerful and reliable hard drive that cannot be hacked is our brain. However, to remember information, you need a good memory and following some tricks. However, first things first.

Memory usage

How to remember information faster? It is impossible to find the answer to this question without understanding your abilities given by nature. The thing is that almost all of us have developed several types of memory. But one of them is the strongest. So, here are all its types:

• visual (visual);
• auditory (hearing);
• tactile (kinesthetic);
• gustatory and olfactory.

The last type of memory is considered the least practical, because taste and smell are least likely to act as leading analyzers. However, all of these types are combined into one type of memory - figurative. Image, sound, sensation, smell and taste - all this contributes to the creation of a certain picture in our imagination.

There is also verbal-logical memory, motor (motor), emotional, voluntary, involuntary, short-term, long-term and operational. But, naturally, the first one on this list helps memorize.

Figurative method

If we talk about how to memorize information faster, then this method is worth mentioning first. Because it is the most effective.

Memorization is a process of searching for connections. Or their creation in an array of images. If you want to put something in memory, you need to find or create a new visual connection. Information, especially abstract information (ideas, thoughts), cannot be memorized.

Here's a simple example. Word sleeve, which translates from English as “sleeve,” you can try to get into your head for an hour, repeating it ad nauseam. But why, if you can really remember it in 5 seconds? It's simple! It’s enough to imagine the sleeve of a jacket filled to the top with plums. Strange? May be. But now you won’t even have to remember what the word means sleeve. And all thanks to the creation of a connection between him and the image.

This method is even used in teaching. Just remember math lessons at school. Yes, any person who completed it 10, 20 and 30 years ago, when asked what a bisector is, will answer - it is a ray dividing one angle into two. And why? Because a bisector is a rat that runs around the corners and divides the corner in half. All teachers used this simple rhyme to make life easier for students.

Associations

This method is similar to the previous one. How to remember information faster? Make up associations! These are groups of images that encode information. They always have a base and superimposed elements.

There is no need to even look for associations, since they surround us. The phone numbers contain birthdays that need to be remembered. In memorable dates - house numbers, addresses of friends. And, of course, words are the main assistant of each of us.

How to quickly remember the spectral types of stars? They are designated by letters, and not in alphabetical order - O, B, A, F, G, K, M. If you think a little, you can come up with a funny association by writing a word for each letter and combining them into a meaningful sentence: “One Blonde American Chewed Dates Like Carrots”. And using this scheme, you can remember almost everything - from dates to formulas.

In the process of learning

Most often, schoolchildren and students are interested in the answer to the question of how to memorize information faster. Those who need to learn something, and preferably quickly. The above methods are worth using, but they will be auxiliary in this case.

The most important thing is to establish a certain regime. The best time to absorb information is from 8:00 to 11:00 and from 20:00 to 23:00. However, it all depends on what time a person goes to bed and gets up. After analyzing your activity, it is not so difficult to find the best time for yourself.

Having chosen the time, you need to turn off the Internet and all electronic gadgets, provide yourself with silence or a non-distracting background music, and then concentrate, removing out of sight everything that may seem more interesting than studying. For many people this is the problem. But you can concentrate if you break the material you are learning into several parts and learn little by little.

For example, a student needs to prepare 40 tickets for an exam that will take place in 5 days. This means he will need to do 10 pieces every day. Five in the morning, the same amount in the evening, and during the day you can rest. On the fifth day, repeat everything. This will help. The main thing is to set a goal and follow a clear plan.

Self-hypnosis

How to quickly remember “big” information? The question posed in this way worries all students on the eve of an exam or test. The volume of information (and not the most interesting) is large, but there is no time. What to do? The answer is simple. We need to get carried away.

Everyone has noticed how unnoticed time flies during walks, travel, and entertainment! And then we remember everything in amazing detail. All because it was interesting. When preparing for tomorrow's exam, you need to be passionate about the subject. “Why do I need him!”, “I’ll forget everything in a day!”, “There’s nothing more boring in the world!” - all these excuses are familiar to students. But you need to learn, so you have to convince yourself that the subject and information are of unprecedented interest. You need to try to find something catchy or maybe useful in it. Or convince yourself that today nothing other than studying this subject is available. And be sure to find motivation. You can promise yourself to have a celebration after successfully passing the exam. In anticipation, information is actually remembered better.

A thorough approach

There are people who are not interested in how to quickly remember a large amount of information. It is important for them that certain data is stored on their internal “hard drive” for a long time.

To do this, it is necessary to use a combined technique of quick and detailed reading. So, first, a detailed familiarization with the material. Some people read 2-3 pages to understand what they are dealing with. Others grab text from different parts of the book (notes or other source of information). However, this is an individual question. The point of superficial reading is not to memorize the text, but to become familiar with it.

But then comes the time for a detailed method. It involves a slow, thoughtful reading of all available information and its parallel analysis. You can highlight complex words or interesting phrases, re-read what you couldn’t understand the first time.

At the same time, it is advisable to take notes and even sketches. And also talk to yourself. Thinking out loud is very useful because it uses auditory, verbal and visual memory. In addition, attentiveness is more activated, because reading aloud is impossible without concentration.

Useful tricks

How to learn to quickly remember information? You need to learn one simple rule. You need to scream! It has been proven that information fits into the brain faster if a person shouts it out.

Emotions help too. Especially the expression. Gestures, phrases, facial expressions - and everything that can express it. You can even act out a scene in front of a mirror.

And yet, you can’t sit still. If you learn something while making circles around the room, you will be able to activate your brain and, accordingly, your ability to remember information.

By the way, if there is an opportunity to change the situation, you need to take advantage of it. And it is advisable to exchange the room for nature. Fresh air and the absence of four concrete walls will contribute to more active memorization.

Active repetition

This is another good way to quickly remember information and transfer it from temporary memory to long-term memory.

At the very beginning it was about images and connections. With their help you can really remember information faster. But! If a person does not use these connections, they will simply collapse over time. This is the reason why we forget what we previously remembered. And the weaker and more indistinct the connection was, the faster it will collapse.

That's why you need to use this method. Repeat connections, update visual images and make them more vivid. And here is the conclusion: memorization is not constant cramming and viewing external sources, but regular retrieval from memory of images that have ever been created. And it’s better to spend a little time coming up with them, and then remember the information for the rest of your life, than to memorize it for hours and forget it in a day.

Developing a Habit

There are people for whom quickly remembering the necessary information is a piece of cake. And all because they constantly follow the above-mentioned recommendations (and some others that they come up with themselves). These people train their memory and improve the ability given by nature. And for them the question of how to quickly remember information before an exam or what they saw briefly is not relevant. And this is the main secret.

You need to develop the habit of remembering or learning something every day. Moreover, using the above methods. They are effective, tested by many. In addition, they contribute to the development of thinking and verbal-logical memory.

Instructions

First of all, you need to create the necessary conditions for memorization. You need to find a quiet place where there is no unnecessary noise, fully concentrate on the material being studied and not be distracted by extraneous thoughts.

Retelling is one of the best ways to permanently retain information read or heard in memory. In this case, it is worth paying attention to which type of memory is better developed. If the written text is easier to digest and visual memory works well, then the retelling can be done in the form of a cheat sheet, writing down the main points on it, which will make it easy to reproduce the text. If the material is better perceived by ear, then what you read can be told, but if you discuss the text with someone, then memorization speeds up and becomes much easier.

In order to concentrate on the material that needs to be learned, while reading, you should not pronounce the words, and also shift your gaze to what has already been read. This greatly reduces perception and irritates the nervous system. If there was any information, it should be given attention when reading the text in detail again, having learned the main ideas the first time.

Like any skill, the ability to quickly assimilate material only develops through constant training. It is necessary to train all types of memory: auditory, visual, semantic. Complex perception of visual and audio images, complementary to each other and supported by associations, creates a solid basis for reliable memorization of information. Also, one of the important factors for memorizing text is peripheral vision - the ability to capture a larger volume of text with your gaze.

“Repetition is the mother of learning,” says popular wisdom. Indeed, careful repetition of material some time after it has been studied contributes to its reliable rooting in long-term memory. However, you should not repeat all the material at once, especially immediately before a test or exam. Repetition should be divided over several days; you can highlight two or three main points and repeat one per day.

The main aspect for mastering the material is applying it in practice. Solving problems and performing exercises on this topic contributes to good memorization of the basic principles by which these problems are solved. Knowing clearly the purpose of the practical application of the material, it is not difficult to reproduce it if necessary.