Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens

Pulling the key idea from your own mind, instead of just reading or rereading it on the page, is the critical idea behind active recall.

Don’t be afraid to go back to a beginner’s level, even if you are older than other students.

Coming up with a creative metaphor is one of the best ways to learn a new concept or share an important idea.

It seems that your attentional octopus can be more easily distracted by loud music, and by music with words in it. The words fill one of your octopus’s arms, making it less efficient. But quieter music with no words can sometimes be helpful, depending on what you are studying.

We learn best when we use several different senses—hearing, seeing, and, perhaps especially, being able to feel with our hands. At deep levels in your brain, you see and hear. You see and smell. You hear and touch. When your brain creates its impressions of the world, you want as many senses involved as possible.

Interleaving: Interleaving means practicing different aspects of what you are trying to learn so you understand the differences between the techniques. Chapter 4 in your algebra textbook may introduce you to one set of problem-solving techniques, while chapter 5 introduces you to a different set of problem-solving techniques. Interleaving means alternating between chapter 4– and chapter

This idea of focusing on the harder stuff is called deliberate practice.2 Deliberate practice is how you become an expert more quickly in whatever you are studying.

Exercise isn’t just good for every organ in your body. It’s good for your brain, too. It improves understanding, decision-making, and focusing. It assists with remembering and switching between tasks. It can also help people recover from mental illness. Some psychiatrists say that exercise is stronger than any medicine.

If you spend some time learning a particular item each day for several days, it allows you to get several periods of sleep. This gives more time for new synaptic links to grow and helps the new learning to really take hold.

Today’s scientific research confirms what Santiago discovered. We can all “think” ourselves smarter. Learning makes us smarter. And learning how to learn is one of the best things you can do to get the ball rolling and make learning more successful

Diffuse mode is when we’re not focusing on anything in particular. You can enter diffuse mode by just letting go and not concentrating on anything. Going for a walk helps. Or looking out a window from a bus. Or taking a shower. Or falling asleep. (Many famous people have had great insights when the events of the day were sloshing around during sleep.

Neuroscientists have discovered that your brain works in two different ways. We’ll call these two ways of working the focused mode and the diffuse mode.* Both modes are important in helping you to learn.

It’s easy to believe that you should only concentrate on subjects that come easily for you. But my story reveals that you can do well in subjects you don’t even like. The truth is, it’s okay to follow your passions. But I also found that broadening my passions opened many wonderful opportunities. Learning new subjects I didn’t think I could do turned out to be an adventure!

I headed back to university to study engineering. I started at the lowest possible level of math—algebra for people who had failed it in high school.