How To Study Effectively

[Alex Busch]

Hello all,

So I've been teaching myself programming and I am intending to go to a coding bootcamp next month. All throughout high school I slacked off and never attained any real studying skills. I try to study between 2-4 hours a day but very quickly hit a wall and have a hard time grasping the information that I'm reading or the code I'm writing. Now I'm hitting walls before an hour of studying is up. I've watched Leo's video on "How to Study" and all though that video gave me tons of helpful insights, I don't recall it giving people who have next to zero study skills, a starting point on how to actually build up the skill. Any advice on how to build myself up to be able to study effectively at multiple hours at a time would be greatly appreciated.

[BjarkeT]

i think some good books on how to study effectively are how to beomce a straigt a student by cal newport and deep work by the same author also a mind for numbers by  barbara oakley

some research by cal newport says that the more you concentrate with high intensity the more you will get done in less time but the lower your intensity is the longer it takes to get the task done

hope you can use it kind regards

[Christian]

@Alex Busch

Well, as @BjarkeT already pointed out, read those two books. They are great and relevant for you atm. 

Also, what you want to do is make sure that when you study, you at least set up the environment to get into a flow state. To enter a flow state, the challenge you are performing must match or be slighgly above your skill level. Don't study something too difficult or too easy. Find that perfect fit for you. 

You say in your post that when you study,  you hit a brick wall. Why is that? Maybe you lack deep understanding of the fundamentals of the topics, maybe you study too long or something completely different. Try to get to the root cause of this. It must be very demotivating and draining to always hit a brick wall. To me, studying feels like solving a giant jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces connect and it is always under construction. It never stops and the unfolding of this puzzle is what motivates me. 

Other important points: 

how=why. Why do you want to study? Simple, yet powerful question. Could maybe be related to your LP. 

Check out Scott Young's youtube channel. Thank me later  

[Alex Busch]

2 hours ago, Christian said:

@Alex Busch

Well, as @BjarkeT already pointed out, read those two books. They are great and relevant for you atm. 

Also, what you want to do is make sure that when you study, you at least set up the environment to get into a flow state. To enter a flow state, the challenge you are performing must match or be slighgly above your skill level. Don't study something too difficult or too easy. Find that perfect fit for you. 

You say in your post that when you study,  you hit a brick wall. Why is that? Maybe you lack deep understanding of the fundamentals of the topics, maybe you study too long or something completely different. Try to get to the root cause of this. It must be very demotivating and draining to always hit a brick wall. To me, studying feels like solving a giant jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces connect and it is always under construction. It never stops and the unfolding of this puzzle is what motivates me. 

Other important points: 

how=why. Why do you want to study? Simple, yet powerful question. Could maybe be related to your LP. 

Check out Scott Young's youtube channel. Thank me later  

Thank you for the feedback. I appreciate it. Watched a couple of his videos and they made a lot of sense, and seemed to be more effective than how I've been studying. I'll be sure to implement these into my study routine and let you know how it's going within a week or so.

[Raphael]

I recently started following Thomas Frank on youtube. His channel is dedicated to studying and learning effectively, it's a very good resource and he also wrote a free book on this subject.

If your not comfortable to study, do not try to do it too much (like more than 4 hours per day). Have a timer with you and set a study time session, a good one would be 1 hour, or 1 h 30, or more if you feel that you enjoy it. But in your situation, if it's really hard for you, try with 30-45 minutes sessions, and then take a break.

If you study on a computer, install browser's extensions such as StayFocused on Chrome, or Leechblock/Forest for Firefox. However, if your a geek like me, you know that you will find a way to disable this. The solution would be here to create an environment that would make procrastination impossible. Turn off your phone and put it in another room, and also cut all your social medias, and all toxic people around you.

You should not want to study quickly, but rather take your time, be calm and relaxed. You can try to meditate 10 - 15 minutes just before your study session, chances are that it will calm down your brain and put you in the study state. Be conscious of what you want to do, take responsibility for it to not backslide, and create that magic flow state!

[WaterfallMachine]

Here's an entire course on it free online.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

Here are also some keywords to search in how to study well.

General

Image Streaming.

Below is a question asking how quick learners learn with 100+ answers.

https://www.quora.com/What-learning-strategies-do-quick-learners-follow

Quora is also a good site to search this question in general. Very in depth answers.

For Understanding

Feynman technique.

ADEPT technique by Kalid Azad. (You'll see that Kalid uses it for math, but I find it wonderfully applies to to variety of subjects.

Mind maps.

For Memorizing

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer 

The Art of Memory wiki online, site (for exercises) and forum.

Mmemonics.

Anki (site) — spaced learning software.

Working Memory (Short term memory)

HighIQPro — Brain training software. (Brain training is often seen as unreliable but the reviewers of this software are the only ones that consistently say it works.)

The Working Memory Advantage by Tracy Alloway.

Notetaking

Mind maps.

Cornell Notes.

Visual Notetaking or sketch noting. 

The Doodle Revolution by Sunni Brown. (Doodles that are made about the subject of what's learned are actually powerful ways to remember something more, problem solve and understand things when used well.)

Focus and Discipline

Meditation. 

The blog of James Clear.

Habitica — an app where you get points and level up on accomplishing your goals and even team up with other users.

[Visitor]

@Alex Busch When I was at uni a fellow student and myself were asked by other students to give them a hand in their studies. So we arranged to meet one night. We tried to help the others to understand the subject matter, but with little improvement. Then my friend and I decided to do the opposite. We got the other students to read what they need to know and then each student had to teach us by using their own words (not re-reading from the book). This forced them to think about what they read and reapply it by using different words. After the uni exams, these students went from Pass to High Credits and Distinctions.

Teaching the subject will improve your own understand of what it is you are learning.