Everybody has to learn something boring at one point in their life, and everybody knows that this can be one of the hardest things they will ever have to do.

You try to get the information in your head but it simply won’t stay there. It is as if your brain can’t learn the things you don’t like. Of course, this is nonsense because your brain can learn anything, if you know HOW to learn.

Ways people can learn better have been tested many times. There are thousands of experiments on this, and people already have found a lot of good ways to learn.

I was surprised when I learned these “hacks” and wondered why only a few people knew them. Therefore I decided to share them, along with the information on why these tricks work.

Develop Cues

Psychologist have found that the more cues a person has on a piece of information the better they can learn it. These cues can be: environment, sounds, the way you sit, the stuff around you and even your thoughts. We all use these cues without realizing how convenient they are. Have you ever experienced walking to your room but when you got there you didn’t remember why you went to your room? Some people walk back to where they came from and remember it again (environment cue), some people think back of what they did one minute ago (thought/action cue).  When you have to learn French words, you can use the same cues.

Learn How Your Brain Works

If you know how your brain works you will be able to use it more efficiently. If you know for example, that your short term memory can’t contain more than ± 7 items, you won’t even try to make it memorize more. You can however, learn how to conquer this ±7 item boundary by using these tricks:

The Method of Loci

This method uses cue-dependent learning in the most efficient way possible. It takes some training, but after a while you really become an expert in remembering all sorts of information. I have trained myself with this method, and when teachers at my university gave us a little experiment to show us that you can remember ± 7 words, I shocked everybody by remembering every word in a list of 20 words. (Of course later I admitted that I had used this method).  If you want to learn this method use these two videos: part one and two.

Chunking

Don’t try to remember 91101902103141945 each number separate. It will take days to get those numbers from your short term memory to your long term memory. However, if you try to remember this: 9-11-01 (twin towers), 90210 (tv-show), 3.14 (first numbers of Pi) and 1945 (end of WW2), you only have 4 things to remember.

Image Credit: Wellcome_Images

Rehearse

The best way to get information from your short term memory to your long term memory is by rehearsal. So don’t try to learn your history test in one day, but spread it out instead. This way, you will not only get better grades, but you will also not forget the information as soon as you finish the test.

Read it, Say it and Hear it

Don’t stop with just reading your textbook, but also read it aloud. This way you won’t only read the information, but you also have to pronounce it, causing you to also hear it. You now have 3 ways in which you brain is processing the information. Later you will have 3 ways in how your brain remembers and recalls the information.

Image Credit: stuartpilbrow

Find More Sources

Don’t stop with learning when you’ve read your book. Find more books about this information, search the web, talk to people who might know more about it, etc. Again, you now make sure that your brain has this information in multiple ways. This tip and the previous one work because all of the information in your brain is linked to other information. As if you have a gigantic mind map on everything you know in your brain. Of course the more links the better you can remember stuff.

Put it All Together

Don’t use just one of these tips but use them all. Separately they work nicely, but together they work perfect. You’ll now be able to learn everything you want and remember it perfectly.