two modes of thinking:

1. Focused mode: Diffused mode

When you don’t desire doing/learning something, go through it and just start. The
discomfort goes away and, in the long term, this will lead to satisfaction

When you learn something new, make sure to take time to rest, then come back to it and recall
what you learnt.

Don’t cram information in one day. This leads to inefficient learning. It’s like building a wall
without letting it dry.

Revisiting and practicing what you learn is important. Research shows that spaced repetition
(repeating things after few days) is the best way to build and strengthen the synaptic
connections.

Sleep is very important. It clears the metabolic toxins from the brain after a day of "brain use".
It is best to sleep directly after learning new things}

It was shown that exercising and/or being in a rich social environment helps your brain produce
new neurons. Don’t lock yourself in your room. Stay active and spare time for exercise
(including general physical activities) and friends daily.

Chunking is the act of grouping concepts into compact packages of information that are easier
for the mind to access.
Turn off distractions. You want to use all the four slots of your working memory when studying.
Learning will be inefficient if some of those slots are connected to something else.

You have to solve the problem yourself. Just because you see it, or even understand it, doesn't
mean that you will be able to solve it (Illusion of competence

It gets easier. When you think that a chapter or a book has too much information and that
there’s no way to go through them all; just focus on whatever section you’re studying. You’ll
find that once you put that first concept in your mental library, the following one will be easier.

This concept is called Transfer; a chunk you have mastered in one area can often help you
much more easily learn other chunks of information in different areas.

Master the major idea and then start getting deeper. However, make sure not to get
stuck in some details before having a general idea. Practice to help yourself gain
mastery and sense of the big picture context. Try taking a "picture walk" before you dig
through the material, this means, look briefly at the pictures, chapter titles, formulas
used… before diving into details.

Recall mentally without looking at the material. This is proven more effective than to simply
rereading. Reread only after you try to recall and write down what was in the material.

Consider recalling when you are in different places to become independent of the cues from
any giving location. This will help you when taking a test in the class.

Test yourself to make sure you are actually learning and not fooling yourself into learning.
Mistakes are a good thing. They allow you to catch illusions of competence

Don’t always trust your initial intuition. Einstellung problem (a German word for Mindset). An
idea or a neural pattern you developed might prevent a new better idea from being found.
Sometimes your initial intuition on what you need to be doing is misleading.You’ve to unlearn
old ideas and approaches as you are learning new ones
Mix up the problems (Interleaving) from different chapters. This is helpful to create
connections between your chunks. It can make your learning a bit more difficult, but it helps
you learn more deeply. Interleaving is very important. It is where you leave the world of
practice and repetition, and begin thinking more independently.

Don’ts:

 Highlighting too much and creating maps are often ineffective without recalling.
 Repeating something you already learnt or know very well is easy. It can bring
the illusion of competence; that you’ve mastered the full material when you
actually just know the easy stuff. Balance your studies and focus on the more
difficult (deliberate practice). This sets the difference between a good student
and a great student.
 A big mistake is to blindly start working on an exercise without reading the
textbook or attending the class. This is a recipe of sinking. It’s like randomly
allowing a thought to pop off in the focus mode without paying attention to
where the solution truly lies.

Procrastination:

 The routine, habitual responses your brain falls into when you try to do
something hard or unpleasant. Focusing only on making the present moment
feels better.
 Unlike procrastination which is easy to fall into, Willpower is hard to come by.
It uses a lot of neural resources and you shouldn’t waste it on fending off
procrastination except when really necessary. You actually don’t need to.
 The long-term effect of Procrastination can be dangerous. Putting your studies
off leads to studying becoming even more painful. Procrastination is a habit that
affects many areas of your life, if you improve in this area, many positive
changes will unfold.
 Procrastination shares features with addiction. At first, it leads you to think that
if you study too early you’ll forget the material. Then, when the class is ahead of
you, it leads you to think that you are inadequate or that the subject is too hard.
 You want to avoid cramming which doesn’t build solid neural structures, by
putting the same amount into your learning, and spacing it over a long period by
starting earlier.
First time learning something:

 The first time you do something the deluge of information coming at you would
make the job seem almost impossibly difficult. But, once you've chunked it, it
will be simple.
 At first, it's really hard, later it's easy. It becomes like a habit. Ex: Driving for
the first time.

Habits:

 Neuro-scientifically speaking, chunking is related to habit.

 Habit is an energy saver. You don’t need to focus when performing different
habitual tasks.
 Habits can be good or bad, brief or long.

Habits Parts:

1. The cue: The trigger that launches you into zombie mode (habitual routine).
1. Recognize what launches you in zombie procrastination mode:
1. Location. Time. Feelings. Reaction to people or events…
2. Consider shutting your phone/internet for brief periods of time to prevent
most cues.
2. The routine: Routine you do in reaction to the cue.

3. You only need to use your willpower to change your reaction to the cues.

4. Actively focus on rewiring your old habits.

2. You need a plan. You need some willpower.

3. The reward: Habits exist because they reward us.

5. Give yourself bigger rewards for bigger achievements. But after you finish
them.

3. **Ex**: If I study for 4 hours today, I’ll watch a movie,

guilt free, at night.
 6. Habits are powerful because they create neurological cravings. It helps to add
a new reward if you want to overcome your previous cravings.

7. Only once your brain starts expecting a reward will the important rewiring
takes place that will allow you to create new habits.

4. The belief: To change your habits, you need to change your underlying belief.

8. Ex: You might feel like you’ll never be able to change the habit of studying
late. This is not true. You can actually rewire your brain

9. Joining a student community helps, either online or in real life.

10. Trust your system. You have to feel happy and worry-free when you are
resting.

Weekly/Daily list:

 Researchers showed that writing your daily list the evening before helps you
accomplish them the next day. If you don’t write them down, they will take the
valuable slots of memory.
 Plan your finishing time, this is as important as planning your working time.
 Work in the most important and most disliked task first, even if it’s only one
pomodoro.
 Take notes about what works and what doesn’t.
 Have a backup plan for when you will still procrastinate.

 
Focus on Process:

You should realize that it’s perfectly normal to start a learning session with a negative
feeling even if you like the subject. It’s how you handle those feelings that matters.

Solution: Focus on the process, not the product. The product is what triggers the pain
that causes you to procrastinate. Instead of saying "I will solve this task today", put your
best effort for a period of time continuously over the days.

 
Memory:

 Use your visual memory to remember things.

o Ex: Link a memorable picture to a formula.
 Images help you encapsulate a very hard to remember concept by tapping into
visual areas with enhanced memory abilities.
 The more neural hooks you can build by evoking the senses the easier it will be
for you to recall the concept.
  Keep repeating what you want to learn so that the metabolic toxins won’t suck
away the neural patterns related to that memory. Spaced repetition is the key.
 Flashcards help. Consider using Anki.
 Handwriting helps you deeply convert what you are trying to learn into neural
memory structures.

 
Memory Techniques:

 Create meaningful groups and abbreviations.

 To remember numbers, associate them to memorable events.
 Create mnemonic phrases from first letters of the words you want to remember.
 Memory Palace Technique: Use a familiar place (like the blueprint of your
house) and associate visual images of things you want to remember with
physical places.
o This is not easy. You’ll be very slow at first. But with practice, you’ll get
better.
o The more you practice your "memory muscle" the easier you’ll
remember.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Week 4: Renaissance Learning and Unlocking Your Potential

You should know:

 Exercising is by far more effective than any drug to help you learn better. It
helps new neurons survive.
 Learning doesn't always progress linearly and logically. Inevitably your brain
will hit a knowledge-collapse sometimes. This usually means your brain is
restructuring its understanding, building a more solid foundation.
 You learn complex concepts by trying to make sense out of the information you
perceive. Not by having someone else telling it to you.

 
Metaphors

 Metaphors and analogies are very helpful, not only to memorize, but to also
understand different concepts.
  It is often helpful to pretend that you are the concept you’re trying to understand.

 
Intelligence:

 Intelligence does matter. Being smart usually equate to having a large working
memory (more than just four slots).
 However, a super working memory can hold its thoughts so tightly that new
thoughts won’t easily find a way into the brain. Such a tightly controlled
attention could use an occasional breath of ADHD. You attention shifts even if
you don’t want it to shift.
 Deliberate practice is what helps the average brain lift into the realm of those
naturally gifted. Practicing certain mental patterns deepens your mind.
 Brilliant scientist like Ramón y Cajal, the father of neuroscience, or Charles
Darwin, were not exceptionally gifted. The key to their success was
perseverance, taking responsibility for their learning and changing their
thoughts.
 Take pride in the qualities you excel at. Tune people out if they try to demean
your efforts.

 
Right hemisphere:

 Helps us put our work into the big picture perspective and does reality checks.
 When you go through a homework or test questions and don’t go back to check
your work, you’re acting like a person who’s refusing to use parts of his brain.

 
Left hemisphere:

 Interprets the world for us but with a tendency for rigidity, dogmatism and
egocentricity.
 May lead to overconfidence. Ex: believing dismissively that your answers are
corrects.

 
Best practices:

 Always step back and recheck to takes advantages of abilities of both-

hemispheres interactions.
 Brainstorm and find focused people to analyze your work with.
o Your errors are sometimes easier to be found by others.
o Explaining yourself to others helps you understand more.
o Studying in a team helps you catch what you missed, or what you can’t
see.
 Don’t fool yourself. Don’t blindly believe in your intellectual abilities. Having a
team can bring those projections down.

 
Test Checklist:

 Did you make a serious effort to understand the text? If you had a study guide,
did you go through it?
 Did you attempt to outline every homework problem solution?
 Did you understand all your homework problems’ solutions? If not, did you ask
for explanations?
 Did you work with classmates on homework problems? checked your solutions?
 Did you consult your instructor/teacher when you had a problem with
something?
 Did you sleep well the night before the test?

 
Test Taking Technique: Hard Start - Jump to easy: (Try this strategy with
homework problems first)

1. Take a quick look at the test when it’s handed to you to get a sense of what it
involves.
2. Start with the hardest problem. Pull yourself out if you get stuck for over 2
minutes. Starting with a hard problem loads your focused mode first and then
switches attention away from it. This allows the diffused mode to start its work.
3. Turn next to an easy problem. Solves what you can, then move back to a hard
one. This allows the different part of your brain to work simultaneously on
different thoughts.

 
Taking Test Tips:

 Being Stressed before a test is normal. The body puts ups out chemicals when
it’s under stress. How you interpret the body reaction to those chemicals makes
all the difference.
o Shift your thinking from "I am afraid of this test" to “I am excited to do
my best”.
 If you are stressed during a test, turn your attention to breathing. Relax, put your
hand on your stomach and slowly draw some deep breaths. This will calm you
down.
 Relax your brain on the last day before a test. Have a quick final look at the
materials. Feeling guilty the last day is a natural reaction even if you prepared
well. So relax.
 Good worry motivates you. Bad worry wastes your energy.
 Double check your answers. Look away, shift your attention, and then recheck.