Accelerated Intelligence: How to Study and Retain Knowledge

Many of us struggle with studying - especially in this age of social media, automation, and twerk videos.

But as any successful entrepreneur or corporate executive will tell you, reading is of vital importance, even for today's digital workforce. The reason is that reading makes your mind receptive to fresh thoughts and ideas. It refines and nuances your thinking process. 

If you want to transform your study habits and consume more quality content, this article is for you. You'll get incredibly useful tips to accelerate your intelligence, broaden your horizons, and change your life!

Let’s walk through the process. Shall we?

Study Tips 1: Find a Pattern That Works for You

In 2012, while studying for my B.Sc., I listened to a lecturer tell the class how he cheated the system to gain a First Class position in the final exam.

As a freshman still figuring out the courses and schedules, that story got my attention immediately. Frankly, his story was quite fascinating because what he told us was at cross purposes with what a lot of us believed was the secret to getting good grades in college.

He said he'd read for a brief period at night. And in the daytime, he'd simply coast along with everyone else. To his classmates, he was just another lousy student. But that notion quickly changed the day his name was announced as the best graduating student!

The secret? He found a reading pattern, which happened to be at night time.

So, I decided to figure out the process for myself too. I realized that attending classes was my best bet in keeping track of things. I made conscious efforts to take notes at each lecture. And then I'd do extra research at night and in my spare time. The rest is history because I graduated with a First while building a start-up.

Find out your most profitable reading/comprehension pattern. Some people are never satisfied until they’ve read the textbooks 5x cover-to-cover. If that is you, maybe you can structure your reading period to be more than your class participation, to the extent the rules allow.

Study Tips 2: Create a Schedule and Stick to It

Having a reading schedule is very vital.

Create your schedule in such a way that you don't start reading when you're already tired.

Your reading session doesn’t have to be a long period. You can create a break session in-between the schedule, so your brain gets refreshed.

Most people think you cannot digest much information until you’ve read for an extended period. On the contrary, experts have discovered that reading for a long time in a stretch does not necessarily add to your learning. 

The attention span of an average reader is about 25 minutes. Any reading activity longer than that might be a waste. So, let’s say you have, like most students do, a timetable to study for one hour every weekday. It’s advisable to take short breaks every 25 – 30 minutes, instead of sitting at the desk for one hour, staring at open pages without assimilating anything.

Furthermore, creating a study schedule helps you maintain consistency with your learning. The more consistent you make your reading reschedule, the more habitual and less of a struggle it becomes.

Study Tips 3: Create an Environment that Works for You, Not Against You

How many times have you found yourself in this type of situation:

You promise yourself that tonight, you are going to read like never!

You have everything ready.

The phone is on silent, the school bag is off the way, and armed with three different colors of highlighters, you sit on one edge of the bed and open your textbook with a serious reading posture.

Ten minutes later, you catch yourself nodding. You step off, watch your face, get back, and reposition yourself with a new game face.

Five minutes later, your bed starts whispering into your ear again, “Jaaanne, come sleep on meeeee.”

Begrudgingly, you promise yourself that things will be different tomorrow. So, you put all the stuff away and you doze off.

A familiar experience, right?

Sure, many of us have been there at one point.

Your environment plays a key role in how fruitful your reading time becomes. A bed is primarily for resting and not for reading. If your bedroom is the same as your reading room, that might be a problem. Put your reading table in such a way that you can sit with your back toward your bed. You’ll able to concentrate on the task at hand.

Create an environment that helps you focus. Turn off the TV, put your phone on silent mode, and turn down the volume of your stereo.

You can’t be humming to a song on the radio and expect to concentrate on your reading, it’s never going to happen!

Some people have also found that placing motivational quotes at strategic positions in the reading section helps them commit to their schedule.

Ultimately, your role is to create conditions that help you make the most of the session.

Study Tips 4: Engage in Participatory Learning

Many students learn by rote. They memorize facts without understanding the concepts behind them. It’s what we call “shew and pour”. That is, you memorize things to reproduce the same during exams.

People who study like that are usually bored out of their minds when they sit down to read. Reading can be more than a session for memorizing things.

Robert Chambers, a British academic and development practitioner, described Participatory Learning as an adaptive learning strategy that enables people to learn, work, and act together cooperatively and democratically.

This is where ideas like discussion classes and study groups originate from. They create an environment where people can collaboratively immerse themselves in subjects. The process of participation fosters mutual learning and knowledge sharing.

The warning, however, is to ensure mutual respect among group members. Organize meetings strategically to avoid members growing bored or the reading session turning into a gossip session.

Study Tips 4: Use The Reading Comprehension Formula

Here are more useful methods you can apply for better reading and comprehension:

1. Unravel Facts Vs Concepts

A fact is a piece of information or something known to be true. A concept is “an abstract idea generalized from particular instances or evidence, so involves an inductive process or thought.” Facts are things we memorize while concepts are things we understand.

Some people often forget what they read because they don't understand the subject. They only memorized it as facts. The moment you understand it, it becomes a present-hour knowledge.

Understand the concept; the underlying message being delivered. And then build your own argument around it.

2. Deploy The SQ3R Method

During World War II, droves of army people were sent to colleges and universities for intensive training in skills relevant to winning the war.

Professor of Psychology, Francis Pleasant Robinson, headed the Learning and Study Skills program at Ohio State University (OSU), and based on his research, he devised the "SQ3R method" and other techniques to help military personnel learn specialized skills in as little time as possible.

In his commentary, ahead of Veteran’s Day in 2002, Thomas G. Sticht called it “The reading formula that helped win World War II”.

SQ3R stands for:

• S: Survey (the book/a chapter to get an overview)
• Q: Question (ask one or more questions for each section in a chapter)
• R: Read (and mentally answer the questions)
• R: Recite (recall the answers to a section’s questions from your memory and write them down)
• R: Review (a complete chapter, by answering the chapter’s questions from your memory)

3. Ask Help From Your Professor

Another vital learning method is to get help from your lecturer. Asking for help/clarifications from your teacher is always a smart thing to do – it shows that you’re interested in the subject and helps you learn what you missed.

4. Teach what you learned

Be quick to teach what you’ve learned. If you can’t teach the subject to someone else, you haven’t learned it. So, find the opportunity to share your knowledge even if you don’t have all the answers yet.

If you can’t find anyone to teach, consider starting a blog. You also use micro social media blogging to share your knowledge. You will realize that the more you teach, the more you learn. You will also build a valuable audience, credibility, and resource center. As James Clear has remarked, successful people start before they feel ready. Start teaching today!

Final Thoughts on How to Study and Retain Knowledge

I wish I could tell you that if you only pick random insights from all the proven insights shared in this piece, you will completely overhaul your learning experience and transform your life. But the reality is, you won’t. It’s a complete package kind of thing.

You need to work on the various best practices shared. Surely, acting on some is better than acting on none. But the goal is to try different things and see what you're most comfortable with. That way you can sustainably make the best of your study time and make learning enjoyable! Learn new digital skills for the future of work.