The Brainuser Blog - Tips around self management&learning more effectively

Does learning really have to be a struggle?

I remember my first learning experience as nice. The elementary school teaching style suited my young brain good and I remember it as fun and not difficult at all.

Also I remember also that I gave up reading comics in my young years very hesitantly – which my parents didnt like  -  but today I think I defended my natural whole brain approach instinctivly. Of course comics seem to be a bit primitive on first sight and its not so called “educating reading”. On the other hand I can still recall my fathers astonished face when I was using some advanced expressions like “cloning”  which I had found in my superman comics.  So obviously that time something about these comics let me learn in an excellent way and with the knowledge of today of course I know it is the connection of word and image, if its not even only the image carrying the true meaning.

Later then in 5th grade up the curriculum or the the way things were taught felt a bit more complicated, but I was still doing ok.

Even then though I felt that it got more and more into linear learning  and forgot to bring my right brain in the game.   So advancing in highschool my learning was still ok in most cases (except physics) but seemed to have been connected with much more effort and will and as if I had lost some parts of my intellectual capacities on the way.

Later then  in unversity  I was  facing such a huge amount of learning material that I realized  I had to do something to get my learning more efficient and with less repetitions done. It was then when I started to look around in bookshops where the memory, mnemomics and brainscience sections were. One of the first books I ran into was Use Your Head of Tony Buzan and also Use Your Perfect Memory: Dramatic New Techniques for Improving Your Memory; Third Edition (Plume) which are both absolutely excellent and it was as if I heardt me say “AHA” inside, cause somemthing in me allways knew there had to be some better stuff out there to learn. And as I read it I knew instantly that was exactly what I needed, was looking for and would be working for me.

Of course – in my case it has to do with my special learning style, being a  “leftie” and and a rather bigpicture thinker, then a linear step by step processor. But it is my firm belief that this approach is more efficient even for more detail-orientated linear learners, because it`s a scientic fact that the brain doesnt work and store in information in a linear way, but rather uses assosiation. 

So knowing the way the brain stores information it is obvious that the way to recieve and store it should be rather brain-friendly, giving the information the same way the brain stores it.

Why would we want our brain to “translate” information and add some additional processing steps if we can make it work instantly.

If everybody else in our working environment was using a PC we probably would not start using a MAC, cause it would only cause unnecessary adjustments on the way to work efficiently togehter.

I am not stating the other other way doesnt work, I am just questioning if it is the most efficient way.

So besides the many interesting and amazing facts about the potential of the human brain, the way our memory works, mnemonic techniques I especially found the way to make notes in the form of so-called MindMaps, which very many people allready know these days.  But back then I was sitting in the study hall and could see the amazed faces of my fellow students wondering if I was a weirdo drawing funny pics in the lecture instead of taking serious notes.

Well for me it worked  and I even found out it let`s you become a lot more creative using mindmaps, when you suddenly notice that you develop your own further thoughts on that advanced topic, which you would not have expected at that stage.

Theres is also a danger in it as I noticed. Using this you will find out that in many cases you find to be in a deeper level with the learning material, sometimes find “messie” thinking in the authors writing or lecture and you end up wth those new creative thoughts, which I ant to call  ”private associations“. In exams in most cases though nobody is open for those “private associations” and only want to hear “public associations” as those are mainstream, save and you find them in the  solution paper each corrector has is his hand while correcting (nobody will admit this though). So – there is also danger , which you should be aware of, as it lifts you to new and original thinking and you leave the status of a parrot, who can recall words of others only, behind (just recalling in most cases brings the best grades, if the examiner is not a very excellent one with enough courage to walk with the student to new fields out of the range of the own backyard).  But if you are aware of that risk you can very well handle that and later win in “real life” you will find out that often this new “original pure” thinking is a lof more effective then repeating the words of others.

So what is a mind map after all and how does it work?

The idea is to write down things the way the brain works in his natural way. You can do that with the main points of lectures or books or for your own structuring of new ideas.

Generate a topic. Put the focus of your thinking in the middle of a sheet. Best is to use only one words. Keep your topic simple. 

Place that topic in the center of the page.  Circle or place a square around the topic.

Start writing the next themes or branches. As you find those draw a branch from the main topic. Keep it to as few words as possible and write clearly.

Begin branching. Try to extend your thoughts from one aspect of the theme to the next. Draw lines between thoughts to create lateral thinking. Maybe number your ideas to create organization.

When new ideas come forth, draw a different branch from your topic.

Repeat branching until all of the main ideas of the theme are on the map.

After you are done, repeat the material with the map. After a short while. Maybe redraw the map or add to your old map if new ideas are coming.

With doing this procedure with all your lectures and books you will have a rich library of mind maps which will allow you a quick review later, when the exam is coming closer. The main branches of the mind map should allways have the main ideas of the theme on it, which are responsible for the memorizing of the content.  All unneccesarywords which are not important for the recall of the information is eliminated and doesnt have to be read again.

Also you can do a Mind Map right after a lecture to check what you understood and where you systemized the information in your previous knowledgebasis. You will be shocked when you notice the small amount you only got out of many lectures and the lacking awareness where to systemize it.  So obviously it is much better to do the Mind Map while you are listening to the lecture. you can allways redo the Mind Map if you find out that the teacher was unorganized.
Here are some more references for the interested reader:
The Mind Map Book: How to Use Radiant Thinking to Maximize Your Brain’s Untapped Potential

Use Both Sides of Your Brain: New Mind-Mapping Techniques, Third Edition (Plume)

You can also use mindmaps very good for drafting speeches or books. In fact there are excellent PC-Tools of Tony Buzan on the market, which lets you draft all easily using mindmaps on the PC and then getting it into a textform quick.

For anybody who is interested I included the link here. They do offer a free trial period for the software.
Get your free trial version here
 

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