Training Genius: The Learning Secrets of

Polyglots and Savants

In the tiny country of Iceland, a man is being interviewed. He speaks slowly; Icelandic is not his

native language. But, the broadcast continues smoothly and the speaker appears to be fluent.

On the surface, there is nothing extraordinary here. Mastering a new language is difficult, but

people do it all the time. However this is no ordinary person, and this is no ordinary feat.

The man is Daniel Tammet, and until one week prior to his nationally broadcasted interview,

he didn‘t speak a word of Icelandic.

The Mind of a Savant

Languages aren‘t Tammet‘s only talent. He has also memorized pi to over 24,000 digits and

can compute with five-figure numbers in his head. He claims to be able to do this by holding

a unique visual image for each number.

At first glance, abilities like Tammet‘s—rapid fluency, prodigious memory, visual imagery to

feel ideas intuitively—seem forever out of reach for normal human beings.

But perhaps Tammet‘s abilities can also serve as a guide. Even if Tammet may have some

genetic quirks that enhance his abilities, I‘ve seen that the methods he uses to learn are not

completely off-limits to mere mortals.

Take Benny Lewis, who until his twenties considered himself bad at languages. But he

recently completed a similar feat, being interviewed publicly, in Dutch after just two months

of practice.

Or consider Joshua Foer, journalist turned mnemoticist, who was able to win the US memory

championships after only a year of training. Winning such a title requires memorizing entire

decks of cards, poems, and names under intensive time pressure.

Natural gifts might be sufficient to explain Tammet‘s story. But it can‘t explain the savant-

by-training examples of Lewis or Foer. Buried beneath all the mysticism surrounding

brilliance there might be a strategy for learning faster. Could genius be trained?

Debunking Talent

K. Anders Ericsson is the world‘s expert on expertise. His research has debunked centuries-

old assumptions about how people become exceptionally good at certain skills.

Before Ericsson, the accepted assumption was that all ability was innate. People had capped

potentials, and once that potential was reached, there wasn‘t much you could do. Geniuses

were born, not made.

Ericsson‘s research had a fairly groundbreaking conclusion: practice, not potential, defined

our level of ability. Studying everyone from athletes to typists, he found that a person‘s

potential could commonly be surpassed, with focused effort and practice.

Ericsson‘s ideas about practice may apply to learning itself. Examples like Lewis and Foer

certainly suggest that, if you could find the right method, you could train yourself to learn

faster.

Studying everyone from athletes to typists, Ericsson found that a person’s potential could commonly

be surpassed, with focused effort and practice.

How Smart People Think

“If you understand something in only one way, then you don’t really understand it at all. The

secret of what anything means to us depends on how we’ve connected it to all other things we

know.” – AI researcher Marvin Minsky

What are the methods that smart people use to learn faster? Across a variety of learning

theories and mnemonic tricks, one broad generalization stands out: Smart people learn

through connections.

Even Tammet‘s alien abilities appear to make sense through this idea. By connecting abstract

numbers to concrete visual images, he‘s making them easier to imagine and work with.

Foer achieved his memory championship title after practicing an obscure, but ancient,

mnemonic technique that connects facts to familiar places in memory. Lewis attributes some

of his rapid vocabulary acquisition to a similar method by creating a visual connection

bridging the foreign word and its definition.

Compare learning through connections to its opposite: rote memorization. Rote memorization

involves learning merely by repeated exposure. Even if it can work, it rarely produces the

speed or brilliance we associate with extraordinary mental abilities.

Learning through connections, where you create metaphors and visual associations to

everything you want to learn and understand, is a vastly more powerful way to learn.

Many of us learn by rote, simply because nobody ever taught us a better method. It‘s difficult

to imagine a professional basketball player who was never instructed in how to dribble or

shoot. Yet most people are never taught how to learn; instead, we are expected to just pick it

up as we play.

Across a variety of learning theories and mnemonic tricks, one broad generalization stands out:

Smart people learn through connections.

How to Learn by Connections

The general trend that seems to bridge examples as distantly related as Tammet, Lewis, and

Foer is that they learn through connections, not through rote. But how do you actually do

that?

One way is to create metaphors. A metaphor is a connection between two ideas that aren‘t

actually related. Describing differential calculus in terms of the speedometer and odometer on

a car is an example.

Good metaphors and analogies aid in understanding because it forces you to really examine

the idea. You can‘t draw out similarities without understanding how a concept works.

Metaphors also aid in memory because they make the ideas more vivid. Vivid imagery also

appears to be an almost universally used tactic of brilliant thinkers.

Another way is to create visual associations. Memory works better storing pictures and places

than facts and figures. By translating those abstract details into vivid mental pictures, you‘re

leveraging your brain‘s strengths.

A good example of this is a technique Benny Lewis uses to remember vocabulary words.

First he comes up with a picture for the definition of the word. Then he comes up with a

picture for the foreign language word, by trying to pin it on what it ―sounds like‖. Finally, he

blends the two up in a bizarre example to sear it into memory. The French word gare (train

station) becomes GARfield running to the TRAIN STATION for a lasagna-eating contest.

It sounds frivolous at first, but I put it to the test. I ran a personal experiment, learning 50 new

vocabulary words in French every day. One week I used normal rote memorization as a

control and the other I used Benny‘s method. For the same time investment, my recall went

from 30% to just below 80%.

Could Genius Be Learned?

These examples are interesting, but a handful of anecdotes do not equate to hard

data. Science still has a lot to understand in the way humans learn, particularly in what

separates fantastic abilities like Tammet‘s from our own.

In the meantime, however, I‘m willing to venture that the talents possessed, even by geniuses,

are not wholly innate. If alternative methods, such as metaphor or visual association underpin

these talents, then perhaps some of genius can be learned as well.

9 Tactics for Rapid Learning (That Most People Have Never Heard Of)

Whenever the subject of why some people learn faster comes up, I get a whole host of

common answers:

1. Some people are just naturally smart. (Often implying you can’t improve) 2. Everyone is “smart” in their own way. (Nonsense, research indicates different

“intelligences” often correlate) 3. IQ is all in the genes. (Except IQ changes with age and IQ tests can be studied for, like any

other test)

There may be some truth to these claims. But, I don‘t believe that means that average learners

are doomed to mediocrity. I‘ve met and heard of many people who went from middle to

spectacular students after changing their learning habits and finding motivation.

Considering the upcoming launch of my rapid learning program, I wanted to share my

favorite tactics to learn faster, retain information better or just enjoy the process of learning

more:

#1 – Pegging (or How Mental Magicians can Perfectly Recall Hundreds of Numbers)

One of my favorite learning tactics, that is rarely mentioned, is pegging. This is a great tool

for remembering numbers, provided you practice it.

The systems I‘ve seen typically work with a special cheat sheet. This is a list of the digits 0-9

which each correspond to the sound of a consonant. All you need to do is memorize the

corresponding consonant and digit match (e.g. 0 = t, 1 = s, 2 = k, 3 = r, etc.)

From there, you can translate any series of numbers into a series of letters. Now all you need

to do is make groups of letters into nouns by adding vowels between the consonants. So 201

becomes, k-t-s, which can become ―kites‖, for example.

Then, once you have your string of nouns, you just need to create a story that combines each

of the nouns in a sequence. To translate them back you only need to remember the story and

decompose the objects back into their original digits.

#2 – Metaphor (Juliet is the sun… or is she a chemical formula?)

Here‘s a quick way to separate the rapid learners from the average learners. Ask them to give

you an analogy for whatever they are learning. The rapid learners probably have already

thought of at least one analogy, application or metaphor. Slower learners usually are baffled

by the question.

Linking ideas allows you to retain them longer and understand them better. Shakespeare isn‘t

the only one who should be making connections between ideas.

#3 – Total Immersion (Or How a Guy Can Become Fluent in 8 Languages)

Benny Lewis became fluent in eight languages in under a decade. More, his current goal is to

become fluent in a new language in under 3 months. When I asked him how he achieved this

his answer was straightforward: ―I stop speaking English. I do everything in the language I

want to learn.‖

When you‘re totally immersed in a subject (or language), even if you‘re lost, you‘ll learn far

faster than everyone who just dabbles.

#4 – Visceralization (What does a derivative look like?)

When we were kids, we played with crayons and drew pictures of fantastic things that never

existed outside our imagination. What happened?

Now most of us feel embarrassed if we try to imagine anything exciting or creative with what

we learn. This is, I believe, a key reason many people struggle scholastically. They try to

memorize exactly the way they were taught, instead of visualizing the material in an

inventive way.

When I recently had to write a test on international labor law, a key topic was the

International Labor Organization. Rather than memorize facts, I drew a picture of a creature

which had three heads for each of the sections of the ILO, one with 4 mouths for each of the

different delegates. In all, I managed to incorporate a page of notes into one picture.

Learning only needs to be boring because you make it that way.

#5 – Linking (Or How to Remember a Grocery List Without the Paper)

Like pegging, linking is another trick mental magicians use. The idea here is that you form a

chain, linking each item in a sequence to the next item. You form these links by imagining

bizarre and surreal pictures which combine the two elements.

For a simple list like Milk -> Honey -> Apples, you would need to form a link between milk

and honey, which you could imagine a giant cow that had bees which came from its udders

instead of milk. For the honey and apples, you could imagine an giant apple beehive

swarming with tiny apple seeds.

Like pegging this technique can go far beyond the scope of this article. I‘ve used it

successfully to remember lists of abstract principles that need to be memorized in a sequence

for tests.

#6 – The 5-Year Old Method (Try explaining quantum physics to a first grader)

Most rapid learners know how to simplify an explanation. Obviously, actually explaining

your masters thesis to a first grader might be impossible. But the goal is to reduce the

complexity, by explaining, breaking down and using analogies, so that someone far below

your current academic level could understand it.

If you can teach an idea, you can learn that idea.

#7 – Ambiance Catalysts (Or How Drinking a Pint Can Improve Your Studying)

Cal Newport, wrote about the importance of context when studying. If you lock yourself

away in a library to get work done, no wonder you‘re going to hate it. If the ambiance is

appealing, it can push you to get working.

He suggests even going to a quiet bar with your reading material and ordering a beer.How‘s

that for a more inviting study setting?

#8 – Diagrams (Who said doodling in class was wrong?)

It turns out doodlers perform better in mental retention tests than non-doodlers. I would add

even that if the drawings you create in a class are related to the course material, you would

probably learn even better.

#9 – Speed Reading (Or How to Read 70 Books in a Year)

Speed reading is less about speed and more about control. Just as racecar driving is more

about controlling speed for tight turns, rather than just hitting the accelerator.

If you want to speed read, the basics are:

1. Use your finger as a pointer to underline the text as you read it. This reduces the impact of saccades and distractions in slowing your reading time.

2. Practice reading books faster than you can comprehend, by moving your finger faster. This “practice skimming” helps you improve your comprehension at higher reading rates.

3. Stop subvocalizing. Practice reading faster than you can say the words aloud in your head. Subvocalization can help at slower speeds, but if you require it to read, your top speed will be reduced.

How To Remember Everything You Read

Using Mental Pictures

Once you understand how learning occurs

through pictures and associations you will

know how to remember everything you

read using mental pictures .

The information you ―input‖ into your brain using mental pictures and associations, can be

easily retrieved using the same formula. This is called access! Access is better known as

memory and you will use this when you learn how to remember everything you read.

Neuroscientists say that our brain works best using mental pictures with association. When

you want to learn how to remember everything you read do this as an experiment: Imagine

what you were wearing two days ago.

Your brain did one or two things to help you remember and the same will

happen if you use pictures and associations to learn how to remember

everything you read.

First, you may have accessed a picture of yourself immediately and easily remembered what

you were wearing. Or, if you needed to think for a moment, several things may have popped

into your mind that you associated with what you were wearing. These would help you recall

the exact kind of clothing you had on.

You might have remembered where you were and that triggered your memory. Perhaps you

thought of what you were doing whether you had any special reason to wear a certain kind of

clothing.

Maybe you remembered how you felt wearing the clothing. These are clues to your brain to

use mental images and other learning styles as you learn how to remember everything you

read.

All of these things are known as associations. One thing reminded you of another. They were

paired up in your brain with something else and voila – you remembered when you made the

―connection‖ or ―association‖ with the pictures and are part of how to remember everything

you read.

These mental pictures and associations are what helps you learn how to remember everything

you read and you will need to turn the words into mental movies as you read. This is what

excellent readers and speed readers do.

The ancient Greeks and Romans often had elaborate memory contests to impress their fellow

men with their ―feats.‖ You can benefit from their system to teach yourself how to remember

everything you read using mental pictures.

Over 2,000 years ago they used several systems, all based on associations and pictures, which

are validated by brain research today in order to learn how to remember everything you read

using mental pictures.

Since our teaching and testing system relies so heavily on what students can recall, teaching

memory techniques and a system of how to remember everything you read rewards everyone

with better memories and higher self-esteem.

You are actually putting yourself in an empowered ―state‖ for learning and for learning how

to remember everything you read.

Therefore, if you are trying to learn how to remember everything you read, you can boost

your success by giving yourself reliable, long term strategies.

Here is the first strategy to learn how to remember everything you read using mental pictures.

It is an excerpt from the book, Instant

Learning for Amazing Grades.

This strategy is about how to remember things in order and you can use it not only for

understanding how to remember everything you read using mental pictures, words in a

certain order, but to remember things like a grocery list or other things you have to do in a

day in a particular order. you can also use it to understand how to remember everything you

read.

Memory Pegs

Look around the room you are in and see if there is a picture hanging on the wall. If so, you

can think of a memory peg like the hook in your brain that you will hang what you want to

remember on.

This system is reported on and adapted from Colin Rose‘s book Accelerated Learning and

Tony Buzan‘s, Use Both Sides of Your Brain.

1………Bun……….Mercury

2………Shoe………Venus

3………Tree………Earth

4………Door………Mars

5………Hive………Jupiter

6………Sticks……..Saturn

7………Heaven……Uranus

8………Gate……….Neptune

9………Sign………..Pluto

1. To recall the planets in order, ―memorize‖ the pegs. The pegs are next to the numbers.

(Remember – you now know that ―memorize‖ simply means to use pictures and associations

like all memory experts do. You‘re connecting up those neurons and dendrites in your brain

and you have a specific strategy for how to remember everything you read with the

associations and things they remind you of.

2. What do you notice about the pegs and the numbers across from them? They rhyme with

the numbers they are next to.

3. Then, sit in your ―success position‖ and begin to say the numbers and pegs aloud. 1 Bun, 2

Shoe, 3 Tree, 4 Door, 5 Hive, 6 Sticks, 7 Heaven, 8 Gate, 9 Sign. Repeat the process much

louder and again in a whisper as you learn how to remember everything you read.

4. Then close your eyes, hold your head up high, and you say the numbers and the rhyming

pegs. You are indeed using a system about how to remember everything you read.

5. Then think of what a bun reminds you of. Be sure you look up into your visual memory

position where you remember pictures and get a clear image of the bun. You are easily

learning how to remember everything you read.

To verify, ask yourself things like whether the bun has sesame seeds on it? Or, did you think

of another kind of bun, like a hot dog bun, a cinnamon sticky bun, or even the buns we sit on,

etc.

Whatever it is, create colorful images of the bun and look upward into your visual memory

position with the pictures you created. These pictures you create are used to teach yourself

how to remember everything you read.

6. Finally, either on a paper or in their visual memory ―screen‖ position, connect both the

mercury and the bun together in a single humorous, colorful image. It‘s usually best to draw

your image in the beginning. Maybe you drew a hamburger bun with a thermometer sticking

out of it…but whatever it was, you developed a system to for how to remember everything

you read.

Great - now you're well on your way to learn how to remember everything you read.

Reinforce the memory by placing this image up on a visual memory screen, something

like an inner blackboard as you learn how to remember everything you read.

7. Next, close their eyes, and you ask what is planet 1? You will think of 1, the rhyming peg

―bun‖ and see the mercury connected to the bun. You will quickly know that planet 1 is

mercury, by recalling the phrase ―1 Bun – Mercury‖.

Then repeat the process with the other numbers, pegs and associated images. It‘s best to

review by holding your pictures in your visual memory position, one at a time.

As you draw or place your images in your visual memory location, play some of the Mozart

music recommended in Chapter 13 or in the resource section to anchor the learning with

another modality. This is another way to learn how to remember everything you read.

After reviewing to see that you know the planets in order, give yourself a written test so you

can see if you now know how to remember everything you read.

Have fun with this and remind yourself that they now have a strategy to rely on your magic

memory screen. (You‘ll be creating a nice brain link so that when you hear the word ―test‖

you will smile – knowing that you now have a strategy to remember things on written tests as

well as know how to remember everything you read).

I often use this strategy in my teacher education courses and teachers get to experience first

hand how powerful it is when teaching them how to remember everything they read using

mental pictures.

Before we begin the exercise, I run around the room asking teachers to tell me, ―What is

planet 6, what is planet 2, what is planet 8, etc.‖ I give them very little time to answer and

when they don‘t know, I assure them that the peg memory strategy above will allow them to

know the answers very rapidly for the ―test.‖

The teachers are amazed at their success. Each one feels certain and can say to the other, Hey,

you know how to remember everything you read as well as how to remember things in order.

How Can I Best Absorb Information While

Reading?

I like to read nonfiction books on various topics that I'm interested in, but I find that

the information doesn't really stick.

For example, I read a biography of Thomas Jefferson about a year ago and I can't

really remember anything about it, except that he was born in 1743. When I see/listen to

authors that are role models to me, like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, they are

able to routinely cite from books. I've even seen Hitchens quote a book, giving the page

number as well, from memory.

I want to be able to store information like these people but, if possible, without reading

a book more than once. What method(s) can I undertake to ensure I get the most

possible information from a book when I read it?

3-Step Program (Answered by TRdH)

Memory is built on three components:

1. Impression

2. Association

3. Repetition

A single one of these components can be enough to memorize anything. However, weaving

the three components together is the most secure way to remember anything, once and for all.

Let me illustrate each component:

Impression

When you are very impressed by something (an idea, a picture, a sound, a face, a text, a

situation), the probability that you will remember it is much higher. For example, if as a child

you were left alone lost in a mall for a while, you might remember the whole situation very

accurately. Same with your book: if you are very impressed by something Thomas Jefferson

did in his life, the chance you will remember this aspect becomes higher. The good thing is

that you can increase the strength of this impression yourself while reading.

For example, you can stop reading one second and picture the situation in your mind,

exaggerating some features of the situation in order to enhance the impression of your mental

image, by adding violence, greatness, or anything to shock yourself. You can even add

yourself in your mental picture, imagining Thomas Jefferson thanking you for your help or

kicking your butt or anything memorable. This will make the impression stronger.

Also, you may enhance the impression of a text by reading it out loud—even very loud if

your neighbors are okay with it. Some people are more sensitive to impressions coming from

sounds (voice) than from the view (written text).

Association

If you can link something you read to anything you already know, the probability of

remembering it becomes even stronger—sometimes incredibly strong. For example, if

Thomas Jefferson was born on the same day as you, you would find it very easy to remember

this because you linked the data you read to something you already know for sure and will

not forget. It is like tying something new (the data you read, Jefferson's birthday) to a tree (a

piece of data you know, your own birthday). That is why the more you know about a topic,

the easier it is to learn more and more.

If you are very knowledgeable on a topic (like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris on

literature), it becomes very easy to make strong links—you have many ropes and many trees.

So learn more about the basics and about the context of a book and you will remember more.

Repetition

If you read a book 10 times you will remember more. Same for anything, a recipe, a route

between two locations, the lyrics of a song, phone numbers, etc. The more you repeat, the

more you remember. When reading a book, if you do not want to read it several times, you

can highlight a few parts that you want to remember, and re-read only those parts several

times. You will remember these segments much better. And you will see that they will also

help you remember the rest of the book.

Impress yourself with powerful mental images, make associations with what you already

know (and make sure you learn the basics to start), and repeat this exercise several times.

Work to become better at remembering and you will become better at remembering

everything you want.

Learn to Remember Everything: The

Memory Palace Technique

In this post I'll teach you how to have perfect recall of lists of items. Length is not much of an issue, it

can be your shopping list if 10 items or it can be a list with 50, 100 or even 1000. And in a

forthcoming post I'll show you how you how to apply this technique to learning new languages.

Sounds good, doesn't it?

The technique we'll be learning is called the memory palace, and is also known as the method of loci

(for the latin word locus meaning place) and also the mind palace. A very useful tool in everyone's

toolbox!

The memory palace The memory palace technique began in the 5th century B.C., when Simonides of Ceos, poet, was

attending an unfortunate banquet in Thessalia. While he was away to talk with a courier who asked

for him outside, the hall's ceiling crumbled, killing everyone. There was no way to recognise the

corpses... Until Simonides realised that it was no problem to recall who was where, without having

done any effort.

Think about it: It is not hard to remember who sits beside the host, where your friends sit, who is

beside them and so on. This dawned upon Simonides, and he is credited as the "inventor" of the

memory palace technique. Widely spread through antiquity, there was not a lot of written accounts

on it: it appears in the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herrenium and Cicero's De Oratore. It is not that

strange that there were no written accounts, it is like writing a book about how to put your trousers

on. Everybody knows how to do it.

The memory palace is well suited to how our brains have evolved. Back in our nomadic days we

needed to know how to get somewhere (the lake, the plain) and remember what was there (fresh

water, hunting). By taking advantage of this fact we can build an array of impressive memorisation

techniques, to ordered or unordered lists.

Remembering lists may sound lame, who wants to memorise a list...? But lists are just an ordered

array of knowledge! What you study for a history exam is a list of ordered dates accompanied by

facts and causes (sub-lists). When you learn a new recipe, it is a list. A telephone number is a list of

numbers. A poem is a list of phrases.

Your first memory palace: building and filling Let's start by creating our first memory palace. It does not need to be a palace, in fact, it should not.

Just think of your home, and as a sample I'll assume is really small: from the door you get to a small

hall, connected to a living room which leads to a kitchen, a WC and a bedroom with a balcony. This is

a sample, to memorise correctly you have to visualise your home or any other place you may know

very well. You can of course use this mental image of an imaginary house, but memorising may be

harder, be warned.

Now consider the following shopping list: lettuce, bacon, onion rings, SD card and oranges. We want

to memorise it. I picked a short list to make the post shorter and make it fit in our small imaginary

home: try your hand with a longer list if you don't believe we can do it with longer lists.

To remember the list, we have to place each item somewhere in our mind palace. This of course can

mean one item per room or several items per room, each one in a special spot in the room. The

simplest method is to put each item in its own room, when you are confident enough, create

additional trapping space in each room. Thus, our small 5-room house could be easily a 5, 10 or 15

places memory palace.

To place an item, we have to visualise it in the room, and to make sure we remember it it has to be

an extremely odd image. It has to leave a clear impression and to do so, it has to be surprising,

bizarre or sexual, among other options. If the image is dull, remembering it is close to impossible.

Begin with the list. When we enter the front door, we are greeted by Kermit the frog, only that this

special Kermit is made of lettuce, like a talking lettuce. Can you see it? Feel the freshness of

Lettucit's leaves? In the living room a stampede of pigs followed by Kevin Bacon with a fork should

be bizarre and clear enough! In the kitchen, Scarlett Johansson plays hoola-hop with an onion ring.

You enter the bedroom, and to your surprise, the bed is a gigantic SD card: you can hide the bed by

pressing it in to be read. Finally, you open the balcony to find that the sun is now a big, luminous

orange. It starts to drip juice over the desert in front of your window!

You should put all these images in a place you know like the palm of your hand: your home, the

house you grew up, your office. This is very important.

You may not believe it works at all, but you will be surprised. I wrote the first part of this post in the

afternoon, and now more than 3 hours later I still can see clearly all the images. Of course this is a

short list... But it would not matter: you could remember a list 5 times as long as easily as with this

one.

Finding an array of memory palaces To remember a lot of things you need to have a lot of places to put all these memories. You will

need to find your own array of memory places. The first time I considered this problem, I thought

about creating imaginary palaces, linked somehow by corridors. The problem? Artificial palaces get

blurry very quickly, and you tend to forget them. It is far, far better to use real places, or at least

places you can revisit in real life, like pictures from a book, levels in a computer game or buildings

you can visit.

Then I started to think about houses and places I could use... And I found that there are plenty. I still

remember school mates houses from 16 years ago, hotels I've been, buildings I have visited. I am

sure you will find a huge array of places you can use. To begin with the technique, use very known

places, like your house or office and as you get more confident with the technique, start using older

places.

You can read more about this in Building Your Memory Palace Collection.

Final words You have to get the knack of the method. Get some degree of experience in converting everyday

objects (like lettuce) into long-lasting impressions (like Kermit the lettuce-head). This only comes

with practice, like walking around your images of memory palaces. Practice, practice, practice!

By the way, can you recall the shopping list above?

Did you enjoy this post? If so, please take 2 minutes to sign up to mostlymaths.net newsletter. If you

don't have time right now, share this post with your friends with the share buttons below. Thanks!

Why aren't you following me in twitter here too?

In case you want to read more:

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything (Joshua Foer) How to Develop a Brilliant Memory Week by Week: 52 Proven Ways to Enhance Your

Memory Skills (Dominic O'Brian) Quantum Memory Power: Learn to Improve Your Memory with the World Memory

Champion! (Dominic O'Brian) Maximize Your Memory (Jonathan Hancock)

I have written a another related post called Remembering Facts: Using Mental Associative Chains,

and also expanded the method to find memory palaces in Building Your Memory Palace Collection.

How to retain 90% of everything you learn

Imagine if you had a bucket of water. And every time you attempted to fill the bucket, 90%

of the water would leak out instantly. Every time, all you‘d retain was a measly 10%. How

many times would you keep filling the bucket?

The answer is simple: just once.

The first time you noticed the leak, you’d take action You‘d either fix the bucket or you‘d get another bucket, wouldn‘t you?

Yet that’s not at all the way we learn. Almost all of us waste 90% of our time, resources and learning time, because we don‘t

understand a simple concept called the Learning Pyramid. The Learning Pyramid was

developed way back in the 1960s by the NTL Institute in Bethel, Maine. And if you look at

the pyramid you‘ll see something really weird.

That weird thing is that you‘re wasting time. You‘re wasting resources. You‘re just doing

everything you can to prevent learning. And here‘s why.

To summarize the numbers (which sometimes get cited differently) learners retain

approximately: 90% of what they learn when they teach someone else/use immediately.

75% of what they learn when they practice what they learned.

50% of what they learn when engaged in a group discussion.

30% of what they learn when they see a demonstration.

20% of what they learn from audio-visual.

10% of what they learn when they‘ve learned from reading.

5% of what they learn when they‘ve learned from lecture.

So why do you retain 90% when you teach someone else or when you implement it

immediately?

There‘s a good reason why. When you implement or teach, you instantly make mistakes. Try

it for yourself. (In this article for instance, after I‘d read the information, I cited the loss rate

as 95% instead of 90% to begin with. I had to go back and correct myself. Then I found three

more errors, which I had to fix. These were factual errors that required copy and paste, but I

still made the errors).

So as soon as you run into difficulty and start to make mistakes, you have to learn how to

correct the mistake. This forces your brain to concentrate.

But surely your brain is concentrating in a lecture or while reading

Sure it is, but it‘s not making any mistakes. What your brain hears or sees is simply an

abstract concept. And no matter how clearly the steps are outlined, there is no way you‘re

going to retain the information. There are two reasons why.

Reason 1: Your brain gets stuck at the first obstacle.

Reason 2: Your brain needs to make the mistake first hand.

Reason 1: Your brain gets stuck at the first obstacle.

Yes it does. And the only way to understand this concept is to pick up a book, watch a video,

or listen to audio. Any book, any video, any audio. And you‘ll find you‘ve missed out at least

two or three concepts in just the first few minutes. It‘s hard to believe at first, but as you keep

reading the same chapter over and over, you‘ll find you‘re finding more and more that you‘ve

missed.

This is because the brain gets stuck at the first new concept/obstacle. It stops and tries to

apply the concept but struggles to do so. But you continue to read the book, watch the video

or listen to the speaker. The brain got stuck at the first point, but more points keep coming.

And of course, without complete information, you have ‗incomplete information‘.

Incomplete information can easily be fixed by making the mistake first hand.

Reason 2: Your brain needs to make the mistake first hand No matter how good the explanation, you will not get it right the first time. You must make

the mistake. And this is because your interpretation varies from the writer/speaker. You think

you‘ve heard or read what you‘ve heard/read. But the reality is different. You‘ve only

interpreted what they‘ve said, and more often than not, the interpretation is not quite correct.

You can only find out how much off the mark you are by trying to implement or teach the

concept.

So how do you avoid losing 90% of what you’ve learned? Well, do what I do. I learn something. I write it down in a mindmap. I talk to my wife or

clients about the concept. I write an article about it. I do an audio. And so it goes. A simple

concept is never just learned. It needs to be discussed, talked, written, felt etc. (I wrote this

article, ten minutes after reading these statistics online).

The next time you pick up a book or watch a video, remember this .

Listening or reading something is just listening or reading.

It‘s not real learning.

Real learning comes from making mistakes.

And mistakes come from implementation.

And that‘s how you retain 90% of everything you learn.

Which is why most of the people you meet are always going around in circles. They refuse to make mistakes. So they don‘t learn.

They‘d rather read a book instead. Or watch a video. Or listen to an audio.

Their bucket is leaking 90% of the time. But they don‘t care.

The question is: Do you?

———————–

Next Step: “Before I purchased the Brain Audit, I thought this is just crazy, I’ve got so

much marketing material that I still haven’t implemented.“

But right from Sean‘s first story and metaphor, I could see this was different. I was hooked.

The Brain Audit challenged virtually every principle of marketing I‘d grown up with. Like

selling benefit or never starting with a negative or problem.

And it‘s this refreshing, innovative approach that makes the Brain Audit a must buy for

anyone who is really serious about challenging the status quo and taking their business to

new heights.

Already we‘ve applied the principles to one of our workshops and the response has been

fantastic. The Brain Audit and our ongoing association with Sean has been one of the best

business decisions we‘ve every made.

Meta-study identifies the top five

techniques to make learning stick

What are the most effective learning techniques – the ones that cause learning to stick?

Decades of cognitive psychological and educational research consistently point to five

techniques, according to a recent meta-analysis.

The review looked at the evidence for teaching techniques going back for more than 100

years, zeroing in on 10 widely studied techniques.

The researchers gave the highest marks to two techniques that have proven especially

effective across a wide range of tasks and educational contexts.

Another three were also found to be useful, though the evidence was more limited.

Here are the winners. You‘ve heard us mention each of them before:

1. Spacing

Most trainers know that one-shot training events, such as a conference or class, don‘t work.

Most of what was ―learned‖ is forgotten within a month.

But add in reinforcement events over the following days, weeks and months, and people are

much more likely to retain what they learned.

The researchers concluded that the Spacing Effect is the number-one technique for making

learning stick.

Yet it still gets short shrift in the real world of training, for reasons of time, money and

logistics. Busy organizations want people back on the job quickly and view training as a

distraction.

If you‘re getting pushback on the need for follow-up, these findings give you new

ammunition. Without follow-up, training investments are largely wasted.

2. Testing

Close behind the Spacing Effect is the Testing Effect. Testing is more than just a way to

assess learning. It‘s part of the learning. It forces learners to retrieve information from the

brain.

Spacing and testing go hand in hand. Researchers have learned that intermediate quizzing –

multiple short quizzes as opposed to a ―final exam‖ – are much better at improving

performance.

Testing formats matter too. Multiple choice works; it‘s easy to design and easy to administer.

Fill-in-the-blank and essay questions may work better, because learners have to come up with

the answer instead of simply recognizing it.

Even if they fail to get the right answer, research has shown, struggling improves memory

over the long term.

Remember, too, that testing can occur during a session. Researchers have doubled learning

performance by regularly stopping and requiring learners to answer a question, then

discussing the answers before moving on.

3. Interleaving

We‘ve all struggled to learn something, only to set it aside and come back later, when the

subject yields up some of its mysteries.

That‘s the idea behind the Interleaving Effect. Learning is like exercise; you need to mix it

up. That‘s one reason intensive all-day training seminars often yield poor results.

You can interleave simply by spacing lessons on different topics within each other, similar to

class schedules in high school. For example, you might introduce one topic on Monday, a

different one on Tuesday, and then come back to the first topic on Wednesday.

4. Self-explanation

We‘ve all had this moment: You stop trying to figure out what the trainer is telling you, and

try to solve the problem for yourself. It‘s a slight shift in the mind – the moment where you

start to own the learning yourself. That seems to be a moment we remember.

Cognitive psychologists have found you can help trigger this moment by stopping

periodically and asking learners:

• ―What material is new to you in what we just covered?‖

• ―What steps did you take to figure this out?‖

(Insist that they actually answer; don‘t just toss the question out there.)

5. Elaborative interrogation

We‘ve also had this moment: We‘ve been following directions, and we suddenly see the big

picture. At that moment, learning no longer depends on remembering the right answer. The

right answer is the one that makes sense.

Researchers have found that ―why‖ questions help trigger this effect. If you‘re teaching a new

sales technique, for example, ask, ―Why do you think this technique works?‖

Less effective

Here are five techniques that the researchers found to be less effective. They may work

sometimes, but their usefulness is limited or they‘re hard to implement: summarization,

highlighting, mnemonics, mental imagery (e.g., imagining a queen to remember someone‘s

name is Elizabeth) and rereading.

3 Simple Techniques to Guide Your Learner’s Attention August 26th, 2008

44 comments

Think of learning and instructional design from the perspective of playing the ―I Spy‖

game. You say, ―I spy with my little eye…a red box.‖ And then you wait forever while the

other game players look for the red box. Maybe they find it; maybe they don‘t. In either

case, you‘re at the whim of the ones looking for the box because you don‘t control how they

go about looking for it and whether or not they even find it.

Instructional design is like starting with, ―I spy a red box over there in the corner under the

picture of the sailboat.‖ With this type of guidance, you‘ve gotten the person to look in just

the right spot. It doesn‘t make playing ―I Spy‖ fun, but it makes teaching a lot easier because

you‘re less dependent on them learning through a more informal process (which has its own

benefits but can be more time-consuming).

Ultimately, how you structure and present your content impacts how people learn and gain

their understanding. There are a number of approaches that you can take when presenting

your course content. For this post, I explain three simple techniques and follow it up with a

quick demo.

Show them the big picture and let them see everything in context.

You can present all of the information at one time. This can help the learners see the overall

context and make connections. It also gives the learners the freedom to explore the screen

content and puts them in a position of discovery.

One of the challenges can be that the learner might ―see‖ the information, but might not

really be making the right connections. In essence, it‘s like saying, ‗I spy something

important.‖ And then hoping that the learner knows what it is.

One way to address this is to guide them to look for specific information on the screen. For

example, instead of telling them the information, ask questions that provoke thinking.

What benefits do you see in this approach?

Point out those parts of the screen that are important.

This builds off of the first technique. You still give the learners all of the information up

front. However, by pointing things out on the screen, you‘re able to draw their attention to

those things that are more important than others.

It‘s the difference between, ―I spy some important information,‖ and ―This information is

important.‖ By directing their attention, you can give them the big picture and still focus on

things more specific. This can be done with simple annotations or animations.

Only show them the information as you get to it.

Don‘t distract your learners with information they don‘t need. Instead, use progressive builds

to reveal the information on the screen. Basically, you‘re breaking the information into

manageable chunks and then giving it to the learners a little at a time.This can be an effective

technique if you‘re trying to teach something new or complex.

Going back to the ―I Spy‖ game, it‘s like saying, ―I spy a red box, but it‘s in the top left

corner of the screen.‖ That immediately tells people where to look and they aren‘t distracted

by things outside that area.

The drawback to this technique is that it can be slow for those who are quick learners or

already understand the content. Thus, they have to wait for you to get to a place where they

actually learn something new.

Consider how the user navigates the course. If I add animations on the screen, I like to

free up the navigation so that the learners can go back and forth. This gives them the power

to review the information. Sometimes the narration can be too slow, or we set automatic

animations timed at what we think is an ―average‖ reading speed. We do this to

accommodate the ―average‖ learner, but from my experience, it really accommodates no

one. In fact, you‘ll get complaints of ―too fast‖ or ―too slow‖ anyway. Why not just give the

learners the ability to navigate at their pace?

One of my favorite player features is the scrub bar. Not all course players have

them. However, when it‘s available, I like to drag it back and forth to review the animations

or parts of the screen without having to go through the entire screen from the beginning. One

of my biggest pet peeves is a screen with 5 minutes of information and no way to jump to the

middle if I want to refer back to some information on that screen. The scrub bar lets me

quickly jump to a specific point of information.

Watch the demo.

I put together a quick tutorial to show you how the simple techniques work. Click the link

below to watch it.

Click here to view the demo.

These three techniques are generally neutral with no one being better or worse than the

others. How you use them just depends on your subject matter and the learner‘s

expertise. You also need to consider your learning objectives and how you‘ll help the learner

meet them.

What simple techniques would you use to present information to your learners? Leave an

answer in the comments section.

- See more at: http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/3-simple-techniques-to-guide-your-

learners-attention/#sthash.zDgUvVSz.dpuf

How To Remember Literally Everything

"Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things," the Roman philosopher and statesman,

Cicero once wrote. And though it was important at the time of Da Oratore, his dialogue on

cultivating the power of remembrance, the art of memory is possibly more relevant than ever.

Constant digital distractions and multitasking can have a negative effect on working memory.

Collectively, our memories do seem to be getting fuzzier: A recent poll found that Gen Y-ers

between the ages of 18 and 34 are more likely than the 55-plus set to forget what day it is (15

percent vs. seven percent) and where they put their keys (14 percent vs. eight percent). They

also forget to bring their lunch (nine percent) or even to take a shower (six percent) more

frequently than seniors.

Poor memory can strike at any age, and it could hinder your work and personal life. We all

remember using mnemonic devices in school (Did "Never Eat Shredded Wheat" get you

through third grade geography?), but memory tricks can be more than just study aids. As

adults, there are a number of simple and practical tools to help you remember people's names

and stop forgetting where you parked your car or left your keys.

Try these eight hacks to super-power your memory.

Visualize it.

Need to memorize a list of terms or names? You'll have a better chance of being able to recall

them if the words are associated with an image -- particularly if you consider yourself a

visual learner (which 65 percent of the population is estimated to be). For example, if you

have to remember a meeting at 4:30 p.m., try remembering your favorite quartet (The

Beatles?) and a 30th birthday cake. It may sound silly, but you'll be grateful when you're right

on time.

Try a brain game.

Brain-stimulating games like sudoku and crosswords can be useful. And there's also

Lumosity, a set of exercises for computer or phone that were created by a team of

neuroscientists and improve the memory of 97 percent of users in only 10 hours of playing.

Studies have yet to determine precisely how these games boost memory, but there's good

reason to believe that they are effective: A new study in people over age 60 found that

playing a video game meant to train the brain boosted the subjects' ability to multitask.

"My guess is that playing them activates synapses in the whole brain, including the memory

areas," Marcel Danesi, author of Extreme Brain Workout, told Fox News.

Use the Cicero method.

Also known as the Method

of Loci or the "memory

palace," Cicero's tool for

remembering information,

outlined in De Oratore, uses

the power of support images

(in this case, physical

locations) and memorized

spatial relationships to recall

information. As

psychologists John O'Keefe

and Lynn Nadel explain in

The Hippocampus as a

Cognitive Map:

In this technique the subject

memorizes the layout of some building, or the arrangement of shops on a street, or any

geographical entity which is composed of a number of discrete loci. When desiring to

remember a set of items the subject literally 'walks' through these loci and commits an item to

each one by forming an image between the item and any distinguishing feature of that locus.

Retrieval of items is achieved by 'walking' through the loci, allowing the latter to activate the

desired items.

Try this technique by "walking" through the rooms of your house or apartment in your mind's

eye, and attaching information to each room -- then, recall the information be going back

through each room.

Try the Baker-baker method.

In a psychological experiment known as the Baker-baker paradox, subjects were put into two

groups and shown a picture of a man. One group was told that the man's last name was

Baker, while the other group was told that the man was a baker. When later shown the image

and asked to recall the associated word, those who were told the man's occupation were much

more likely to recall the word. The explanation is simple: Although the two words and photos

were exactly the same, when we think of a baker, other images and something of a story

come to mind (aprons, kitchen, fresh bread).

One Fast Company contributor says that applying the paradox -- using the story of Lance

Armstrong to remember complex and detailed information about chemotherapy -- helped get

him through med school. So when trying to remember details, try to create a "hook" by

connecting the information to a person or story -- the strong association will ensure that you

remember the information more clearly.

Take a nap.

Here's a good excuse to put work on hold for an hour this afternoon: Taking a longer nap can

boost learning and memory. NASA sleep researchers have found napping to significantly

benefit the working memory, and a 2008 study used fMRI scans to determine that brain

activity in nappers is higher all day long than those who didn't rest.

Label people -- literally.

Franklin Roosevelt was known to have a memory that would put most of us to shame -- he

could remember the name of someone he met just once, months ago, seemingly without

difficulty. His secret? Roosevelt was able to remember the names of everyone on his staff

(and everyone he met) by visualizing their names written across their foreheads after being

introduced to them. This technique is even more effective when the name is imagined being

written in your favorite color marker, CNN claims.

Eat your Omega-3s.

Omega-3 fatty acids -- which can be found in foods like salmon, tuna, oysters, pumpkin

seeds, brussel sprouts, walnuts and more, or taken in supplement form -- are among the most

beneficial nutrients for your brain. A 2012 University of Pittsburgh study found consumption

of omega-3s to heighten working memory in healthy young adults. Eating foods high in this

healthy fat may also lower your risk of developing Alzheimer's, according to a 2012

Columbia University study.

Pay attention.

Perhaps the best (and arguably most difficult) memory hack of all is simply paying attention

to the task, conversation or experience at hand. Distraction makes our memories weaker, and

consequently we are more prone to forget things.

―Forgetting... is a sign of how busy we are,‖ Zaldy S. Tan, director of the Memory Disorders

Clinic at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, told Reader's Digest. ―When we‘re not

paying good attention, the memories we form aren‘t very robust, and we have a problem

retrieving the information later.‖

Have trouble quieting your racing thoughts? Become more mindful by practicing just 10

minutes a day of meditation. A recent University of California study found meditation to

improve memory capacity and reduce mind-wandering among students studying for the GRE.

And in 2012, MIT researchers identified a neural circuit that helps to create long-lasting

memories -- the circuit was found to work most effectively when, you guessed it, the brain is

paying attention to what it's looking at.