Dendritic spines and synapses develop even further when you continue to practice what you are learning. The more you send a thought around your neural pathways, the more permanent it becomes. That’s how sets of brain-links are made.

Sleep provides the “mortar” that solidifies the walls of your learning.

Don’t cram. Space out your learning over several days. That way you’ll have more nights of sleep for more dendritic spines and synapses to grow. Your lessons will sink in.

Before you begin to read a chapter in a book, first do a picture walk through it.

Just watching other people, or looking at a solution, or reading a page, can allow you to get started. But it won’t do much to build your own neural structures of learning.

As soon as you feel yourself getting stuck, leave it. Look for an easier problem to boost your confidence. Do that next. And then maybe another one. Then go back to the hard problem. You may now be able to make some progress.

It’s definitely possible to develop a better long-term memory. (We don’t know how to improve short-term memory, at present, anyway.) To improve your long-term memory, you can use Nelson Dellis’s five memory tips (focus, practice, picture, store, and recall). You can also use the memory palace technique, songs, metaphors, note taking, teaching

I’ll admit that if I want to keep working after the time is up, I go ahead. Getting into the flow, where I’m really into doing the task, is a good thing.

Instead, when you start a new chapter, go on a “picture walk”* through it. Scan it. Look briefly at all the pictures, captions, and diagrams, but also at the section headings, bold words, and summary, and even questions at the end of the chapter, if the book has them.