Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy

If the purpose of the activity is to improve your performance of the activity, simply doing it repeatedly isn’t enough; improvement requires deliberate practice.

The second time you encounter material, it’s easier to understand, whether you’re reading it or hearing it; plan your reading and listening accordingly.

Outsmarting your brain means doing the mental exercise that feels harder but is going to bring the most benefit in the long run.

First, just writing things down makes them more memorable. Second, reading your notes later jogs your memory. Research shows that notes do serve both functions.

Organization creates links among the bits and pieces of what you’re trying to remember.

I was equally dumbfounded to discover that repetition, although it often helps learning, doesn’t guarantee it.

learning from a lecture requires active thinking: listeners must rebuild the hierarchical organization of what they hear.

Your memory is a tool,

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