In all my years of schooling from elementary to university today, I don’t think anyone’s ever taught me the proper way to study. That’s a little ironic, seeing how all these teachers expect you to learn everything, without even teaching you how to encode the material into your memory in the first place. Sure there are techniques you can try like study cards, rewriting notes, etc. But because these techniques work so differently for each individual, is that why they never teach us how to learn, because everyone has their own style of learning?
One thing I find that really does work in getting things to stick is to remind yourself of your passion or motivation for studying. It’s like what chef Gordon Ramsay does when he’s trying to motivate people to be good cooks: he gives them a good kick-in-the-pants wake-up call to remind them why they became cooks in the first place.
Now if only someone could again remind me as to why I’m studying about referred pain in the spine…
