Brain HackS

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Today several people celebrated Teachers Day and acknowledge the role of the teachers in shaping their lives. Today's post begins with a tip that encourages you to think like a teacher when you want to learn something... anything.

How do we learn things faster. Busy executives often say that they do not remember what they read (and multitasking while reading does not help either). When someone is texting and answering emails while in a meeting, it is actually a waste of everyone’s time. Also not all kinds of note taking is effective.

Here are three ways you can learn something:

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  1. THINK LIKE A TEACHER

Teaching is one of the fastest ways to engage your brain to pay attention. When you learn it like a student, there is a tendency to learn it passively. That makes us forget things easily. How can you invoke a teacher’s mindset? Think of a skill your team members and colleagues would benefit from. Then create your own teaching material (slides, readings, video links, blogs etc). Then create 15-20-minute teaching sessions that you run for the team. Find out what you could do to improve your teaching skills.

`2. HANDWRITE YOUR NOTES

Resist the temptation to type out the notes. Researchers found in three different studies that note taking on a laptop leads to mindless transcribing. The ability to rephrase the conversations and key ideas helps people to recall the conversation. The best way to take notes is to listen, digest and jot down the key idea using the old fashioned paper and pen.

3. CREATE SKETCHNOTES

I practice summarizing key ideas of any book I read with a sketchnote. It can be a bit overwhelming at first, but I found that drawing forces you to capture the key idea without blindly transcribing the talk. Creating sketchnotes is an effective way to build listening skills (read more). I certainly need to be a lot better at listening. And it is much better than putting together a boring to-do list.

Join me on Twitter @AbhijitBhaduri

READ MORE

HOW TO IMPROVE MEMORY

HANDWRITTEN NOTES ARE BETTER - HERE’S WHY

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