A Templeton Finn Coaching Article:

TOP TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE LEARNING

Learning Environment

Yes it does matter that your spouse/ partner/ parents/ children/ cats/ dogs throw all their rubbish into the room where you work! Unsurprisingly, a clear, uncluttered, nicely coloured environment makes a difference to how effectively most people learn.

Colour

"Do you ever find you can see the letters on a page but the letters don't seem to go into your brain very easily?"

Anyone who has skulked guiltily round the stationers buying up coloured paper, pens and beautiful notebooks . . . you are vindicated! Writing in colour (possibly also on coloured paper) does help you remember better.

Consider also the use of coloured filters to read through. These are coloured transparent films designed for you to lay over text as you read it. Viewing text through these filters can make it easier to read and remember.

Some are good for numerical information.

Some are good for verbal information.

It varies from person to person.

It doesn't work so well on a computer screen but many people find they can read much more easily through the filters. Do you ever find you can see the letters on a page but the letters don't seem to go into your brain very easily, so you end up re-reading sections? With the right filter, you may find the meaning seems to leap right out of the page at you.

Overcoming blockages and connecting both sides of the brain

Apparently we can improve our learning abilities by improving brain connections, especially between the right and left sides of the brain.

One way to do this is just to walk a figure 8 on the floor. Another way is to walk on the spot touching your right leg to your left elbow and vice-versa. Why not do it while waiting for the kettle to boil?

Some training courses now get their delegates to walk figure eights, perform odd dances and carry out other strange behaviours, to make use of these discoveries (but you will probably find you are the only one if you do this on a law or accountancy professional training course).

Music

Plants thrive on Mozart too. But they don't like heavy metal!

You have probably heard about the "Mozart effect" ie the positive effect of the right kind of music on the brain.

One of the oddest experiments was where they played plants a couple of hours of various types of music each day and observed the effects.

Those lucky ones which got to listen to classical music flourished and needed less water, whilst those subjected to heavy metal withered and even died! They grew away from the speaker which suggests it was the music that did it and not the effect the music had on the keeper's mental health!

Similar effects have been observed with humans and apparently baroque music is best for learning.

Visual imagery

Remember this list of words in the correct order:

Watch, snake, gun, toad, water, motorbike, tree, parrot, football.

Not that easy or interesting?

However if you can make a visual story in your mind using all these elements, you'll find them much easier to remember. For some help, read our article "Visualisation for exceptional memory".

On a lesser scale, when revising, the more images you can attach to the things you are trying to remember, the better.

It can also help to draw pictures in your notes and lay them out in an unusual way, plus of course use colour.

Using different senses

You may know that you learn in a mainly visual way (through pictures, etc), an auditory way (for example through listening to CDs) or a kinaesthetic way (by doing something).For example if you can't listent to directions and need to see a map, you're more visual.

When learning, you need to use your preferred one of these to get good results but for the best results use the others too. So if you are highly visual, don't just make pictures, say the words out loud and walk around the room. It sounds silly but it helps.

For more information, see any of the books by memory champion Dominic O'Brien.