Using The System for School

I like to tell stories from the days when I’d sit in class and memorize the lectures as they were given. But I didn’t start there. I had to work my way up. I had to learn to trust my memory to hold the information. And I had to develop the focus to listen closely to the lecture and memorize the important points. 

Your Endgame

Ultimately, here is where you want to be: You memorize the text and the lectures of a given unit. You review them at the break and immediately after class is over.  Remember, this happens at the speed of thought. Reviewing a 1- hour lecture should take about 3-4 minutes. 

You review them again either on the way home, or shortly after arriving home. If you have four 1-hour lectures in a day, the whole thing should take 30-45 minutes, tops.

You review them once more that night, before bed—this time, running through the four key questions (what is this, what does it mean, what if… and If… then…?), for the main topic as a whole. Remember this is done quickly. Either you can answer quickly and succinctly or you can't. If not, take note and plan to research or ask someone later.  

The next day, you review it and this time,  go through the four questions for each of the main points, again, quickly, taking note of where you need to strengthen your understanding. 

After two days, pick one of the critical thinking skills [CTS] (doesn’t matter which one), and Spend about 15 minutes digging deep with more questions. Later that week, review again, and spend 15 minutes on a different CTS. After a week, repeat with a third CTS. A week or two later, finish up with the last CTS. At this points you've spent a total of about an hour and 15 minutes over the course of 4-5 weeks with the material. 

This is called studying, and it can be done without notes or text, anywhere you have a few minutes to yourself. By the time you get to the third or fourth review, you can be pretty sure you “know” the material and have a good idea what you do and don’t understand.

Homework becomes easier, because you don’t have to stop and look up definitions or procedures, so you can simply focus on understanding the processes and mechanics of the subject at hand. Tests become easier, too. Parts where you just have to prove that you remember facts (vocabulary, names & dates, definitions, etc.) are almost instantaneous. That gives you more time to focus on procedure problems (solving or balancing equations, essay questions, etc.). 

Baby Steps

You need to learn to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run, and run before you ride a bike. The above scenario is like riding a bike. 

Stage 1

To start out, you take notes in class, and memorize them when you get home. Before you read your text (SQ3R), memorize the pre-questions, bold and italicized passages, pictures and captions, and review questions. Then read (knowing what you are expected to know before you start will dramatically improve comprehension). And because of the way text books are written, you will have memorized the most essential elements of the material in the process. 

Use a calendar or an app like Google Keep or Evernote to schedule your review sessions with increasing intervals. If the critical thinking skills during your review raise questions, write them down so you can ask the instructor during the next session.

Stage 2

Practice memorizing lectures without taking notes by watching Ted Talks or other videos on youtube. Use the techniques during church sermons or watching TV. Use the review schedule for the first three reviews, and then try to write down everything you memorized the next day. This allows you to get adept with creating and linking your images quickly while focusing on the material being delivered. At the same time, it will build your confidence in the fact that  the methods are effective and in your ability to use them with proficiency. 

Stage 3

Annoy your friends. In college, I shared a 300-level vertebrate zoology class with a girl who was super competitive. It was important to her to be top of the class, to have the best scores, to always have the right answer when called upon. She was known for starting group study sessions and for late night cram sessions before every test. 

One day she missed class. The next class period, she asked if she could borrow my notes from the previous session. 

"Sure. Give me two sheets of paper."

"Why?"

"Do you want the notes or not?"

"Fine." She gave me the paper then looked on incredulously as I wrote out the notes from the previous lecture, from memory.  She took them from me without a word (but with a great deal of skepticism on her face). 

Later, I returned from the mid-class break to find her with my notes in one hand and the folder of a fellow classmate in the other, comparing the two. As I sat down, she looked over at me.

"I hate you."

I'm pretty sure she was joking. 

But these skills go much further than the classroom. As an advertising copywriter, I was once in a meeting with a man who was the founder and CEO of a complex scientific company who was looking for a new ad agency. He explained what his company did and how the products they sold were made, what they did and how. He talked about his distribution networks and his competitors and his most important customers. 

Finally at one point, he looked over at me, clearly annoyed. "You're the writer, right? I've been sitting here talking about my business for more than an hour and you haven't heard one single thing worth writing down? Maybe you're not the right agency for me to work with." 

I smiled at him "I apologize. I didn't want to pause to write something down for fear I might miss something important." I then began to repeat back to him in my own words the products, processes, people, facts and figures he had been talking about. About two minutes in, looking at me like I've got three heads, he raises his hand. 

"Never mind. I stand corrected. Now, where was I?" He laughed out loud when I told him where he had left off. 

We ended up getting him as a new client.