How to Concentrate During Your Study Time

Study time is an essential factor in learning your lessons. It requires you to concentrate and focus your mind.Concentration is very important because without this you cannot absorb what you are reading. But in reality many of us while trying to concentrate are occupied with some other thoughts. It could be the latest movie, a basketball game or even your personal life. Sometimes problems could also interfere with our concentration.

To free yourself with the aforesaid distractions, it is a must for you to acquire a skill of discipline and self-control. Remember it is you who has the power to make things or to make it not happen. Hence when its time to study, you must take charge of the things around you or in the place where you study. This means you should have a study table, enough lightning and a peaceful environment. If you manage to have this in your place, it could help you focus on your study.

Another important point you should consider to ensure concentration on your study time is to think first of what you need to learn and accomplish. Make an outline then give yourself a break to recharge your energy. Once you have accomplished your study goal for the day give yourself a reward like eating your favourite dessert.

How To Memorize Things Quicker Than Other People

People like to joke that the only thing you really “learn” in school is how to memorize. As it turns out, that’s not even the case for most of us. If you go around the room and ask a handful of people how to memorize things quickly, most of them will probably tell you repetition.

That is so far from the truth, it’s running for office. If you want to memorize something quickly and thoroughly, repetition won’t cut it; however, recalling something will. The problem is that recalling something requires learning, and we all learn in different ways. Below are some universal steps to mastering the art of recalling so that you can start memorizing a ton of data in a short amount of time.

Step 1: Preparation
To optimize your memorization session, pay close attention to which environment you choose. For most people, this means choosing an area with few distractions, though some people do thrive off of learning in public areas. Figure out what is most conducive to your learning so that you can get started.

Next, start drinking some tea. I could link you to mounds of scientific studies that confirm green tea as a natural catalyst for improving memory. Mechanically speaking, our ability to recall information comes down to the strength between neurons in our mind, which are connected by synapses. The more you exercise the synapse (repetition), the stronger it is, resulting in the ability to memorize.

Step 2: Record What You’re Memorizing

This is especially useful if you’re trying to memorize information from a lecture. Use a tape recorder to track all of the acquired facts being spoken and listen to it. If you’re trying to memorize a speech, record yourself reading the speech aloud and listen to yourself speaking. Obviously, this is most helpful for auditory learners, but it’s also handy because it ensures that you’re getting more context from a lecture that will help you learn the information faster.

Step 3: Write Everything Down

Before you start trying to recall everything from memory, write and re-write the information. This will help you become more familiar with what you’re trying to memorize. Doing this while listening to your tape recorder can also help you retain a lot of the data. This is most useful for experiential learners.

Step 4: Section your notes

Now that you have everything written down in one set of notes, separate them into sections. This is ideal for visual learners, especially if you use color coding to differentiate between subjects. This will help you break everything down and start compartmentalizing the information being recorded in your brain.

Step 5: Apply repetition to cumulative memorization

For each line of text, repeat it a few times and try to recall it without looking. As you memorize each set of text, be cumulative by adding the new information to what you’ve just learned. This will keep everything within your short-term memory from fading. Keep doing this until you have memorized that section and you are able to recall the entire thing. Do not move on to another section until you have memorized that one completely. This is mostly visual learning, but if you are speaking aloud, then you are also applying auditory.

Step 6: Write it down from memory

Now that you can recall entire sections, write everything down from memory. This will reinforce everything you just have just learned by applying it experientially.

Step 7: Teach it to someone (or yourself)

The most effective method for me when I was in school was to teach the information to someone else. You can do this in a variety of ways. You can lecture the knowledge to someone sitting right in front of you (or the mirror, if you can’t convince anyone to sit through it) and explain everything extemporaneously. If what you’ve learned needs to be recited verbatim, then do this in front of someone as well in order to get a feel for what it will be like to recite the text to the intended audience.

Step 8: Listen to the recordings continuously

While doing unrelated tasks like laundry or driving, go over the information again by listening to your tape recordings. This is certainly auditory learning, but it will still supplement everything you’ve shoved into your short-term memory.

Step 9: Take a break

Finally, let your mind breathe. Go for a short time without thinking about what you just learned and come back to it later on. You’ll find out what you really know, of course, and this will help you focus on the sections you might be weakest at.

Tips For Networking at Events

These days we learn more about networking on social media than we do networking in real life situations. Here John Corcoran of Dumb Little Man and former Clinton White House Writer shares five tips for face-to-face networking at events:

Social media is hot. Everyone is talking about Facebook, Twitter, and every other social media site under the sun. These are great tools for building and maintaining relationships. But they aren’t everything. When it comes to developing powerful relationships, social media is still no substitute for old-fashioned, face-to-face networking.

In-person networking is simply one of the best activities you can engage in for your career or your business, hands down. Anyone who thinks they can stay behind their computer, holed away at home, relying 100% on social media for meeting people and developing key relationships is fooling themselves.

In fact, the most effective networking approach today is twofold: one part online, and one part old-fashioned, face-to-face, in-person networking. They are two sides of the same coin. A good networking plan does not rely too much on either online or offline networking, but does include aspects of both.

How Face-to-Face Networking Is Different

Face-to-face networking is very different from social networking. For starters, you’ll actually need to put on pants. Sorry, but this is a mandatory requirement. If you work from home, that means you may need to change out of your pajamas (hopefully it’s not the first time in days).

I recognize that networking at in-person events is more difficult for those who are shy or introverted. However, there are many little “hacks” you can use to make face-to-face networking easier on yourself, whether you are introverted or not.

Here are a 4 killer hacks for networking effectively at old-fashioned, in-person events:

1. Commit Yourself to Helping Others.
2. Make An Introduction.
3. Connect with People Over their Families.
4. If You Are Shy or Introverted, Focus on Others

People spend too much time trying to meet new people and too little time following up with and nurturing relationships with people they already know.

This in turn will lead to meeting new people because people who you already know are more likely to be a gateway for you to their friends and connections.

After all, you have already spent time and energy getting to know people in your network and they have already (presumably) grown to know, like and trust you.

So be sure to spend time and energy networking with people who are in your network already.

The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains

Let’s review some good lifestyle options we can fol­low to main­tain, and improve, our vibrant brains.

• Learn what is the “It” in “Use It or Lose It”. A basic under­stand­ing will serve you well to appre­ci­ate your brain’s beauty as a liv­ing and constantly-developing dense for­est with bil­lions of neu­rons and synapses.
• Take care of your nutri­tion. Did you know that the brain only weighs 2% of body mass but consumes good brain food over 20% of the oxy­gen and nutri­ents we intake? As a gen­eral rule, you don’t need expen­sive ultra-sophisticated nutri­tional sup­ple­ments, just make sure you don’t stuff your­self with the “bad stuff”.
• Remem­ber that the brain is part of the body. Things that exer­cise your body can also help sharpen your brain: phys­i­cal exer­cise enhances neurogenesis.
• Prac­tice pos­i­tive, future-oriented thoughts until they become your default mind­set and you look for­ward to every new day in a con­struc­tive way. 
• Stress and anx­i­ety, no mat­ter whether induced by exter­nal events or by your own thoughts, actu­ally kills neu­rons and pre­vent the cre­ation of new ones. physical exercise for brain healthYou can think of chronic stress as the oppo­site of exer­cise: it pre­vents the cre­ation of new neurons.
• Thrive on Learn­ing and Men­tal Chal­lenges. The point of hav­ing a brain is pre­cisely to learn and to adapt to chal­leng­ing new envi­ron­ments. Once new neu­rons appear in your brain, where they stay in your brain and how long they sur­vive depends on how you use them. “Use It or Lose It” does not mean “do cross­word puz­zle num­ber 1,234,567″. It means, “chal­lenge your brain often with fun­da­men­tally new activities”.
• We are (as far as we know) the only self-directed organ­isms in this planet. Aim high. Once you grad­u­ate from col­lege, keep learn­ing. The brain keeps devel­op­ing, no mat­ter your age, and it reflects what you do with it.
• Explore, travel. Adapt­ing to new loca­tions forces you to pay more atten­tion to your envi­ron­ment. Make new deci­sions, use your brain.
• Don’t Out­source Your Brain. Not to media per­son­al­i­ties, not to politi­cians, not to your smart neigh­bour… Make your own deci­sions, and mis­takes. And learn from them. That way, you are train­ing your brain, not your neighbour’s.
• Develop and main­tain stim­u­lat­ing friend­ships. We are “social ani­mals”, and need social inter­ac­tion. Which, by the way, is why ‘Baby Ein­stein’ has been shown not to be the panacea for chil­dren development.
• Laugh. Often. Espe­cially to cog­ni­tively com­plex humor, full of twists and sur­prises. Bet­ter, try to become the next Jon Stewart.

Now, remem­ber that what counts is not read­ing this article-or any other-, but prac­tic­ing a bit every day until small steps snow­ball into unstop­pable, inter­nal­ized habits…so, pick your next bat­tle and try to start improv­ing at least one of these 10 habits today. Revisit the habit above that really grabbed your atten­tion.