Here’s great news for anyone over 50 trying to learn something new.
Old dogs can learn new tricks!
And faster than ever once armed with this simple, science-based learning hack.
4x faster in fact.
Here’s the deal…
You have the time now to learn new things.
Life-long dreams that were put on hold perhaps, while you raised kids, or focused on career pursuits.
Maybe you always wanted to learn piano or guitar?
Or maybe you wanted to learn a second language?
For me, it was always Mandarin Chinese. Not there yet!
Maybe it was drawing, or painting, or metal craft, or sewing, quilting, or stained glass.
Perhaps photography or photoshop?
Whatever you want to learn, now that you finally have the time, you can!
As I showed in a previous post, one great way to learn something new is to combine that learning with great inexpensive travel opportunities such as Road Scholar offers.
But if you’ll be staying put to learn, here’s a little 10 second hack which science has found to increase both our learning rate and our retention.
Stop as you’re learning. Randomly. For just ten seconds. And DO NOTHING.
You can close your eyes if you like. Or don’t. But just sit quietly.
It turns out, that in these few seconds of physical pause, where you would stop playing, if it were for instance learning to play piano, your brain goes into a kind of hyperdrive, processing what you just learned at a rate 4x that of normal thinking.
Your hippocampus reviews what you were just learning, playing it forwards and backwards in your mind to help cement the memory and its understanding.
If you were reading a lesson book, you would simply close the book, and just sit for 10 seconds while your brain sort of summarized the last thing you were reading.
It’s logical right?
If you just keep cramming more information into your brain at a steady rate, it has no time to process that information for understanding. You’re just reading words, you’re not really learning. Or remembering.
Try this the next time you embark on a learning adventure.
Or use this knowledge to finally take on something you’ve always wanted to learn, but felt you could not.
Yes Virginia, or Virgil, old dogs can learn new tricks. New anything! At any age.
In addition to those random, 10 second pauses, here are 8 additional tips for learning anything faster:
- Schedule your learning or practice time for consistency. Same time daily. Same place.
- Cut off distractions. No cell phones near. No TV. Computer tabs and apps closed.
- Quiet space. Or with background white noise or classic instrumentals.
- Daily short practices are more efficient than random sporadic cram sessions.
- Instead of practicing or reading for 1 hour straight, try 2 half hours, or 4-15 minute sessions
- Journal your progress, or at least have a box to check (DONE) for daily accountability.
- Set deadlines. I will learn to play 1 new song each week or each month. I will learn 10 new words in a week.
- Practice daily. Consistency when learning is vital to your success. Gaps set you back.
There you are.
See? You learned something new already today!
Keep going. You’re either learning or you’re dying.
What’s next on your bucket list to learn?
Remember, the best time to start was 20 years ago. The second best time is now!
The time will pass anyway.
Get started now to avoid future regrets.
You can do it. I believe in you!
“Bene Vivere!”
Bob “Elderbob” Schwarztrauber
