Let me summarize the principles and methods to improve learning efficiency

1. Remember: time is not important

When it comes to learning time is tight, many people first What comes to mind is how to squeeze time - compressing sleeping time, compressing eating time, compressing leisure and entertainment time, etc. Compressing all time other than study to the extreme seems to be the ultimate goal of time management.

Students who are worried about their academic performance are often also worried about not having enough time. Because they feel that if they want to catch up with their grades, they must give themselves "make-up lessons" - make up more of the previous foundation or find more other teaching materials to do it. However, the teacher takes up most of the time in class and assigns a lot of homework. He can't even finish his homework every day. Where does he have the time to study by himself?

Another situation is that some people spend a lot of time studying, almost reaching the physiological limit of human beings. It is impossible to squeeze out any more time, but the progress is still very limited. . I saw that while I was having a hard time reading books and answering questions, some classmates who had much better grades than me seemed to be very relaxed. If the use of time has reached this point, is there any room for improvement?

Regarding these issues, I would like to explain in one sentence: "Time is not important, what is important is efficiency."

II

You must understand efficiency and time Let's calculate a time account: a senior high school student with a moderate effort level spends about 10 hours studying in addition to class. This length of time can ensure that he gets enough sleep every day and enough time to rest. If we try our best to squeeze in time, how much more can we squeeze out? Suppose you only sleep six hours a day - this is already an exaggeration. It doesn't matter if you only sleep six hours a day occasionally, but if it lasts for a long time, many people will not be able to stand it. Then the total three meals only takes an hour, and the time spent walking (even from the dormitory to the cafeteria to the classroom, there are at least six trips a day) is also an hour, and I use it to wash my face and mouth. Toilets and other chores also take an hour. Calculated in this way, we spend 16 hours studying every day. In this way, our study time increased by 60% compared with others.

This is a promising number, in fact, 60% more every day does add up to be quite amazing. If a person can really persevere in this way, it is natural for him to make progress.

However, this account misses a very important thing - the differences between people. When watching the same content, some people can remember almost it after watching it once, some people can remember less than half of it, and some people can't remember anything after watching it once. For an ordinary math proof question, a student with excellent grades only needs five minutes to solve it, while a student with a lower grade may have to think about it for at least ten minutes or even longer - being It’s actually normal to struggle with a math problem for half an hour. Let us calculate this way, students who are good at learning can solve 12 such questions in an hour, while students who are poor can only solve 6 such questions in an hour. We worked hard to increase the time by 60%, and the result was (10 hours × 12): (16 hours × 6) = 120:96 = 5:4. The effect of studying for ten hours a day is 25% higher than that of studying for 16 hours! In other words, we put in 60% more effort than others, but get 25% lower results than others. This is really unfair.

This calculation is quite scary. Although the efficiency gap may not be 2:1, the conclusion itself will not change much - if you consider studying for 16 hours a day, such high-intensity learning will make people physically and mentally tired, unable to concentrate, and lose learning efficiency. If the efficiency drops significantly, the gap in efficiency will only become larger. This is why the students with poor academic performance feel that they don’t have enough time; and the students with better academic performance feel that they have too much time. Sometimes I give lectures in middle schools. After the lecture, the teachers will ask some students from different grades to chat with me. The basic situation is like this:

Students at the bottom always complain about the teacher There are too many homework assignments, and there is no time for self-study except doing homework. However, the top students think that the homework assigned by the teacher is not much, and they have almost done their homework before school every day, and the remaining time is You can find some questions to do by yourself, find some books to read, and you can also have a little leisure and entertainment.

For those students who hope to change the status quo through their own hard work, this is a very frustrating situation.

In life, people can often observe the Matthew effect on the gap between rich and poor: rich people will become more and more wealthy because they can obtain investment income and are better able to seize opportunities to make money. Money; and people without money spend all their money on food, clothing, housing and transportation, and have no way to save, so they become poorer and poorer.

Taking the third year of high school as an example, we can see that in study, people who study well, because it is easy to read books and do questions, have a lot of time left, which can be used to make greater progress; and People who are worried about studying, because reading and answering questions are painful and inefficient. They can't even complete the homework assigned by the teacher every day. They can't squeeze out time to study at all, and they can only become more and more miserable. The “gap between rich and poor” in academic performance is widening.

To solve this problem, it is useless to simply squeeze time - just like the poor cannot fundamentally change their economic situation simply by saving - we must remember that there is more money in the world than time Something more important: efficiency. You cannot escape the trap of the "Matthew Effect" if you only look at time. When managing time, we must remember: everyone only has 24 hours a day, and no matter how squeezed it is, it is limited; but the efficiency of time utilization can be doubled, and there is a lot of room for improvement. When we think about how to use time, the first thing to think about is not how to get how much time from where, but how to improve the efficiency of existing time utilization.

3. The first principle to improve time utilization efficiency: learn to give up

‘The most important principle in dealing with interpersonal relationships is not to try to make everyone like you. " Applying the idea of ????this sentence to time management, you can also say: "The most important principle of making good use of time is not to try to do everything well. ”

When many people talk about time planning, they always associate it with a neatly arranged time plan. In fact, if you forget this principle, no matter how beautiful the plan is, it will just be A decoration. People's time is limited, no matter how much we squeeze into a day, it is impossible to squeeze out 25 hours, but the things we have to do are unlimited, even if it is just studying, we will never finish reading and doing. You can never finish the questions, and you can never finish the things you have to memorize. If you have done one math test paper in this self-study class, you can't do another physics test paper. Even if your plan is perfect, one day. If you suddenly have a cold or a fever and need to see a doctor, your plans will be disrupted. Therefore, no matter how you plan, it is impossible to plan everything to be done, and no matter how you plan, it is impossible to arrange everything perfectly. When there are many things to choose from, what should we do when some tasks cannot be completed? Only by answering this question can we truly understand how to manage time. The answer to this question is: only do the most important things.

Here, I introduce a basic concept in economics - "opportunity cost", which refers to the potential loss caused by giving up an opportunity. For example, if you invest 100,000 yuan to open a grocery store, I can earn 2,000 yuan per month. Is it worth doing this? If we look at it purely from the "cost-benefit" perspective, it would cost 10,000 yuan to purchase goods every month, and the profit would be greater than 12,000 yuan if we sell it. The cost is certainly worth it. However, you have another option: you can spend 100,000 yuan to open a mobile phone store and earn 5,000 yuan a month. At this time, would you still choose to open a grocery store? , because you only have 100,000 yuan. If you choose to open a grocery store, you are giving up the monthly income of 5,000 yuan. Therefore, your book cost of opening a grocery store is 10,000 yuan per month. purchase, but in fact there is a hidden "opportunity cost" - that is, the cost of giving up the "opportunity" to earn 5,000 yuan. The sum of the two is 15,000 yuan, which is greater than the monthly benefit of 12,000 yuan. is greater than the profit. Therefore, a wise businessman will not open a grocery store but a mobile phone store.

Similarly, our time is limited, and your choice to do something implies you. Giving up doing other things. "Doing other things" is your "opportunity cost". Therefore, the criterion for how we do things is not "whether something is meaningful" but "whether something is the most meaningful." .

A master who really knows how to use time must know how to give up. Studying in middle school is very stressful, and many of us are confused when we are studying. Stacking books, but you can only pick up one book at a time and read it carefully instead of picking up a dozen books at the same time and browsing randomly - this is the most time-consuming method of learning. Only after reading one book, then read it. Go pick up another book and read it. So, which one should you choose? The answer is simple: the most important one. Don’t read the most important one. The second most important thing becomes the most important.

Ensuring that you are always doing the most important things actually ensures that your time is always used efficiently. If you plan to take five test papers today, one each for Chinese, English, mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Then, please do the subject that you think you need to improve the most first. Even if after you finish one paper, the ceiling suddenly falls and hits your head, and you have to stay in the hospital for a day, then the test paper you took will still be extremely helpful in improving your score.

4. The second principle to improve the efficiency of time utilization: do what you can do

Find the most important things to do in the limited time. What you have to give up is not only Things that don’t seem very valuable. More importantly, learn to let go of things that seem valuable but are beyond your capabilities.

An extremely difficult question always makes people want to challenge it. If you still have enough time to solve the last difficult problem after completing the first questions of the college entrance examination paper, such a difficult problem is certainly worth challenging because it will give you extra points. However, if the previous questions are difficult for you to sit up, then challenging such difficult problems will not only result in no results, but will also cause you to lose points - because you have no more time to do the questions for which you could have scored points. .

If we want to ensure our learning efficiency, we must do more questions that are suitable for our own level, so that we can have a sense of accomplishment and improve our problem-solving abilities. Don’t do questions that are too easy, and don’t do questions that are too difficult. Let the experts do 12 difficult questions. We can only do 12 medium-difficulty questions. After we become proficient in the questions of medium difficulty, you will naturally find that the questions that were originally difficult are no longer so difficult.

It is also a great inspiration for us to use the ideas of solving questions to formulate time plans. Some people like to make schedules in a hurry, and the schedules are so densely packed that even the time to go to the toilet can't be squeezed out from the schedule. The original plan was to memorize an English text in half an hour, but unexpectedly it took 40 minutes and still not finished. Only then did I realize that I didn't have enough time, so I quickly put down my English textbook, picked up the math questions, and started working on them. Before I could finish a few questions, I found that it was time to memorize politics again... In short, I was half busy at the end of the day, but the planned tasks were still not completed. This will create a sense of frustration, and you will lose confidence in yourself over and over again. You will always feel that your plan cannot keep up with the changes, so it becomes more and more difficult to study according to the plan, and soon you will live the same messy life again.

Therefore, for those who are just starting to make plans, the plans should be set moderately lower than what they can accomplish, rather than higher than what they can accomplish. For example, if you estimate that it will take you an hour to review a certain part of the content, you can plan to spend 80 minutes. Allow more time, but try to ensure that you can complete the tasks set for yourself every day. At the end of the day, the sense of accomplishment of completing all the things you planned the day before is very satisfying and can give you the confidence and motivation to continue making and executing plans. Only by doing this step by step and slowly raising the standards can you truly use your time efficiently.

5. The third principle to improve time utilization efficiency: arrange time according to the learning characteristics of different contents

"No one can step into the same river twice" - this is Quotes from the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus. Then, we can also say: "No one can spend the same hour twice." Every hour is very unique. In every hour, our surrounding environment and our own physiological and psychological state will change. . The time for class and the time for self-study at home are obviously different. We cannot simply divide 24 hours into small grids, fill them with content, and then call this a "time plan." We must learn to match different learning content with different times.

Only for those things that require a lot of reading, understanding, and recitation, it is necessary to arrange a time period that is longer, more energetic, and less susceptible to interference. Why? Because it’s easy to get distracted when reading and memorizing. Everyone often has this experience: staring at the book, but not knowing where to go in the mind, maybe still thinking about the hot pot meal yesterday. Therefore, if you are mentally tired while reading, you will be more likely to lose focus. And reading a book takes a while from opening the book to getting into the mood, about five to ten minutes. It took you about ten minutes to finally start to concentrate. Suddenly something interrupts you, such as answering a phone call. Then you return to your desk to read a book. You need to spend another five to ten minutes to concentrate, and you are interrupted again and again. In the end, it feels like you have read a book for two hours, but in fact, the time you really "read it" is less than an hour. Therefore, it is best not to be disturbed casually while reading.

Therefore, for reading and reciting, it is best to choose a longer period of time when you are energetic and not easily disturbed.

So, what do you do with the time when you are less energetic and more susceptible to interference?

Used to do questions. Because you need to write and calculate when doing the questions, it can force you to concentrate. Even if the surrounding environment is noisy, even if your energy is not very good, you can still achieve the effect of practice. For example, ten minutes after class, you asked yourself to do ten multiple-choice questions in English. You just finished five, and suddenly a classmate came to chat with you. Your train of thought was interrupted. After chatting for a while, you picked up your pen to do the sixth question. You only did eight questions in class, and you gained the knowledge of eight questions. If you use it to read a book, unless you have superhuman concentration, you may start class before you can clearly read what is written in the book.

6. The fourth principle to improve the efficiency of time utilization: Pay attention to proper rest

When we were calculating the time account for the senior year of high school study, although we said that squeezing in time can Squeeze out 60% more time. But this 60% of time is actually made up of water, because the 6 extra hours a person squeezes out when he or she is sleep deprived cannot be compared to the 6 hours of good sleep and good rest. of.

Therefore, if you remember that "efficiency is more important than time", then you can also understand: if you want to make good use of your time in your senior year of high school, in addition to squeezing in time to study, you must also learn to squeeze in time to rest.

During my senior year of high school, I had the habit of taking a nap and going to bed before 12 o'clock at night. In my senior year of high school, I had to sleep so much every day, which may be related to my personal tendency to sleep. But when making time plans, you should still ensure necessary rest. Many students like to stay up late because it is quiet at night and is conducive to studying. But this will affect my energy during the day. I always feel like dozing off in class, and I am afraid of being discovered by the teacher, so my sleep is very unstable. So I don’t listen to the class well, and I don’t sleep well either. I feel dazed all day long. In fact, the time in high school is both long and short. It is easy to waste time and it will go by in a flash; you have to study hard for a long enough time. You can occasionally stay up late when the study task is heavy, but you will definitely not be able to persist in this for a long time.

7.

Just like we need to preview and review when we study, the plan needs to be kept in mind before execution every day, and it should also be checked after execution every day. Only in this way can we continue to Push yourself and persevere.

The plans I make every day should be checked every night. If they are completed, they will put a check mark in front of them. How many. At the beginning, I could probably complete 60% of it, and over time, I could basically maintain it at about 80%.

I read a story before, but I forgot who it was. In short, there was an ancient man who always felt that he would do something wrong every day. In order to reduce the number of mistakes, he came up with an idea: he took out a bowl, a bag of soybeans, and a bag of mung beans, and put the soybeans away when he did a good deed every day. Put it in the bowl. If you do something wrong, put the mung beans in the bowl. Before going to bed every night, he would count how many soybeans and mung beans there were, and then think about the good and bad things he had done today. In this way, day after day, the soybeans gradually increase and the mung beans decrease day by day.

This little story illustrates the benefits of monitoring yourself every day. No matter what you do, before going to bed every day, think about what should be done and what should not be done, what should be done and what should be done poorly, and how to improve. Only in this way can we continue to make progress and not stagnate. After we have made a plan, we need to check our completion every day, so that we can urge ourselves to continuously improve and truly make and implement plans.

In short, I have said so much about how to manage time, but I have not told you how to make a table of how to arrange time every day. In fact, this is probably the least important aspect of time planning. You can just take out a pen and paper and fill up the entire table, but the content may not be helpful for learning.

We all know that it is also a dense test paper filled with words, some can get 150 points, and some can only get zero points. Therefore, it is not the ability to fill up the test paper, but it is the ability to know the correct content to write. The same goes for time management. Listing tables and filling up the time is not a skill. Knowing how to fill in the right content at the right time and then executing it conscientiously is the real skill.

Learning is about methods. Maybe the reason why your grades dropped is because this exam did not test the questions you have done. This does not represent your ability. Before the exam, review the key points and the questions you usually get wrong, and you should be able to get a good score.