The Art of Studying

By: Earl Rex S. Arao-arao

Studying is the most commonly used word when we try to learn new things but also the most hated
word of a student life. I always hear my mother when I was little to study my multiplication table and I’m
obliged to do it or else no “baon” for tomorrow. That was the old days but as I grow older I realize that
studying will only end if the world stops. There are so many things to learn and we have only small amount
of time to accomplish such a task.
The questions that always bugging my mind is that how can we learn from little time we have? Is it
possible to learn more at such little time? These are some of the question we will answer as we go along of
our journey.

“There are so many things to learn and we have only small amount of time to accomplish such a
task”

I believe that we have the potential that needs to discover to unlock this barrier of impossibilities.

What is this hidden potential?

It is our inner self that been trapped in a body of rules and laws that we are unaware of the things around
us that we only see the obvious. I heard all the people say that it’s impossible for me to understand
everything because it’s the way it is! I refuse to believe that and I’m not to be influenced by such a negative
minded person.

Do you know what’s the secret of every genius?

People of extra-ordinary intelligence are open-minded and they don’t see things in its obvious matter.
Rather, they believe that something is behind of all things that’s simple enough to understand but hard to
recreate.

“People of extra-ordinary intelligence are open-minded and they don’t see things in its obvious
matter”

I was very desperate to look for answers of my problem about learning and I’ve search the Internet
about how to improve your memory, speed reading, mnemonics, photographic memory and all sort of
stuffs but nothing seems to answer my problem. I want to learn more things in such a short time. A good
example would be a book about computer programming. What I want is to learn the material for about a
week and after that I’ll be able to understand everything and recall every detail of every chapter.

Is that possible?

What do you think? Have you seen a movie before and then still able to recall the story of it in years?
That’s what I’m talking about! We could still recall vividly the sequence of the story, the characters and
how it ended. How did we do this? You tell me.
There is something that you have done to remember these things but then unconsciously. That’s the
nice about it since we have able to learn, understand and recall the events that we gave attention. Have you
noticed the word ATTENTION? When we are giving attention to something we have all our concentration
on the material that we are reading, writing or anything that we do. We see things as we are looking at a
movie and we enjoy every moment of it that we unconsciously loaded it into our mind. So it’s possible for
us to learn many things at a very small amount of time. Right? Yes!

“There is something that you have done to remember these things but then unconsciously”
 With these technique we can do away with rote memorization because we now know a better thing to
accomplish such a task without any sweat.

How can I do that?

You may ask this to yourself and start to doubt yourself again. Don’t worry we are going to do such a
feat after we tackle all the elements to do such a thing.

The first thing that we must do is to set our mind on the material to be learned. This is very important
because all will be useless without it. So we have to be comfortable on how we sit, the surroundings, and
most of all a place with no distraction like moving cars, people passing and anything that shifts your focus
into other things.

Where can we find such a place?

Any place that you like as long as it is conducive to learning. I’m in a room by myself but during the
hours after office like 7:00 PM-12: 00 PM. We all know that these hours is the time of the wild animals to
roam around to hunt so we must find a way to avoid such a conflict. What I do is to sleep from 7:00 PM
until 12:00PM and then wake-up at 1:00 AM in the morning to do my learning. Before I open a book I’ll
have to set my mind first by recalling what I have learn so far in the material, recite my goal, and lookup
some advantages after I finished my study. When I feel energize that’s the signal that I’m ready to begin
my reading. That’s how simple it is! Don’t tell me you can’t do this?

“Before I open a book I’ll have to set my mind first by recalling what I have learn so far in the
material, recite my goal, and lookup some advantages after I finished my study”

The first time you do this it will be very tiresome during the day since you have shift your sleeping time
but then after several days you’ll get around with it. The best time to start is from 1:00 AM-5: 00 AM. You
don’t have to turn to sleep again after that but exercise. Stretching and some bending will do as long as it’s
exercise. Now what we do here is to shift our sleeping time that’s all. We still have our rest for 4-6 hours
depending on your choice but for me I sleep only for 5 hours.

“Stretching and some bending will do as long as it’s exercise”

When you read you have to scan the pages first like scanning the chapter so that you’ll have a pretty
good idea how long the chapter and the topics that will be discussed. If a summary is provided it is best to
read it before starting to read. Sometimes a list of goals is also provided to guide the reader of the things
that will be learned so use it. Also answer all the exercise at the end of each chapter so will have an idea if
you really have digested the material.

Then what?

You may ask this to yourself and puzzled your mind of what to do next. So here I will give you the one
technique to answer all your problems. When you read, study the whole book first like arranging its order
and significance. For example, the first time you flip a page you’ll have to scan the whole book looking at
the drawing, some codes maybe, pictures, and some footnotes if given. The important point here is to give
you the first glance of the whole topic much like learning through osmosis.

“The important point here is to give you the first glance of the whole topic much like learning
through osmosis”

When you do this you must think something of a tree every chapter is a branch and the sub-topics are
the smaller branches attached to the bigger branch and so on. The important concept or ideas are the leaves.
This kind of thinking is what we call mind mapping. Mind mapping is the creation of something visible in
the real world to associate to something purely logical. Remember that you’ll have to do this in your mind
and not using anything to jot down the tree in a piece of paper because what we do here is to learn the
material in fast pace. We don’t have the time to draw elaborate picture of your tree and also we are training
your mind to be independent to accomplish what we call thought learning. We don’t need anything to
justify or show but we will validate it through reasoning and logical interpolation.

“Mind mapping is the creation of something visible in the real world to associate to something purely
logical”

When you start reading, the material will just flow like a movie screen everything is clear and simple.
You can associate which part is next and why. Each new chapter brings new excitement and you can’t wait
to know the ending. The exercise questions of every chapter is like a motive of the character of what his
next move and how he’ll gonna execute his act. Every explanation of the author is like a dialog of two or
more characters trying to solve the puzzle. When you do the exercise problem an inspirational background
music is played as you about to uncover the secrets and plans of the villain. Your heart starts to pump more
blood to your brain as you solve each mystery and discover some solutions to the problems and give hints
to the character what to do or not to do. You can’t get you eyes off the book or screen since you are too
concentrated in the story that you don’t hear or see someone pass by or calls your name. When your Mom
calls you to eat your dinner you said, “No, I haven’t finished yet!” You are so thrilled that you shout when
the author tries to mislead you of the story. You can’t forget the ending when the solution to the algebra
problem was just x+y-2xy (zsw+2hq)/xy(zw-3). After the reading you said to yourself that was awesome! I
want to read more books! I want more information now!
See? When you enjoyed so much you can’t wait to have more and what’s the reward? Every business in
the country will be in you hands company managers and CEOs will call you to work for them without any
questions whatsoever. You want to have this? Sure you will and by the time you’ll able to achieve this
you’re the most powerful man in the planet.

“Every business in the country will be in you hands company managers and CEOs will call you to
work for them without any questions whatsoever”

Are you convinced? Not yet? Try it once and tell me if it’s not true.

Happy life ahead!