Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post - What is the most time effective way to learn out of a text book?

The Protagonist · 12-01-2006, 11:14 PM

Many of my classes I could just teach my self out of the text book from. Which is a good thing because I can never pay attention in class. The thing is text book learning is currently too slow. It works very well and the few times that I have completely learned the chapter for the test I have always aced it. But my current method is extremely time consuming:

Read 3-4 pages
Outline (In notebook what I have just learned) which is basically rereading it

It doesn't sound bad, but my text book in huge and the print is fine, and I am lazy since this class has nothing to do with my future.

So what I end up doing is putting off the outlining till I have massive amounts of pages to do before the test and then I do badly. The reason I put it off is because I hate how long it takes (1.5 hours for 3-4 pages). Is there anyway I can speed this process up?

I have noticed two things:

I lose focus like crazy. One minute I will be thinking about RNA Polymerase, and then the next about that cute girl who sits across from me in class or what I am going to do Saturday night. How can I obtain and maintain focus and concentration on my work? Losing it drives me crazy because I have to reread the paragraph from the beginning, sometimes I'm taking in words but no meaning.

I always seem to put off work. I mean 3-4 pages a night is a lot, but it is much better than 10 pages the night of, ya dig? So if there is some way I could just make the entire process under an hour that would be great.

I am going to try speed reading or photo reading, but I would still lose focus alot

12-01-2006, 11:14 PM	#1 (permalink)
The Protagonist Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Westchester Posts: 84	What is the most time effective way to learn out of a text book? Many of my classes I could just teach my self out of the text book from. Which is a good thing because I can never pay attention in class. The thing is text book learning is currently too slow. It works very well and the few times that I have completely learned the chapter for the test I have always aced it. But my current method is extremely time consuming: Read 3-4 pages Outline (In notebook what I have just learned) which is basically rereading it It doesn't sound bad, but my text book in huge and the print is fine, and I am lazy since this class has nothing to do with my future. So what I end up doing is putting off the outlining till I have massive amounts of pages to do before the test and then I do badly. The reason I put it off is because I hate how long it takes (1.5 hours for 3-4 pages). Is there anyway I can speed this process up? I have noticed two things: I lose focus like crazy. One minute I will be thinking about RNA Polymerase, and then the next about that cute girl who sits across from me in class or what I am going to do Saturday night. How can I obtain and maintain focus and concentration on my work? Losing it drives me crazy because I have to reread the paragraph from the beginning, sometimes I'm taking in words but no meaning. I always seem to put off work. I mean 3-4 pages a night is a lot, but it is much better than 10 pages the night of, ya dig? So if there is some way I could just make the entire process under an hour that would be great. I am going to try speed reading or photo reading, but I would still lose focus alot