Study More Efficiently With These 2 Basic Steps

okay so um encoding and uh increasing

that long-term memory not being over

reliant on space repetition and active

recall here's how you do it for those

that are new my name is dr justin i'm a

medical doctor a learning coach and i

help students learn to learn if you

haven't watched my video on the problem

to do with active recoil and space

repetition and this thing called

encoding versus retrieval and the idea

of cognitive load and all of that sort

of stuff you definitely want to check

that out first otherwise this video

isn't gonna make as much sense for those

of you that have seen it okay let's dive

into some of the basics

hey it's um future me and someone said

that i should do a quick introduction

about the points i'm gonna cover and i

forgot to do that so in this video i'm

going to talk about uh the basic

principle behind how you can do encoding

and then i'm going to talk about the

second point which is to increase your

encoding

tolerance and cognitive load tolerance

because those are two like fundamental

fundamentals it doesn't get more

fundamental than that they're like the

step zero of starting to do effective

encoding what you'll find is that i

don't talk about specific like

techniques like step one step two step

three do this like write your notes like

this so you're probably going to have

questions like how do i write my notes

or what do i do for this subject or what

i do for this subject and the reason

that i didn't cover that is because

there's like literally hundreds of

different variations of this and so it's

better for me to just teach you the

principle if it abides by the principles

that i talk about in this video it's

probably gonna be okay-ish if it doesn't

abide by these principles then it's

definitely not okay but again i've got

other videos that i'll post up about you

know more specific techniques and

examples and this is really just that

first step introduction into the basics

of encoding which i hope to just build

on in future videos anyway back to the

actual thing before we really start uh

it is important to realize that encoding

techniques are not

easy by nature like literally by

definition right encoding involves

cognitive load and cognitive load

naturally feels uncomfortable naturally

feels confusing so if you are using an

encoding technique especially a new one

that you haven't tried before and you're

finding that it's hard to wrap your head

around and you're just like generally a

little lost that's actually completely

normal in fact if you didn't feel that

it probably means you're doing it wrong

so a lot of students will use an

encoding technique the first time

they'll give it a go and they feel this

and then they back off they will give up

they'll say hey it's not working for me

i'm not getting those results the

results do not come immediately it's

kind of like training your muscles it's

kind of like learning to play an

instrument it takes time to develop the

skill for some people that's only a few

days for some people it's only a few

hours but for most people that that's

around a month to two months and that

that can be a little bit daunting but i

do promise that the the result pays off

so how do we do this whole encoding

thing there are a lot of different

techniques that you can use to encode

but every single encoding technique has

to sort of follow a few basic principles

and i'm gonna

drive them down to just two okay so the

first step is understanding about

different orders of learning there are

low orders of learning and there are

higher orders of learning deep

processing higher encoding this happens

a lot more when we're at the higher

order of learning so encoding is really

only happening when you have clear

organizational structure in your brain

what that means is that you not only

know what the information is but you

know how it fits in there is a way of

navigating this information in your

brain that makes intuitive and logical

sense there usually isn't a lot that

relies on you having memorized things

like memorize different groups of

anything it's usually pretty logical and

so someone that has done a high level of

encoding when they explain something it

sounds very simple and you can often

get that feeling of like wow i never

thought of it that simply before and

then you can do the classic kind of

explaining it to a five-year-old or

explaining it to a 10 year old and that

is a sign

generally of someone having a higher

order of learning so how do we know what

higher order learning is there are two

different frameworks that we can use to

understand this the first one is called

bloom's taxonomy and as you can see the

lower order learning is really the stuff

at the bottom levels the remembering and

the understanding a lot of people will

say that just memorizing something is

not real learning understanding is when

you're getting real learning that's not

true because understanding something is

still very isolated when we're doing

good encoding we never want information

to be isolated every single thing that

you consume every information that comes

into your sensory memory that you shunt

into your working memory again if this

is foreign to you check out that other

video that i mentioned before all of

that stuff in our working memory that's

gonna be forgotten in seconds we've got

seconds so in the in the seconds that

that information is in our working

memory that's our opportunity to encode

it into our long-term memory if we miss

that window we're wasting time so we

can't just consume information first

and then settle on it and then

consolidate it and then try to encode it

afterwards by then it's already late

we've already put it into kind of like a

a memorization box we're already sort of

looking at it in terms of stuff to wrote

learn through repetition and what i

found is that students that are

generally pretty heavy with the rote

learning or the memorization if they

don't follow this right order then they

are so pulled into their previous habit

of just rote learning that it's it's

very very very difficult to break out of

and certainly will waste a lot of time

so step number one as soon as possible

we want to just jump to higher order

learning and that is something like

applying but more so things like

analyzing and evaluating the ideas

so here's how we work up the ladder and

i want you to think about where you

spend most of your time thinking again

we want to be at those higher levels not

just in general but as early as possible

okay that's that's the key so the lower

level is about remembering this is just

like recalling facts and individual

details

the next level is about understanding if

you understand it you can explain it the

next level above this is applying so

this means solving problems but the

problems are usually pretty

concept specific like isolated problems

testing on just individual concepts and

then we have analyzing so analyzing is

the first point at which we're starting

to take ideas and bring them together

and comparing them against each other so

it's not just about having one idea and

then just understanding that idea really

really well

and focusing on understanding that idea

and you'll hear me talk about this in a

lot of other videos as well it's about

taking that idea and then looking at it

in relation to another idea and

comparing and contrasting between them

but not just one or two but multiple

different ideas and seeing their

relationships between them and then the

next step evaluating this is about not

just comparing and contrasting the ideas

but it's about figuring out how we can

judge them how we can prioritize them so

we might know that we have three

concepts that are related to each other

concept a concept b concept c and we

know that there is a relationship here

evaluating would be saying okay which of

these relationships is actually the most

important is it this one here or is it

is it this relationship that's the most

important or is it kind of like okay a

that leads to b and then a and b

together combined lead to c is that the

nature of the relationship so when

you're analyzing you may have an

understanding that there is a

relationship you may get an idea that

they are connected that they are related

to each other that they exert some kind

of influence but when you're evaluating

it means that you understand it much

more deeply you're very explicit you're

very clear about what the nature of that

relationship is and how important it is

in the in the big picture in the grand

scheme of things so i want you to start

trying to find the similarities

essentially doing that level five

thinking of uh evaluating or analyzing

the information with this next part so

another taxonomy that we can use apart

from blooms is solo taxonomy and i

personally like this one a little bit

more so if you think about this one this

part where we're actually saying that

the ideas don't exist in isolation

anymore but we actually sign a c the

connections between them

we're getting this in this kind of

relational type of learning but then

when we actually start implementing the

bigger picture we have an understanding

of its significance with the bigger

picture that's now activating higher

order learning so in order to do correct

encoding we always need to try to relate

the information to each other

and to the bigger picture

so we're always trying to relate the

information to each other

and to the bigger picture now for some

people this is actually an automatic

process that they'll do

students that are already pretty good at

encoding they will naturally do this but

i found that

a lot of the time this process goes

sort of subconscious and they will sort

of flick in and out of this method of

thinking what i'm saying is that it's

actually possible very possible like

this is legitimately kind of one of the

core principles of a lot of the

techniques that i teach

is the idea that you don't actually need

to

really spend much time at all on the

lower levels of thinking you don't

really need to try to memorize or try to

understand something now you're thinking

justin how am i going to evaluate and

analyze and get an understanding of the

big picture of something without even

knowing what it is like how without

understanding something how will i be

able to do that and the answer is that

you can't you can't do that and that's

the point your brain will automatically

will automatically fill in

the lower order levels of thinking so

the idea here is that you set your goal

your focus your objective is to do the

higher order thinking as early as

possible by doing that your brain will

automatically do the memorizing and the

understanding and the application of it

on the way there without you even trying

to do that and the benefit of this is

that because you have the big picture in

mind the information naturally becomes

more organized because if you were to do

it step by step if you were to take each

individual piece of information sensory

memory into your working memory you say

okay i'm gonna memorize this okay now

i'm gonna try to understand it more

deeply okay now i'm going to try to

apply this and then i'm going to try to

see how it fits in the big picture

if you were to do that then each piece

of information is being consumed

individually and it's isolated and at

that point remember we've got seconds to

encode it from our working memory to our

long-term memory at that moment we have

decided that we are going to look at it

in isolation first and already our

organizational structure is starting off

on the wrong foot so now we have to

spend time to unlearn the way that we

had organized it and then find another

way to organize it afterwards so it's

kind of like if you have a really messy

room it's like putting all of your stuff

in there first and then going into your

messy room and saying okay let's clean

it up it actually makes more sense to

take each individual item look at all

the other items you need to put into

your room think okay i can see that i've

got a lot of stationery i probably need

to find a way to organize that station

area in my room so if you're thinking

about this to begin with when you pick

up your pencil then you know where it's

going to go so it's organized to begin

with it takes a little bit longer to

process through the information the

first time around but it's

it's much incomparably faster and it

saves you a lot of time because that

information is encoded straight away and

you'll find that retention can be 80 90

i mean i've got some of the students on

my course that are saying that their

retention is like 90 plus after two

three weeks of not even having looked at

it again and that's

far above the uh what the research says

is is the just generally accepted norm

of around forty to sixty percent sort of

fifty percent area so that's the first

thing okay that's the first thing so let

me just really quickly summarize that is

that in order to do coding you have to

you have to try to organize the ideas in

relation to the big picture and you do

this by comparing the ideas against each

other and against the big picture and

creating an actual organizational system

so each piece of information knows where

to fit so every technique that you use

should

try to leverage off that that means

you're not just reading something and

just writing notes on it you shouldn't

be doing that if you read something and

just write notes on it straight away

then you're not letting your brain

figure out how to organize it first you

should never really be committing

anything

you know into your notes or anything

like that

until you've figured out a way to

organize it in relation to other

concepts and in relation to the bigger

picture right so we're always looking

for those relationships we're always

looking to build big picture relevance

now

it sounds simple and for some of you it

truly will be simple and for those of

you you're probably already a pretty

good academic achiever yourself this

part of the message is really for those

students that are listening that will

struggle with this and this is the

statistical majority vast majority of

students even some high achieving

students especially in the high school

level they're high achieving because

they're relying on repetition

but this is a completely different

method of thinking so you could be a

very high achiever

but you may actually still be not that

good at encoding uh and then what you'll

find is that as the information gets

harder and harder this repetition-based

learning becomes less and less

sustainable like like i talked about in

my last video so for those of you that

are struggling with this method of

thinking just remember what i said

before is that it is a skill you do need

to

you know practice it and that confusion

of thinking how does this fit how does

it come together where does it connect

can i organize it this way or maybe i

can organize it this way instead all of

that is good that that's learning that's

good cognitive load being used and

that's actually directly contributing to

improving your memory and i'll be

releasing several videos coming up as

well where i go through actual examples

of subjects where i go through and and

you'll see what i mean

by this comparison and the relationship

and you'll see the areas where you might

struggle so i've got a bunch of videos

coming up on that let me say it again

i've got videos of examples coming up

all right i'm doing my best to try to

cover the material as best as i can in

this format but youtube is honestly not

a great format for delivering stuff that

is like pretty sequential and uh like

has you know a pretty specific structure

in terms of how i need to teach it so

that's the first thing the second thing

is a much uh smaller point and this is

just something that's going to help you

do that first thing which is you need to

start training your cognitive load

tolerance you need to start becoming

more and more familiar with the idea of

keeping information in your brain

when you when you're writing notes you

will get the sensation that as soon as

you've written notes about it there's a

sort of burden that's been lifted from

your mind you can kind of breathe a

little bit easier you can probably

relate to this feeling that's not

necessarily a good thing and this again

is pretty nuanced because it can be good

sometimes and it might not be and again

i've got videos on that coming up as

well but as a rule of thumb if you're

someone that generally writes notes in a

very linear format

and by linear what i mean is that your

notes kind of just look like this you

might have some bullet points in there

as well but they're pretty pretty linear

you might be typing them you might be

using an app like notion or something

the idea is that all of these ways of

writing notes are linear and they're

usually quite wordy so this method of

writing notes is not very effective for

a number of different reasons and if

you're doing it that way already you

probably

have a habit of

reducing your cognitive load and

offloading it into your notes and that's

that's not a good thing because it means

that yes you've got a record of it but

you're not actually encoding it so that

again is going to create future work for

yourself and repetition is going to end

up wasting a lot of time what you want

to do is you want to get into the habit

of slowly increasing your cognitive load

capacity so if you're finding it really

really difficult if you tending to write

a lot of notes just practice

reading something or listening to

something and instead of writing notes

straight away get into the habit of just

holding on to that information a little

bit more

taking in a little bit more information

and asking yourself the questions how

does that relate to what i just learned

and then how does that relate to the big

picture

ask yourself these questions

and as you do this more and more you

will start to be able to hold on to more

and more information at a time

to a certain point where you'll be able

to really

read for 15 20 30 minutes without

writing any notes at the end of it you

can put down a very highly organized

beautifully processed set of notes and

people will look at you and think man

how did you actually do that and that

takes time and it takes practice but

slowly graduate gradually just trying to

expand your tolerance for cognitive load

is very very important skill

most of the more advanced encoding

techniques

require you to be able to have require

you to tolerate a certain level of

cognitive load uh to be able to do it at

all if you don't have a certain level of

tolerance a lot of these techniques are

just completely impossible so this is

something that you're going to need to

develop as like a very fundamental skill

for any and

reasonably even intermediate encoding

techniques from this we'll be able to

build on this we'll be

able to incorporate things like chunking

we'll be able to use non-linear note

taking like mind maps we'll be able to

bring them together into something that

i call chunk mapping which is a very

specific variation of mind mapping that

facilitates this chunking process

optimally we'll be able to start

layering in

a lot of other techniques like more

interleaving micro learning we'll see

how flash cards can fit into this system

we'll see how we can do our space

repetition in a healthy and productive

way we'll learn how to add on

memorization techniques that

supplement this just like rote learning

techniques to fill in any other gaps we

can look at revision techniques all of

these things we can start layering on

but we can't do any of that unless we

patch the hole in the bucket right we

can't we can't do anything else until

that hole in the bucket is already at

least reasonably patched and that means

we need to start getting a system where

our encoding is relatively high and

we're not forgetting things quite as

quickly the first time we learn it and

this is a process that again it will

take you some time but i also promise

that it will contribute uh and help you

and and benefit you for those of you

that struggle with the idea of like

comparing and thinking about the big

picture if you find that you've got way

too many relationships way too many

connections and it's just overwhelming

then what i'd suggest is that you take

it down a notch first think about

applying the information first so we

know that applying the information is

not quite as good as that high level

evaluation where we're comparing and

contrasting and prioritizing different

ideas but it's still a lot better than

just the memorization and understanding

so if you think about taking information

in and just thinking how can i apply

this how can i apply this and you focus

on that that will increase your

tolerance a little bit when you're good

at that then you can bring it up to the

next level all of the stuff that i've

just talked about that i've only briefly

mentioned i have plans to make videos on

all of that and i've got a lot of

examples that i can work through stuff

that my students have sent me

where there are very common mistakes and

issues that are found that i think

you'll find very helpful i've got all

this footage i just need to sit down and

edit them because again youtube is not

my full-time thing the the teaching

students how to learn that's my

full-time thing this is just something

that i do when i have the time and space

to be able to do it so that stuff is

coming out if you do want to see again

that step-by-step process then feel free

to check out the course that i've got

where i go through all of this sort of

stuff and more and all the examples all

of that stuff you can learn a little bit

more about that if you check the link in

the description as well or you can just

simply wait for my next big batch of

videos to come out hopefully you enjoyed

this if you did please leave it a like

if you have any questions anything you

want to clarify as always leave a

comment do my best to try to answer them

as long as they are relatively

respectful anyway thanks for listening

and i'll see you in the next one

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