adsorb
You consistently use this where you probably want 'absorb'; they are not the same. Admittedly the usage is metaphorical, but learning something is closer to "take in or soak up by chemical or physical action, typically gradually" than it is to "adhesion of atoms, ions, or molecules from a gas, liquid, or dissolved solid to a surface". Presumably you don't want the information to just form a thin film on top of the learner.
Presumably you don't want the information to just form a thin film on top of the learner.
It seems you just invented a perfect term to describe (one of) the revealed preferences of the education system.
Fixed it. I don't think I've ever consciously registered that adsorb != absorb, so thanks for that.
Avoid listening to music while trying to adsorb new information
I recently spent under $35 to get industrial earmuffs and earplugs, for a combined total of 64 db of noise reduction. Single most cost-effective investment I've made in my learning (not counting the $0 ones).
I recently spent $300 on noise-cancelling earbuds. I live in the middle of San Francisco, so it's pretty noisy. I'd tried earplugs and found them uncomfortable and the noise reduction unimpressive. The earbuds have been great for productivity in general (both at work and studying at home). I highly recommend them if you're in a noisy area and can afford it.
This has accumulate a lot of only positive up-votes in a short time and no comments. From my experience this post is very close to a Main post as it is clearly disseminating generally useful and well-backed information.
I propose the following changes which I believe are required for a main post:
Look up one or two sequences or other posts for which this could be a follow-up.
There are quite a few YouTube links (which makes this very easily exercisable advice) intermingled with pointers to articles and more abstract references. I think it would make a more well-research impression if you could make the sources of your advice more clear. Maybe add a section at the bottom explicitly naming the sources (title and author).
Remove the disclaimer (or reformulate it to just clearly name the audience).
Thanks for the pointers; I'll make the changes you've proposed and move it to main at some point over the next day.
Look up one or two sequences or other posts for which this could be a follow-up.
I'm having trouble finding an appropriate post, did you have a particular one in mind?
The sequences indeed do not have much on study and learning (EY is autodidact). At least http://lesswrong.com/lw/3nn/scientific_selfhelp_the_state_of_our_knowledge/ has the following section
Study methods
Organize for clarity the information you want to learn, for example in an outline (Einstein & McDaniel 2004; Tigner 1999; McDaniel et al. 1996). Cramming doesn't work (Wong 2006). Set up a schedule for studying (Allgood et al. 2000). Test yourself on the material (Karpicke & Roediger 2003; Roediger & Karpicke 2006a; Roediger & Karpicke 2006b; Agarwal et al. 2008; Butler & Roediger 2008), and do so repeatedly, with 24 hours or more between study sessions (Rohrer & Taylor 2006; Seabrook et al 2005; Cepeda et al. 2006; Rohrer et al. 2005; Karpicke & Roediger 2007). Basically: use Anki.
To retain studied information more effectively, try acrostics (Hermann et al. 2002), the link method (Iaccino 1996; Worthen 1997); and the method of loci (Massen & Vaterrodt-Plunnecke 2006; Moe & De Beni 2004; Moe & De Beni 2005).
And then I found the following posts outside teh sequences which are at least somewhat relevant:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/blr/attention_control_is_critical_for/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/k0g/observational_learning_and_the_importance_of_high/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/58m/build_small_skills_in_the_right_order/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/e8w/what_are_useful_skills_to_learn_at_university/
As study and learning is underrepresented in the Sequences, maybe a sequence for that could be started. Alas I don't know the (social) protocol for doing so.
Get some sleep[a]
Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. It's not just that I've always been something of a night-owl while all of society around me functions on a "get up with the sun" morning schedule. It's that the night is often the single uninterrupted block of many hours I have for studying or coding.
Also, would someone happen to have tips for dealing with grad-school-level time pressures while maintaining a healthy sleep schedule?
TLDR: I managed to fix my terrible sleep pattern by creating the right habits.
I've been there, up until a month ago actually.
I've tried a whole slew of things to fix my sleeping pattern over the past couple of years. F.lux, conservative use of melatonin, and cutting down on caffeine all helped but none of them really fixed the problem.
What I found was that I'd often stay up late in order to get more done, and it would feel like I was getting more done (where in actual fact I was just gaining more hours now in exchange for losing more hours in the future). Alongside this my pattern was so hectic that any attempt to sleep at a "normal" time was thwarted by a lack of tiredness, I could use melatonin to 'reset' this, but it'd rarely stay that way.
The first thing that helped was sitting down and working out hour by hour how much time I actually have in a week; this prevented me from thinking I could gain more time by staying up later. The second thing was forming good habits around my sleep. Habit's typically follow a trigger-routine-reward pattern and require fairly quick feedback. As a result building a habit where the routine is sleeping for eight hours is quite hard.
Instead I appended two patterns either side of the time I wished to sleep, the first with the goal of making it easier for me to sleep, and the second with the goal of making it easier for me to get up.
The pre-sleep pattern followed:
Cue: 'Hey it's 10:30pm'
Routine:Turning off technology->Reading->Meditation
Reward: Mug of hot-chocolate
While the post-sleep pattern followed:
Cue: Alarm goes off,
Routine: Get out of bed.
Reward: Breakfast.
Since doing this I've been awake at 8 am every morning with little trouble, and the existence of those habits has made easy to add other habits into my routine. Breakfast, for example, is now a cue to go out running on days when I don't have lectures (this is very surprising for me, I've received several comments along the lines of "Who are you and what have you done with the real you" since I began doing this).
I hope you find this useful.
Just occurred to me that I could put TAPs I want to install into Anki! Like the cue could be the thing on the front of the card, and the routine+reward can be the text on the back.
Also, would someone happen to have tips for dealing with grad-school-level time pressures while maintaining a healthy sleep schedule?
I happen to have a) grad-school level time pressures, and b) a healthy sleep schedule. I'd never have done it own my own, it just worked out because I had a bunch of kids. But the kids are actually incidental. What kids do is make it so you get up at the same time every day, because once they're up, they find some way to destroy your house or kill themselves in 20 min. So you have to get up.
What I learned from all this, what I wished I'd known all along, was that the amount of sleep you get is, within reason, not that important. What matters is getting up and going to bed at exactly the same time every day, even on weekends.
EDIT: Reworked and moved to Main following Gunnar_Zarncke's advice.
Related to: Book Review: How Learning Works, Build Small Skills in the Right Order, What are useful skills to learn at university?
This article is organized into three sections focusing on attention, processing and recall respectively. The advice in each section is roughly organised in order of usefulness, although your mileage may vary. It's best to view this as a menu of study techniques rather than an in depth guide.
Just follow at the links provided if you wish to learn more about any point. Links with a lettered superscript[a] generally link to a part of a YouTube video while those with a numbered superscript[1] link to an article. Links without any superscript generally link to another LessWrong page.