This may be hard with a full work schedule and a family or everyday obligations, but scheduling time to learn will help prioritize it in your life every day. You can write out your schedule weekly or monthly, whatever works best for you. [1] X Research source About an hour a day is considered the most beneficial for long-term learning. [2] X Research source
You may not even realize that these times exist until you start looking at your daily activities. If you find a chunk of time where you aren’t being productive or doing something meaningful to you, switch this time over to learning time. [3] X Research source [4] X Research source Remember that there are many ways to learn. For example, you could spend some of your family time every weekend learning together by visiting local museums, going to the zoo, watching documentaries, or visiting the library together.
You can choose to take all five hours during the week and take the weekend off, do two hours over the weekend and skip stressful days during the week, or break it up over all seven days of the week. As long as you are learning at least five hours a week, you will get the benefits of this method. Avoid getting behind and trying to do all your learning in two or three chunks. This will impeded your learning process over time. [5] X Research source
You can make yourself less formal reminders such as post it notes around your room or in your office at work.
This will help you be prepared for learning each day instead of wasting some of your learning time deciding what you want to do. For example, you may choose a topic for each week. During week one, you may learn the capitals of Europe, during week two you may learn the capitals of Africa, then Asia, South America, and North America. You may choose a new inventor each week and read about their inventions and discoveries. You can choose a historical war and spend a week or two reading about the causes, battles, economic and social effects, and results. You may decide to take a month and learn how to shoot a bow and arrow, crochet, play the piano, or cook a difficult recipe. You may make each day a different type of learning. You may read on Mondays and Wednesdays, watch documentaries on Tuesdays and Thursdays, visit websites on Fridays and Saturdays, and choose any method you want on Sundays. If you are learning a skill, spend one day a week reading about the skill, then four days practicing, and one day trying something new you haven’t before.
For example, set the goal of two weeks to master a basic knitting pattern for a scarf. [8] X Research source You may choose a month to learn as many world capitals or periodic table elements as possible, or learn a basic piano song in two months.
For example, you may watch a documentary from the History Channel about World War Two if you are a visual or auditory learner. For an auditory learner, you may listen to a podcast about whales, while visual learners may go to an interactive website with pictures and video footage of whales. If you are a hands on learner, you may need to practice the same song over and over until you learn it. It will be a trial and error kind of process to begin with if you aren’t already familiar with how you learn. Changing your learning environment while you learn can also lend to better learning each day.
You can either keep the same subject over these smaller increments or choose different topics at each. This will keep you interested and make you want to take the learning breaks. [10] X Research source For example, you take 10 minutes in the morning to read about a topic. At lunch, you may read 10 more minutes about the topic, then check out an interactive website for 20 minutes after work and then watch 20 minutes of a documentary after dinner.
For example, you and your children may watch a documentary on giraffes on the Discovery Channel. During commercials and after the program, you can discuss what you learned. Discuss what you have read with your spouse or friends. Tell them interesting facts or share with them stories about historical figures you have learned. This has the added bonus of getting your loved ones to set aside time for learning every day as well.
For example, you can use flashcards to learn world capitals, the names of composers and authors, or even facts from history and mythology. Keep score with yourself and see if you can beat your previous day’s score. Compete against your friends and family to see who gets the highest score. This will also have the added bonus of testing your knowledge of what you’ve been learning and helping you remember what you’ve learned longer.
For example, you can take yourself out to lunch at your favorite restaurant, buy yourself a latte during a coffee break, or buy yourself the new book you’ve been wanting.
You may want to keep up with news on topics that really interest you. You can follow these topics on a news aggregator or set up a Google alert so that you’ll be notified when that topic is mentioned in an article.
You can focus on 1 thing that interests you, or rotate learning about the various things that excite you. You might even find your next topic of study!
If you want to become an expert, you might spend more of your learning time doing professional development. You may also decide to go back to school. If you’re already working in the field, check with your employer to find out if they will help pay for your continued education.
Browse your local bookstore or library to find new topics of study. Talk to your friends about their interests. Check out a documentary, then do your own research. The next time you get lost in a conversation, make a note to learn more about that topic.
