What can you learn in 10 minutes that will change your life for good? There are some things we can learn quickly that can have a big impact on our lives, whether in our personal life, at work or in business (as long as you decide to put them into practice). Above all, the ones that have to do with productivity.
1. The Pomodoro technique
Time management is very important. We all have the same amount of time each day. How that time is managed is what separates the people who will be more successful from those who will be less so.
Although it may sound counterintuitive, the most productive day of the week in companies is Friday. Employees tend to leave earlier, so on that day they have spent fewer hours focused on their work, but those few hours have been put to better use.
The Pomodoro technique consists of organising your daily tasks into 25-minute intervals, which forces you to concentrate intensely on the task at hand.
How to apply the Pomodoro technique correctly
- Decide which task you are going to do.
- Set a clock or timer to 25 minutes so that an alarm goes off when the time is up.
- Work on the task with as much concentration and intensity as you can, without any interruptions, until the alarm rings.
- Take a 5-minute break.
- After every four rounds (pomodoros), take a longer break of about 20 or 30 minutes.
Try this technique and look at the results. In most cases, you will be pleasantly surprised.
See also: 9 things you can do every day to become smarter
2. Learn to plan ahead
The importance of planning ahead sounds obvious, whether we are talking about goals or objectives in life. The importance of weekly and daily planning sounds obvious too, and yet for some reason hardly anyone plans in detail.
If you want to see changes in your productivity and results, start planning your week today, with the priorities of what you need to do first. If your job doesn’t let you plan the week, plan the next day the day before.
That way you don’t waste time working out what to do when you start. You already have your priorities set and know where to focus 100% of your attention. Use the Pomodoro technique for each task and you will see results.
Think of it as a way to stay focused at all times on what really matters, avoiding distractions and wasted time.
3. Learn how to learn
This isn’t a play on words. Quite simply, many people have never learned how to learn, and there are certain techniques we can use to pick up a skill much faster. Once you have learned these techniques, which are very easy, all that’s left is to apply them every time you are learning something new.
Luckily for you, we have already put together a summary of these techniques:
- Techniques used by people who learn faster, part 1
- Strategies for learning faster than everyone else, part 2
4. Learn memorisation techniques
Imagine our brain as a computer’s hard drive. When we read or learn something, that knowledge is stored in folders in our brain. If at some point we can’t remember what we learned, it’s because we stored it somewhere hard to find, but it’s there, in some folder.
In the book Consigue una memoria de elefante (“Get the memory of an elephant”) by José María Bea, you will find a wide range of techniques and tricks for improving your memory.
Even so, here are 4 very simple tricks to improve your memory that you can start using right away:
1. The recall technique
When you have studied or read something, put the material aside and make a conscious effort to repeat it in your own words. That conscious effort will act as an anchor in your brain. Taking notes while you read, or writing down what you learn, will also help your memory retain what you have learned.
Remember, though, that your memory forgets anything you don’t start applying within a short time.
2. The first sentence
For every text you read, write down its first sentence. That sentence will act as an anchor for your brain, making it easier to remember what you have read.
3. Picture the text as images
I don’t know whether you’ve noticed (especially if you don’t like history) that when you studied history and it was all wars, historical figures, dates and so on, it was usually hard to remember. Yet when we watch a film, we tend to remember it much better. So create your own film as you read. If you manage to turn the text into images and make a film out of whatever you want to memorise, it will stay rooted in your brain for longer.
4. I can’t remember the fourth one 🙁
5. Increase your reading speed and/or quality
Although I’m not in favour of obsessing over reading speed, the truth is that sometimes it’s necessary. With audiobooks we can triple our reading speed by speeding up the voice, and our brain will only need a few minutes to adjust to the new pace. Mind you, when you play an audiobook at 3x speed, you need to concentrate as hard as you can.
As for reading techniques that help you get the most out of what you read, here you go: 6 reading techniques that will change the way you read for ever.
6. Learn to take responsibility
You can’t bring about any change in your life until you understand that you are fully and solely responsible for the decisions you make in this life and for the results you have achieved so far.
Not your parents, not the people around you, not the neighbour’s cat. How do you learn to take responsibility for your actions? I can teach you that quickly: “You are responsible for your life, your actions and your decisions, so change your actions to get different results.” Now you can go out and take on the world.
There are many more things you can learn, and we may cover them in a future article, but let’s just say that if you keep picking up these small tricks and techniques, the rest will be easier to take in.
Featured image: Ian Barbour, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
