This document provides tips for effective learning and time management. It recommends turning off the internet when not needed, leaving gaps in your schedule to practice information over time, and quizzing yourself with open-ended questions. Additional tips include figuring out your preferred learning style, managing your time using calendars and task managers, getting an accountability buddy, and maintaining good sleep hygiene to increase focus and memory retention.

1. Adapted from The Saylor Journals

2.  Turn off the Internet
 Gaps are good things
 Quiz yourself with open-ended questions
 Figure out how you prefer to learn
 Manage your time effectively
 Get an accountability buddy
 Maintain good sleep hygiene

3.  When you don’t need the Internet for
work, just turn it off!

4.  Have set times when you don’t use the
Internet (days of week/time of day).
 There’s a great program
called SelfControl (free) that allows you to
block your server from specific sights until
time runs out, or block the Internet entirely
for a set time.

5.  To know material
two weeks from
now, learn it
today, then practice
it in one week.
You’ll be more
likely to remember
everything than if
you had crammed it
in the last few days.

6.  To retain over a long period of time, practice
it at regular intervals or else you will forget.
 Set deadlines for when you want to learn
things.

7.  Make flashcards with keywords: write down
everything you remember about the subject.
 Don’t use notes; just write down what you
remember about each keyword off the top of
your head.

8.  Have a friend read the keyword, and verbally
explain to her the substance of it.
 Make mock-tests with short-answer
questions, if possible, with friends, and then
give feedback to each other.

9.  There are four
typical learning
preferences
 Visual, aural, r
ead/write, and
kinesthetic

10.  These are only preferences, and they do not
limit you from learning in other ways.
However it is easier to engage in education if
you’re able to understand how you prefer to
learn. Check out the “Learn How You
Learn” test at:
http://www.sophia.org/learning-preferences-
assessment

11.  Manage time by breaking it into chunks
 Use a calendar
 The combination of a task manager (like
Things or Asana) and a calendar,
when actually used, helps accomplish goals.

12.  Focus Booster is a program that sets a timer
to break work into 25-minute cycles with a
5-minute break in between each.
 Things (Task Manager)
 Asana (Task Manager)

14.  An accountability
buddy keep you
accountable. Can
you think of
promises you made
to yourself but
didn’t keep?

15.  That’s where an accountability buddy comes
into play: when you share your goals with
somebody, you are more likely to accomplish
them!
 To find one, email a friend you trust to keep
you accountable, and ask if he or she would
like to exchange weekly goals with you

16.  Once a week, email your friend 5 to 10 goals.
On the same day, have a conversation to
share what you did and did not accomplish in
the previous week.
 Take out a piece of paper right now and write
down 5 goals for yourself for this week; now
write down 3 people you could ask to be your
accountability buddy.

17.  This is a good way
to get feedback,
help each other set
goals, and share
progress. And if
you didn’t
accomplish one of
your goals, it goes
back on the list!

18.  Science is constantly showing us how
important it is to get enough sleep: it
increases focus, memory retention, heals
your body, and has countless other benefits

19.  I know the temptation to go and go and go—
not stopping to break, sleep, or eat. There
are too many pages to write, there is an
unending amount of work that needs to get
done…

20.  When you sleep, your
work is of a higher
quality. Build healthy
sleep habits—wake
up at the same time
every morning, get to
bed early enough to
get a full night’s
sleep, and take naps
when you haven’t
slept enough—to
increase the quality
of your work.

21.  Turn off the Internet
 Gaps are good things
 Quiz yourself with open-ended questions
 Figure out how you prefer to learn
 Manage your time effectively
 Get an accountability buddy
 Maintain good sleep hygiene