Sooner or later, there comes a time when you should do self-education. And then the question arises - how and where to start? If you have it, check out the actionable tips below and get an answer to it.
Learn foreign languages. It has been proven that daily memorization of a small number of new words (up to 20) is an excellent measure to prevent the aging of brain cells and prevent their age-related changes.
In addition, no matter how much one would like, but in the era of globalization one cannot do without such knowledge. If you can’t learn English, take on those that interest you, but remember that all interesting data is published in it.
Most importantly, following this advice does not necessarily entail a large amount of money, because you can find free trainings or master classes where native speakers will gladly share their experience.
Do not neglect any opportunity to self-learn, whether it is eternal traffic jams or the availability of free time. In fact, a person, with proper planning of his affairs, can daily allocate up to 3 hours of free time to gain new knowledge.
It follows from the second. In order for self-education to have a place in your life, make schedules and increase your efficiency. How to achieve the latter, you can read in the article
Take any difficult situation as a motivator for gaining new knowledge, whether it's a new project that you don't have enough skills to work with or an argument with colleagues about something you don't know. To reduce the volume of this very unknown, it is worth learning something new every day and training your memory.
Connect with other people, just like you, who are actively learning something new. Such communication will be an excellent opportunity for the exchange of experience. In this case, it is better to give preference to live communication. So you can kill two birds with one stone - learn new things and not lose the skills of interacting with other people. However, a subscription to the sources of interest will not be superfluous either.
Practice more, because any knowledge gained without practice is dead.
As you can see, in order to independently master new skills or gain knowledge, you do not need to stay awake at night or pour liters of coffee into yourself. It is enough to sincerely want this and use any available opportunities.
To begin with, remember that main source knowledge is people. People write books, posts, speak at conferences, make presentations and videos. Therefore, to dive into any topic of interest to us, we need to make a list of people who know something that we do not know.
We start by formulating 3-5 keywords related to what we are interested in. Remember that in Russian and in English there can be different formulations of the same phenomenon. First we use general dictionaries, then - professional.
I'm going to. We collect keywords one by one. We write out on the page "Who studies this topic" the names of the authors that come across. We save the titles of books in a separate list “I plan to view”, indicating the year of release.
If the topic is research, we go to, enter keywords (preferably in English) and already found surnames into the search engine. We save the names of articles and links to them in the list "I plan to view".
If the topic is professional, just go to Google, type in the search engine keywords and already found surnames. We write out new names that appear on the way, we save links to posts that seem relevant (by title).
In a simple Google, we set “keywords + conference”, “keywords + conference”. We find thematic conferences, programs, presentations. And this means that there is a list of participants. Presentations and videos of speeches are often posted as well. Names - in the list of names, links to performances - in the list "Plan to watch".
We prioritize coolness. We raise in the list the names of those who are often referred to.
We cover all this with a Google search for “keyword +courses”, “keyword +webinar”. We find distance and face-to-face courses related to the topic of interest. We write them down in the list "I plan to watch."
Before you will be navigating through people who understand what interests you. Now you can read posts, articles, books, watch presentations and videos, sign up for participation in webinars and courses. Did you dive into the topic a little?
Write to the top people on your list: in the comments on their blog, by e-mail. Ask those questions that are left unanswered in the materials you have studied. There are high chances that you will be answered.
Study on your own? Sounds pretty interesting and tempting. However, many people who have come to the conclusion that the knowledge they received before are not enough or are irrelevant for some reason, and who want to develop and learn something on their own, face certain difficulties. And in order to avoid them, you need to learn how to properly organize the process of your self-study, so that time is not wasted senselessly and wasted. Let's figure out what needs to be done to make independent learning effective.
In order for self-study, as well as any other process, to be effective, you must, first of all, decide what you need it for. Why do you want to learn something new? Will you be able to apply the acquired knowledge in practice? Where will you apply them? What will it give you?
Make a list of fundamental questions for yourself. There may be five, ten, twenty. The bigger, the better. These questions will help you make sure that your ideas are not without meaning, and also help you consider the result you want to achieve from different angles. Try to give answers as detailed and specific as possible, without losing sight of anything. Re-read them, supplement them and always keep them at hand, because, in case of emergency, they can become a great reminder for you of what you are striving for and will motivate you to take further action.
Planning
After the first stage is completed, you can proceed to. This plan should represent the strategy for achieving the goal that you intend to pursue in self-study.
Strive to ensure that your plan includes even the smallest details: with what tools are you going to learn? If books, then what kind of books are they, who is their author, what are they called, where can I find them? Will they be printed or electronic? If these are, for example, audio seminars or video courses, where will you find them and when do you plan to devote time to them? Will you resort to other types of education - visiting electives, special courses, master classes, trainings? What useful online resources will you use? But keep in mind that it is better not to mix different activities - they must consistently follow each other, otherwise confusion may arise in the head and the result from such an apprenticeship will be minimal.
The plan should be clearly defined, have a time frame and some intermediate stages at which you can evaluate your progress. In addition, all points should be related to the purpose of your learning and should certainly contribute to it and your progress. If anything gets in the way, you should eliminate it from your plan.
Time and self-organization
This issue should be discussed separately, even if it is one of the components of planning. When thinking about self-study, it is very important to understand the fact that you yourself are your own temporary resource, and no one will “kick you”. Those. The issue is self-discipline. It includes both the daily routine and the ability to force yourself to do what you have to do, despite the many "good" reasons to postpone the planned work until later. It may sound a bit naive, but most people fail to organize themselves when they start self-taught or, for example, go freelancing. There is an appearance that there is still enough time and, as a result, important matters are postponed until later, which subsequently leads to haste and even disruption of projects. It is convenient to use to organize your time and prioritize business - do not use the opportunity to get to know her.
Clearly define how many hours per day/days per month you will educate yourself. If self-study for you is just a way, so to speak, to pull up your tails, increase erudition, etc., then you can devote to training from one to two or three hours a day. If it is a question of advanced training, a claim to become a specialist in some field, then much more time should be devoted to training. But this must be determined on the basis of the tasks set.
In addition, so that any free minute can be spent with benefit, it is recommended to have some quick access educational materials: books, printouts, files in e-book or on a tablet. They can be used even in transport when there is a long journey ahead, or while standing in line - instead of “counting the crows”, you can study a new section of the textbook or read an interesting article.
Self-examination and self-assessment
Based on the fact that the entire process of independent learning should be aimed at increasing the level of one's knowledge, as well as at the effective implementation of the plans, it is necessary to systematically monitor one's progress by conducting various self-examination and self-assessment tests. You must have a clear idea of whether the acquired knowledge is useful, when and where it can be used, whether you understand everything that you are studying well enough. Strive to apply new knowledge in practice in your daily life.
For verification, you can take various thematic tests (in books, magazines, the Internet), write for yourself summary learned, answer questions that you can make yourself even in the course of training. If you wish, you can come up with something else. Tracking your progress will help you always get feedback on your learning process. you will see what your progress is, what you are doing well, and what needs to be improved. You will be able to identify your strengths and weaknesses and use that knowledge to create a more effective self-paced learning model.
The above four points are fundamental, and the entire process of self-study rests on them. But in addition, there are a few more auxiliary recommendations that can have a beneficial effect on your self-education.
- Discuss new information with people around you. Firstly, it will be an indicator of how well you have learned the material. Secondly, you can hear from a different point of view, which can also be helpful. And thirdly, healthy criticism will show you your weaknesses and point out what needs to be improved.
- During self-study, try to abstract yourself from the outside world. Any extra thought distracts and interferes with concentration. Therefore, while you are engaged, forget about all the problems, do not think about business, do not indulge your own.
- In addition to the main material studied, strive to gain knowledge from any sources available and interesting to you: books, films, exhibitions, interesting places. Make time for . This may or may not apply to your particular area. self-study, but, in any case, will make you a more erudite and comprehensively developed person.
- Be sure to work on yourself and the qualities of your personality: develop leadership qualities, logic,. Raise your IQ, improve the quality of communication. Work on diction, facial expressions, gestures, etc. In addition, pay attention to your inner life: meditate or engage in other spiritual practices, get acquainted with various teachings, increase your level of awareness. All this in the best way will affect not only the quality of your self-study, but also the quality of your life in general.
- Pay attention to the quality of your pastime and social circle - they should contribute to your personal growth. If you notice that the people you communicate with negatively affect your learning (take up your time, say that you will fail or that you are doing the wrong thing, etc.), then reduce the time you spend with them. Try not to do things that negatively affect your personal productivity and efficiency: refrain from spending time in front of the TV or on social networks (if it is not related to training), drinking alcohol, unnecessary meetings, etc. during the training.
- Every day, without exception, take, albeit not big, but steps towards your goal. It is not possible to devote 3 hours to training, spend at least 30 minutes. Only systematic targeted actions will help you achieve your goal.
Follow these guidelines and embed your learning in accordance with the basic rules, then you can be sure that your time is not wasted, and the self-study process itself will be as effective as possible.
We wish you success on the path of self-education!
There is too much knowledge around. We try to remember a lot of empty information, we worry that we haven’t covered something yet. But if knowledge is not needed and you rarely turn to it, they are quickly forgotten.
Select main
You can not learn everything at once, you need to make a choice.
How to understand which interest is the most important? Greg McKeon in the book"Essentialism" gives two radical advice. First, if you can’t say a definite “yes,” then say a definite “no.”
Second, use strict and explicit criteria. For a new activity, choose three optimal criteria that are significant for your life: for example, it should raise your self-esteem, give pleasure and bring money. The more criteria a new practice captures, the more valuable it is to you.
Rate the practice
Once you choose an occupation, figure out what you can achieve in it. Find out how developed the practice itself is: does it have clear criteria for success and failure, do experts work in it and do they develop their own teaching techniques? If the practice is established in society, then you will clearly see where you are going. If there is no clarity, then it will be much more difficult to develop.
Set a Specific Goal
You can't just "learn to run" or "speak English". It is better to turn your self-education into a project with specific objectives so that it is clear when you reach the goal. Imagine what you want to achieve and what you can realistically achieve in a given time frame. Don't try to "get good at grammar", but choose the 10 most important topics, find as many exercises for them as possible, and write a final test for yourself. Determine the time frame: 3 months. The deadline must be clear.
Build your horizons
The best solution for self-development is to build an outlook around the project. If you study English grammar, read comics, listen to podcasts about the history of the language, go to a lecture on linguistics. If you need to prepare for a half marathon, watch documentaries about famous runners, read sports magazines, find out the national and world record for the distance. Krugozor will help the project and chart the way to new topics.
But if you completely subordinate the outlook to the project, then you get not an outlook, but a specialization. Therefore, it is better to free up some time from any kind of plans, let it be an open space for fleeting interests: random books, video games, lectures, and anything but running and grammar.
How to organize a workplace
The workplace should motivate for learning. The best way charge it with energy - use the priming effect. It has long been used in marketing: images from environment affect us even when we are not aware of them. So, if you hang motivating works, posters or diagrams over your desktop, they will penetrate the learning process without conscious effort. Choose images that read quickly. complex schemes like geographical maps or infinite lists are weaker: they need to be analyzed.
Give up portraits of dead geniuses - it's not their haircuts that motivate us, but success stories. Better use inspiring examples of skill: a small paragraph of a good writer, a bright collage, a photo of your favorite athlete at the finish line.
Think not only about the workplace, but also about the working environment. It includes any location where you can practice. The main criterion is an atmosphere suitable for self-study. Local stadiums, embankments, secret paths in parks for working out a running step - or favorite cafes, libraries, museums for learning English. Create your own learning network. When it's too dull at home, or vice versa, it's too far from home, it is the work environment that will keep you motivated.
How to work with information
Start anywhere
Adjust scale, change speeds
Any exercise and any work can be worked out in detail or superficially. In addition, you can change the speed at which you study the material. If you are stuck reading Faulkner in English, try to speed up: forget about the details and strange expressions, the main thing is to finish reading. The brain will receive a holistic image of the story, and you will understand unusual vocabulary when you reread it.
Sometimes, on the contrary, it is useful to dig into the details or slow down at a difficult moment. Assess your cognitive load in this moment and select the optimal scale and speed.
Protection of motivation: how not to break loose
Schedule
The worst way to stay motivated is to work on inspiration. It is unstable and uncontrollable. Mason Curry's Genius Mode has a terrible title but a great idea: writers, musicians, and architects of all kinds believed in great power schedules. Run for at least fifteen minutes, but every day, and in a year you will be at a completely different level.
There are many tricks to getting the right schedule. It is advisable to work at the same time of the day: then the schedule will become a habit.
Set yourself not just small - minimal goals. One that can be achieved with little or no effort. This approach eliminates self-flagellation: do not think that you could not and did not have time for something, even a small success is a success.
Finally, among these small tasks, always highlight three that are enough to complete in order to fall asleep at the end of the day with peace of mind.
Plan your ending and reward
The commitments you make to yourself are overwhelming and need to be balanced with irresponsible rest. Always indicate when exactly - down to the minute - you will finish. The behaviorists are partly right: we are all lab mice in search of positive reinforcement. When you finish your class, reward yourself with a cup of coffee, a walk, or an interesting book. The reward should be simple pleasure. You can’t reward yourself with something useful and responsible: I studied English for an hour, and now I’ll reward myself with an interval run - you’ll fail in a couple of days. Rest should be relaxing.
Even if you miss, don't quit
Perfectionism destroys good habits. The worst thing about self-study is to quit everything because you missed it once. It is much more useful to accept yourself with all your passes. It is better to complete 30% of the tasks than to do nothing.
Don't keep a debt book of failures. Don't try to make up for missing a workout on Thursday with two or three workouts over the weekend. The more obligations, the more difficult it is to fulfill them. Keep doing what you can. And always remember the minimum goals.
Prepare for Obstacles
Most of the obstacles that upset the schedule can be easily foreseen. If you run three times a week and have an out-of-town trip, consider training in new conditions in advance. If you have an exam in microeconomics, reduce the time for English grammar to 10 minutes a day.
Find your people
Learning alone is difficult. Even if you set up the learning process yourself, you will still need an outside perspective.
Without criticism, any person slides into distortions that slow down learning. In addition, when motivation comes only from within, any personal problems threaten self-development.
Find people who are also into running or English. Start with amateur forums. You will understand how it is customary to talk about running, what problems athletes have. Make friends, look for allies and, most importantly, determine who is best versed in running. The most helpful self-study friends are experts willing to share their experiences. Pay attention to other self-taught people, solidarity can play into your hands.
Seek a balance of cognitive load
Monitor your own cognitive load. On the one hand, it should be hard enough not to get stuck on one level. On the other hand, overload reduces motivation and can disrupt the whole process. Find your balance to suit your schedule and learning environment.
Your goals are out of your comfort zone
Repeating over and over Irregular Verbs, you get used to it, you become calmer and more pleasant, and you don’t want to leave your comfort zone. But if you do not overcome the boundaries of comfort, the development of the skill may stop.
At the same time, one cannot jump over them with one super-effort. You need to move gradually. Try irregular verbs in different conditional sentences, then gradually move on to mixed conditionals. Set small goals outside your comfort zone.
How to use feedback to learn faster
Test yourself
Without feedback a person is not able to develop in the chosen business. In self-learning, feedback is missing the most. It doesn't have to come from an expert, sometimes you can evaluate yourself. Dancers and actors use mirrors for feedback. With English grammar, the most effective way is to constantly test yourself. Read a new paragraph - and immediately prepare a list of questions with unambiguous answers that can be easily checked. Pass your test, note the errors. Swap questions and after a while check yourself again. In her online course Learning how to learn, Barbara Oakley provides many such methods; in Russian there is her book “Think like a mathematician”.
The faster the feedback, the better
Psychologist Anders Erikson, researching professionals in various fields, came to the conclusion that the faster a person receives feedback, the better he learns the material. The longer the interval between practice and evaluation, the slower we develop.
Teach another
When you teach another person, you feel more responsibility to him than to yourself. Set a goal to tell a friend why you need to change your stride length while running and how to do it right. You will prepare more carefully, tinker with the material, look for more understandable arguments.
Look for different experts
Of course, the easiest way to learn is to consult experts periodically. Even if you do not have money for good tutors, nothing prevents you from following the public activities of experts: blogs, speeches, free master classes. Make a map of specialists English language to know who to ask important questions. Remember that the best feedback is given by those who are successful in their case and are good at explaining things. And never rely on one expert, even if you really like him.
Find a coach, understand his criteria
Occasionally you can meet an expert who explains well and is ready to share experience on conditions that are convenient for you. That is, he can become your "trainer" or "master" in the medieval sense of the word. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu considered learning from such a master more productive than formal education.
But it is dangerous to lock your education on one person: you can quickly lose autonomy. In the case of an expert trainer, the main goal is to learn his evaluation criteria. Then over time you can continue without it. The main risk in this case is personal relationships that can interfere with learning, so it is easier to communicate with ordinary experts than with trainers.
How to track your progress
Document the process
Keep a diary to keep track of your progress. The disadvantage of a diary is that it quickly turns into an additional obligation that you want to quit. Therefore, the essentialist McKeon suggests not to write much in the diary. Just come up with a headline for the day and describe your accomplishments in one sentence. Such a minimalist diary does not require mental energy and captures the main points in learning.
Designers have their own documentation format - a sketchbook. This is a notebook or a small album for notes, sketches, collages and experiments. If you are working with visual material, such as exploring the running techniques of famous athletes, then a sketchbook is perfect. Running is generally easy to document: there is a whole market of apps for runners. They collect all the training data and even make recommendations.
Hang photos from competitions or your texts in English over your workplace - they will remind you of bright breakthroughs or the most interesting mistakes.
Analyze your past work
Past accomplishments are not just a memory. Without them, you will not understand your educational habits here and now and will not be able to change them. Re-read the diary, view old works and statistics in applications; look for patterns.
You will learn which grammar materials you found easier to work with and which routes you ran faster.
Gather your ideas
Ideas arise anytime, anywhere. As soon as a thought flashes, write it down on your phone or notepad - where you constantly look. Most of the ideas will be useless: either banal, or time-consuming, or fantastic. But occasionally original and feasible solutions will appear, for the sake of them, keep records. In addition, the accumulated ideas will show how your creative mind works.
Study your mistakes
Errors speak of educational process more than ideas. Ideas rarely translate into reality, and mistakes always show up in practice. Most often, they reflect the characteristics of your approach to learning. We repeat them all the time. Not making the same mistake twice is a utopia and a cliché for business literature. So collect and study your misses.
Experience is error. It is mistakes that set the boundary of the comfort zone, they determine the balance of cognitive load. If you want to grow above yourself, make mistakes faster.
Self-education is the process of acquiring new knowledge without the participation of a teacher, teacher or coach. This form of development of the intellectual potential of a person can become an alternative or a significant addition to the traditional learning process.
To start the process of self-education and self-development, try to clearly set goals: what you want to do and what result you are striving for.
Make to-do lists
If you feel a certain stagnation and lack of intellectual development, start making lists of specific tasks. This will help you keep track of what you want to do and help you plan your time better. Write down the titles of the books you want to read and set deadlines. After reading the book, it would be good to watch a movie based on it in order to look at the plot from a different point of view and expand your knowledge on the subject.
Add new communication
Live communication is an indispensable source of new knowledge and interesting views that differ from your own. Being open to meeting new people never hurts. IN in social networks can freely communicate with people from all over the globe- this is a unique opportunity not only to enrich yourself culturally, but also to improve knowledge of foreign languages. Live communication gives a person not only knowledge, but also certain skills, increases his emotional intelligence, develops the ability to be a good interlocutor, overcome conflicts and respect the position of another person. A private school can help in obtaining in-depth knowledge.
Self-education is also possible with the help of online courses, seminars, webinars, trainings and training programs on the Internet. Here you can freely choose the field you are interested in studying and methods of obtaining information. After all, new knowledge and ideas do not immediately get into books and other printed publications, but even more so into the curriculum of educational institutions. If you want to study a particular industry on your own, you can compose individual program: choose information, approaches and methods that are interesting and convenient for you, make a list of relevant literature and monitor the implementation of this program.
Finding time is easy
Finding time for self-education is much easier than visiting educational institution. When you ride the subway or other public transport it is convenient to read and watch videos, and when you go for a run or walk to work, listen to audiobooks and podcasts. Moreover, you save not only time, but also money - with self-study, you do not need to pay for the services of teachers, and most of the resources are available completely free of charge.
