Your life today is essentially the sum of your habits. What you repeatedly do (i.e. what you spend time thinking about and doing each day) forms the person you are, the things you believe and the skills that you accomplish.
| Exploration | Time to box |
|---|---|
| Explore | 1 hour |
| Incorporate | 15 minutes |
| Reflect | 15 minutes |
Every habit you have — good or bad — follows the same 3–step pattern.
Reminder (the trigger that initiates the behaviour) Routine (the behaviour itself; the action you take) Reward (the benefit you gain from doing the behaviour)
Make your time plan and focus plan into a habit. Make a habit of coding.
Research concludes that we need deliberate practice to improve performance. Unfortunately, deliberate practice isn’t something that most of us understand, let alone engage in on a daily basis. This helps explain why we can work at something for decades without really improving our performance. The "10,000" hour rule has been conclusively debunked in the face of deliberate practice research.
Deliberate practice is hard. It hurts. But it works. More of it equals better performance and tons of it equals great performance.
Read: What is deliberate practice
Mnemonic devices are a technique often used by students to aid in recall. A mnemonic is simply a way to remember information. For example, you might associate a term you need to remember with a common item that you are very familiar with. The best mnemonics are those that utilize positive imagery, humor, or novelty. You might come up with a rhyme, song, or joke to help remember a specific segment of information.
See: Menomic Devices for Students - Article
Credit: VeryWellMind
Many people benefit greatly from visualising the information they study. Pay attention to the photographs, charts, and other graphics in your textbooks. If you don't have visual cues to help, try creating your own. Draw charts or figures in the margins of your notes or use highlighters or pens in different colors to group related ideas in your written study materials. Sometimes even just making flashcards of various terms you need to remember can help cement information in your mind.
An analogy is simply a comparison between two things. Research shows that to liken one thing to another thing greatly improves a person's understanding and retention.
For example, a 'variable' in programming is like a container. And a parameter is like an ingredient. You can store different ingredients in containers.
See: Using analogies and metaphors to enhance learning - article
Credit: VeryWellMind
When you're studying unfamiliar material, take the time to think about how this information relates to what you already know. By establishing relationships between new ideas and previously existing memories, you can dramatically increase the likelihood of recalling the recently learned information.
See: Science Writer, Joshua Foer, TED talk - Feats of Memory
Research suggests that reading materials out loud significantly improves your memory of the material. Educators and psychologists have also discovered that having students actually teach new concepts to others enhances understanding and recall. You can use this approach in your own studies by teaching new concepts and information to a friend or study partner.
Incorporate your findings and understandings into your plan. How are you going to form new habits? What habits will use use to support your learning journey?
- What have you learned today? Record it in your learning journal using the techniques you've learned.