What is the best thing to do when you are learning something new? In order to learn something new I have two tips: 1. Apply what you learn. Try to find a way to apply the knowledge that you want to learn. If you’ve just read an interesting book, and want to make sure that new knowledge sticks in your head for longer than 24 hours, try writing a review online. Or try explaining what you’ve just learnt to a friend. Often trying to teach something will reveal gaps in your own knowledge (which you can then fix). The person you teach it to is unlikely to understand any subject related jargon, so you’ll be forced to understand the concept at a fundamental level and explain it in your own words. 2. Spaced repetition. It’s extremely important to review the material that you learn. Your brain is a very fickle beast. Imagine you are trying to learn Chinese. If you learn a new word on Monday, you are very likely to have forgotten that word by Friday. Your brain won’t keep information it doesn’t think you need. That’s why it is important to revise. However, your brain doesn’t forget things at a constant rate. The time before you forget something increases each time you revise. This is good news! If you’re efficient, you can revise things just before you forget them. They’ll stay in your long term memory and you won’t waste time revising when you don’t need to. Spaced repetition is a learning technique that incorporates increasing intervals of time between subsequent review of previously learned material in order to exploit the psychological spacing effect. It was discovered by C. A. Mace in 1932. After you first learn a word, you’ll want to revise it after increasingly long intervals, for example after: 1 hour, 5 hours, 1 day, 5 days, 25 days, 4 months.