The right knowledge is empowering and life-changing. Timeless skills, behaviours, habits, tools, methods and principles, mental tools help us advance our lives and careers.

In our modern economy, accelerated learning can be crucial for success. Learning faster means gaining more knowledge — quicker than others.

People who learn faster prepare for the future in a whole new way that puts them ahead of the game. And the good news is, accelerated learning is versatile and flexible — you don’t have to put your life on hold to acquire the skills to you need to upgrade yourself. You can pick any skill up incrementally. You can schedule in a small chunk on time every day or week.

Smart learners don’t have special secrets — anyone can accelerate their learning process. With right techniques, you can massively improve how you learn, process new information and rapidly expand your knowledge.

Combine Learning Styles That Play to Your Strengths

When you aim to accelerate your learning, you are not limited a curriculum or classroom structure, you can practically choose content from many sources, experts, and authors. Your learning style can determine your rate of learning.

A personal learning style allow learners to efficiently and most effectively perceive, process, store, and recall what they are attempting to learn.

Today, there are many ways to study any topic, skill or subject: books, online courses, podcasts, videos, webinars, workshops, bootcamps, blogs, newsletters, conferences, educational apps, study groups and mentoring programs.

Your choice of learning style or material can accelerate or slow down your comprehension process. The best learning style is the one that makes it easier to process, or comprehend ideas, and subjects faster.

Once you know your learning strengths and weaknesses, you can choose learning strategies that play to your strengths.

Example some people learn best on their own from books, rather than in groups. Others prefer videos on platforms like YouTube.

People who are good listeners may prefer podcasts. Yet, others use maps, charts, diagrams, mind maps and outlines- anything that represents information visually. Ultimately, what’s most important is to use learning strategies that maximise your recall.

Once you choose the right learning style, use science-backed techniques like spacing out your study sessions and teaching others what you learn to improve your retention and recall.

Seek First to Understand The Basic Structure of The Topic You Choose

Every topic or subject has a logical structure to it —root, trunk, branches, and leaves. Seek first to understand the basics. In other words, you have to get to know the tree’s root, trunk, then branch out from there.

Don’t start from the branches or the leaves, pursue the root and work your way to the topic. You need to understand the foundation first.

In the course of his career, Elon Musk has dominated online payments, rocket flight, electric car manufacturing, and a host of other industries. In a Reddit AMA, a user asked him how he learns so much so fast.

“I think most people can learn a lot more than they think they can,” says Musk. “They sell themselves short without trying. One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e., the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.”

Whatever you choose to learn or study, start with the basics. Don’t get smart about the process. You are better off knowing the root of a subject than looking out for leaves and branches with no firm foundation.

Start by doing what everybody else did. Once you master the basics, you can go out and do your own thing. Learn from the experts. Widen your horizons and emulate the experts.

When I started writing, I copied my favourite authors and learned a lot from their books and blogs. Today I still take inspiration from James Altucher, Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell and dozens of other writers.

Give Yourself Plenty of Time in Both “Focused” And “Diffused” Modes

Whatever you choose to learn, be mindful of both focused, and diffused modes. Focused mode is the state of learning that allows your brain to get into more depth in the subject you are learning without breaks.

Diffuse mode happens when you let your mind take a break and wander freely, to make meaningful connections. Most people focus on learning for too long at a time without quality breaks.

The human brain is not meant to stay in “focused” mode for hours at a time. Prolonged attention to a single task can hinder retention and recall. When your brain is active for a very long time, you’re actually blocking your access to the diffuse mode — a more relaxed state.

According to research, the brain gradually stops registering a sight, sound or feeling if that stimulus remains constant over time — its performance on the task declines.

“Constant stimulation is registered by our brains as unimportant, to the point that the brain erases it from our awareness,” says University of Illinois psychology professor Alejandro Lleras, who led the new study.

Diffused mode is just as valuable as the focused mode. So – take breaks, let your mind wander, think about other things, and give your brain plenty of time to make better connections. Learn better by imposing breaks on yourself. Effective learning takes advantage of both modes of learning.