Step 1: Develop a clear plan
My guess is, you’ve been there:
Determined to lose weight, I couldn’t last more than a few days before laying flat.
Aspire to read 50 great books a year intensively, and eat dust before you finish the first one.
Determined to learn a skill, the course was dropped after a week.
Even if you know how to improve, you will always give up halfway, which is normal, not because you are lazy, but because you lack a clear plan.
Because nothing happens overnight, and neither does self-improvement.
If we don’t have a clear plan for the learning process, we will have a hard time controlling the time and progress of learning completion, and we will either stay in our comfort zone with no progress, or we will know what to do.
A clear plan is like a progress chart for a breakout game that visually tells you how long it will take to complete the task and where you are in the game, so that you don’t waste your time without making any progress.
So, how should you create a clear plan?
(1) First, you need to set specific goals.
Before we start the program, we should set a self-improvement goal and think about how far we should improve.
Of course, the goal must be specific, preferably down to the numbers.
For example, read 30 books intensively in 1 year, make enough money to cover $500,000 in 3 years, lose 20 pounds in 6 months ……
Then write those specific goals down on a piece of paper.
(2) Next, dismantle your goals.
Break down your goals from 1 year to 1 month, then to 1 week, and finally to 1 day specifically.
The more precise, the better.
For example:
If you read 30 books in 1 year, then you need to read 2.5 books in a month, 0.6 books in a week, and 0.08 books in a day.
Assuming a book is 200 pages long, you only need to read 16 pages a day.
You see, from far to near, when you break down a seemingly unachievable goal to its most specific, you realize it’s really not that hard.
(3) Finally, develop a table of goal progress.
Just like playing a game, you have to keep an eye on your rankings in order to accurately time your passes.
You can draw a table for your goals, labeling each day of the process from [start plan] to [finish plan].
Each time you complete a task, put a check mark in the table that corresponds to the date, so you can always see how your goals are being accomplished, generating more motivation and rewards each day~
However, the plan is by no means set in stone and we should go ahead and adjust the plan based on real-time feedback as we execute it.
Don’t go blaming yourself even if you have some difficulties once in a while, you have to keep going!
In addition, if you want to know how Daisy is how to grow up quickly, how to maintain self-discipline, what books she usually reads, what reading methods and private book lists, how to manage money, you are welcome to my public number “Daisy Witch” to find the answer, which has my carefully summarized growth of dry goods and learning methods, as well as my most valuable private reversal of experience, all of which are unreservedly shared with you.
Step 2: Learn to study efficiently
In addition to having a clear plan, you need an efficient way to study.
Because learning efficiently is the fastest way to self-improvement.
I have created my own set of “OPST Highly Effective Learning Methods”, these methods are summarized in my perennial learning process, be sure to read through them carefully, it can help you to improve your learning efficiency by 2 times:
Immerse yourself in your learning~
1 Find the right learning object (O-object)
Interest is the best teacher.
Regardless of that subject, only when you find a favorite thing, you will be able to use your initiative in learning and achieve twice the result with half the effort.
If you’re not interested in what you’re learning, you’re not going to achieve a great result no matter how much you try.
So the first thing we need to do is to find a learning object that we like to learn, to choose to learn those things that we are interested in, so that the more we learn, the happier we will be.
- Pick a good place to study (P- place)
The place of study is also particularly important; studying in a quiet environment is far more efficient than studying in a noisy one.
Because the brain has a limited amount of energy.
I’m guessing most students can’t concentrate if there are people walking around talking and disturbing you from time to time.
So, in order to ensure your concentration, make sure you choose a quiet, distraction-free environment such as: a library, a study room, a book bar, and other such places.
- Maintaining the learning state (S-state)
If you just came back from shopping or just finished playing a game and start studying right away at this time, believe me, you will not be able to study.
You need to learn to create a steady state of learning for yourself.
Allow yourself a little prep time before you learn, turn off your phone, organize the books you’ll be using to study, go over your notes from the last study, and get your brain in a state of learning acceptance.
Wait until your heart is calm and free of distractions before you start studying.
- Control of study time (T-time)
Some studies have shown that: adult attention can only be highly concentrated for 20 minutes, if beyond this time, the longer the time, the person’s attention will be more lax, the lower the efficiency.
I suggest using the “tomato work method”, study for 25 minutes and take a 5-minute break, to ensure that the brain rests in between focused study, in order to realize the cycle of focused study.
Image from the web
If you follow what I’ve said above, it can, to a certain extent, get you into the groove of effective learning quickly.
By this point you have taken the first step to improve yourself, I hope that after you get these four study methods, you can stick to them, at least for three months, I dare not say that 100% effective for you, but you will certainly be stronger than before.
Anyone who can read this is a great person who is willing to improve themselves, and I’d like to ask you to do me a favor, if the content inspires you, you can take 1 second to click like before reading on.
Step 3: Insist on self-review
Reviewing is an indispensable step in self-improvement.
Especially for things that are not completed, we review the past, analyze the reasons and solve the problems through replay, so as to harvest experience and achieve self-growth.
I believe that when you read a book or watch a speech video, it often mentions the importance of replay, but few people will systematically tell you how to go to replay.
If you don’t know how to review, Daisy recommends that you can use the [Lenovo Review Method]. This is Lenovo based on their own many years of review practice, summarized the review method, with operability and universality.
The [Associative Review Method] is divided into four steps:
1, review the goal: at the beginning of the review, to ask more at the very beginning of what they want to achieve the goal? Is the current result what you wanted at the beginning?
- Evaluate the results: compare the results with the objectives, and think about the results of this matter to achieve our initial goals? Which part reached the goal? Which part did not reach the goal?
3, analyze the reasons: focus to analyze the place that did not meet expectations, think about what factors are caused? What factors are controllable? What factors are not controllable?
4, sum up the law: sum up the lessons learned, understand the next time the same thing, we can take what measures to maximize the possibility of achieving the goal, which behavior needs to be discarded, and then make plans for the next action.
I myself have benefited a lot from this method of reviewing. In the past, I only knew to bury my head in the sand and did not know how to review, which led me to always fall in the same place, with no growth and progress for a long time, and I was tired and confused.
Then I insisted on daily review, referred to the [Lenovo Review Method], summarized the lessons learned, and determined my life goals. Now I am living a full life every day.
Step 4: Good time management.
Don’t underestimate the importance of time management!
Manage your time so you can spend more time on the things that matter.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Italian economist Balaido put forward the famous [law of two or eight], he believes that: in any group of things, the most important only accounted for 20%, while the remaining 80% is of secondary importance.
Extending this to our daily work, it means that only 20% of our daily work is of the utmost importance, while the remaining 80% is of secondary importance.
Therefore, devoting 80% of your time to this 20% is a very important time management skill.
How does time management work? There are generally only three things you need to do:
- List of tasks.
Before the day begins, make a list of the tasks you want to accomplish today, and then write the approximate amount of time it will take on the back of each task.
The purpose of this is to prevent us from spending too much time on one thing, which slows down the progress of task completion.
And putting a check mark on your list for every task you complete can greatly enhance your sense of accomplishment.
- Do one thing at a time.
You must have had the experience of listening to music while doing homework, chatting while reviewing, thinking that you can study and entertainment at the same time, but it turned out to be a lot of time consuming, homework is not finished, the progress of the review did not keep up.
Because the brain’s ability to multitask is limited, if you force a distraction to do two things at the same time, trust me, you’re definitely not efficient.
Please do one thing at a time and you’ll find a 200% increase in efficiency.
- Find your own “prime time”.
People who study and work for long periods of time may find that they are particularly focused and productive at work and study at certain times of the day.
This period of time is our “Golden Hour”, some may be in the morning, some in the afternoon, and some in the evening.
Learn to make good use of their “prime time” to do the most important things; and the worst energy time period, to do some insignificant things, so that you can greatly improve your work, learning efficiency, so that you can easily deal with a variety of matters.
In order to better allocate daily time, Daisy also tried a lot of time management tools that can improve efficiency, after continuous attempts to polish, I selected and organized a set of exclusive time management information, since the use of a few years, my work efficiency has been improved by at least 3 times. Interested students, you can pay attention to my public number “Daisy Witch”, I will share my efficient time management experience with you, as long as the good use, your effective learning time will be greatly improved yo ~!
Step 5: Delay your own gratification
Why is it that many times we are able to spend 3 to 4 hours all the time swiping short videos, playing games, reading novels, while when you read a book or exercise, it’s hard to stick to it for 30 minutes?
Because we prefer things that give us instant feedback than things that don’t pay off in the long run.
A short video, 20 seconds can bring you visual and auditory sensory stimulation, a game 15 minutes can bring you the thrill of winning or losing, but reading is different, reading a book is often boring and long.
Often the things that really benefit you in the long run are not immediate.
So many people would rather spend a lot of time on these short, frequent, and quick recreational activities than spend more time investing in things that will benefit them in the long run.
We need to delay our gratification and stick to the things that seem boring, but produce long-term rewards.
I used to be a dead fat nerd, fat and ugly, every time I looked in the mirror I couldn’t dare to look straight at myself, and I didn’t even have a boyfriend.
Then I made up my mind and started delaying my gratification, insisting on not touching those delicious but high oil and high sugar foods and only eating low-fat and low-sugar fruit and vegetable salads, I put down my cell phone and insisted on going to the gym to run every day. In less than six months, my figure changed significantly.
So trust me, delayed gratification doesn’t change much for a short period of time, but wait until 3 months, 6 months, or a year, and you’ll definitely be thanking the person you were.