Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life

by Jim Kwik

Make sure you have enough study time to allow yourself to go through this process multiple times. As Klemm points out, the studies showed that “optimal learning occurred when an initial learning session included repeated study and forced-recall testing of all items at least four times in a row.”

Habit 2: Employ Spaced Repetition

Alternatively, if you space out your reviews of the material, focusing more heavily on information that you haven’t retained in the past, you’re using your brain to the best of its abilities.

“Spaced repetition is simple but highly effective because it deliberately hacks the way your brain works,” agrees James Gupta, CEO of the online learning platform Synap.

“It forces learning to be effortful and, like muscles, the brain responds to that stimulus by strengthening the connections between nerve cells. By spacing the intervals out, you’re further exercising these connections each time. It produces long-term, durable retention of k...

Spaced repetition seems to work most effectively when you can review the material at similar intervals. This is why it’s important to give yourself enough time.

As we talked about earlier in this book, the state you’re in when you perform any activity will have the greatest impact on your success. For example, if you had a really bad day and were asked to give a presentation for your job or take a test, you most likely would not perform to the best of your ability. This is because your state of mind did not promote optimal performance.

The more positive and resourceful your state, the greater the results you’ll produce.

Your posture also controls the state of your mind. Sit as if you’re about to learn the most crucial life-changing information.

Why would the smell of that spice trigger that memory? Because that smell was in the air when the event that you’re remembering happened, and smells are especially effective at bringing memories to the forefront of our brains. The scent of rosemary has been shown to improve memory. Peppermint and lemon promotes concentration.

“Incoming smells are first processed by the olfactory bulb, which starts inside the nose and runs along the bottom of the brain. The olfactory bulb has direct connections to two brain areas that are strongly implicated in emotion and memory: the amygdala and hippocampus. Interestingly, visual, auditory (sound), and tactile (touch) information do not pass through these brain areas. This may be why olfaction, more than any other sense, is so successful at triggering emotions and memories.”

Numerous studies link music to learning. The arousal-and-mood hypothesis, introduced by Dr. E. Glenn Schellenberg, identifies a connection between music and mood and the subsequent connection between mood and learning, suggesting that music can put us in conditions that improve our ability to learn.

“Music stabilizes mental, physical and emotional rhythms to attain a state of deep concentration and focus in which large amounts of content information can be processed and learned,”

“Baroque music, such as that composed by Bach, Handel or Telemann that is 50 to 80 beats per minute creates an atmosphere of focus that leads students into deep concentration in the alpha brain wave state. Learning vocabulary, memorizing facts, or reading to this music is highly effective.”

If you are going to unlimit your learning, you’re going to want to make sure your listening skills are fully tuned

Listening is critical to learning, and we spend a large percentage of our waking time listening. But most of us are not particularly good at it.

One of the reasons we don’t listen well is that we tend not to apply all our brainpower to the exercise. Sullivan and Thompson, who conducted a study with Carnegie Mellon University on the nature of digital distractions, point out that “the human brain has the capacity to digest as much as 400 words per minute of information. But even a speaker from New York City talks at around 125 words per minute. That means three-quarters of your brain could very well be doing something else while someone is speaking to you.”

Do everything you can to tune all of this out and to be completely present with whomever you’re listening to. Remember that listening involves more than just the words a person is saying; vocal inflection, body language, facial expressions, and more create additional context and provide additional information. You can absorb all of this only if you halt everything else.

Engage in the experience with a sense of anticipation. Remember that learning is state-dependent and that what you can learn from this speaker will become a long-term memory if you attach emotion to it. Your enthusiasm for what you’re hearing will greatly increase your potential of truly hearing

The ultimate advantage of taking notes is that they customize the information you need to retain to your vocabulary and your mode of thinking.

At their best, notes allow you to organize and process information in a way that makes it most likely that you can use this information afterward.

First off, be sure that you understand the purpose for taking these notes. For example, the goal of taking notes in a midsemester lecture might be very different from the notes you take in the review class before a big final. Similarly, what you’re trying to accomplish with the notes you take in a weekly meeting with your team is likely to be different from the notes you take in the week leading up to a major client presentation.

By being clear on your intention with your notes, you are able to distinguish between information that is relevant to you and information that is not.

Likewise, if you take notes with a goal in mind, every note you take will have relevance.

Once you’re clear on your goals, take an active approach to note-taking.

Listen with the intention of getting exactly what you need, and write your notes in ways that wil...

Equally important is making sure that you use your own words wherever possible. As noted earlier, one of the key pitfalls to effective note-taking is trying to record everything.

If you’re copying what someone is saying verbatim, you’re probably not processing any of it. That means that, at the most essential moment of learning, you’re utilizing most of your brain to the task of taking dictation. When you use your own words in your notes, you begin to process the information, and that greatly enhances learning.

We show that whereas taking more notes can be beneficial, laptop note takers’ tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning.”

Most importantly, make sure you are really listening. You’re not there as a secretary; you’re there as someone who is receiving information for later use. Therefore, it is important to actually hear what others are saying. Take note of what’s being emphasized.

While you’re taking notes, use a method that I call “capture and create.” On the left side of the paper, you’re capturing, you’re taking notes; on the right side, you’re creating, you’re making notes. You’re writing your impression of what you’re capturing. How can I use this? Why must I use this? When will I use this?

After your note-taking session is over, review your notes immediately. This will help you retain the information much more effectively than if you don’t read your notes for days.

If you want to make sure you’re always getting the most from your note-taking, remember the mnemonic TIP:

T is for Think: Before you begin any session where you’re going to be taking notes, think about what you’re hoping to retain most from this session.

I is for Identify: Listen carefully to the information being presented and identify what is most important in the context of your goal.

P is for Prioritize: As you review your notes after the presentation, prioritize the information that is most valuable to you, perhaps adding additional notes as necessary to make the priority information clearer or making an outline to highlight key points.

Take your active recall out for a spin. Introduce yourself to some new material and immediately assess how much of it you retained.

Yes, your brain is an organ. But it acts like a muscle. And it most significantly resembles a muscle in that it’s a use-it-or-lose-it device. Our brains stay fit only when we make a concerted effort to keep them fit. If we fail to keep our brains in shape—either through laziness or being overly dependent on technology to do our thinking for us or by failing to challenge ourselves with new learning—it becomes “flabby.”

If you have your arm in a sling for six months, you don’t come away with a stronger arm. In fact, after you take the arm out of a sling, you’re likely to have very little function at all. Your brain is the same way. If you don’t exercise it regularly, it might not be at its best when you need it the most. But if you make the effort to keep your brain in top shape, you’ll discover that it’s always ready to do superhero-level work for you,

Memory is arguably the most important part of the learning process. If you could not remember, then you could not learn anything. There is no knowledge without memory.

But why do most people have less-than-ideal memory skills? I think it’s because of the way we were taught to memorize things, which was usually through rote memorization.

material being memorized. Your memory is also one of your greatest assets. It supports you in every area of your life. I challenge you to do anything without utilizing your memory. If you did not have a memory, life would be extremely challenging,

If you’re going to perform a major upgrade on your brain, you’re going to want to unlimit your memory, as memory is such a fundamental part of most brain function.

There’s no such thing as a good memory or a bad memory; there is only a trained memory and an untrained memory.

The day of the event, we had lunch together between competitions and marveled at the fact that often what appears to be genius can actually be learned.

Why is memory so important if you’re going to unlimit yourself? Because your memory serves as the foundation for every action you take now and every one you will take in the future.