Your Habits

Summary

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 you accomplish.

Time Box

Explore

Spend some time exploring each of the concepts below.

Habits

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 planning your time and focus into a habit. Make a habit of coding.

• BJ Fogg TED talk - Forget Big Change, start with a tiny Habit
• Fogg technique

Deliberate Practice

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 daily. This helps explain why we can work at something for decades without 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 excellent performance.

Read: What is deliberate practice

Mnemonic Devices

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 an everyday item with which you are very familiar. The best mnemonics utilise positive imagery, humour, or novelty. You might come up with a rhyme, song, or joke to help remember a specific information segment.

See: Menomic Devices for Students - Article

Visualise Concepts

Credit: VeryWellMind

Many people benefit greatly from visualising the information they study. It helps you process abstract information into something material and, therefore, is easier to comprehend. Pay attention to your textbooks' photographs, charts, and other graphics. If you don't have visual cues to help, try creating your own. Draw diagrams or figures in the margins of your notes or use highlighters or pens in different colours 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.

Analogies and Metaphors

An analogy is simply a comparison between two things. Research shows that likening one thing to another 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.

Relate New Information to Things You Already Know

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

Read Out Loud

Research suggests that reading materials aloud significantly improves your memory of the material. Educators and psychologists have also discovered that having students teach new concepts to others enhances understanding and recall. You can use this approach in your studies by teaching new ideas and information to a friend or study partner.

Incorporate

Incorporate your findings and understandings into your learning plan. How are you going to form new habits? What habits will you use to support your learning journey?

Reflect

• What have you learned today? Record it in your learning journal using the techniques you've learned.