Most of us don’t get the most out of our brains. This is not our fault. The science of mind (understanding how the brain thinks, learns, and experiences the world) hasn’t been around all that long, and, as a result, hasn’t had much impact on the education system. As a result, from nursery school on, we are taught to learn in a way that isn’t grounded in how our brains really work. As a result, we don’t learn any where near as efficiently or effectively as we can. The purpose of this section is to provide an overview of how our brains learn. Other sections of this site (Maximizing Memory, Maximizing Focus, Fueling Your Brain, Work Less, Accomplish More, and Getting Creative) offer practical advice on how to work with your brain to become a more efficient learner and thinker. This section is more of a general introduction.

1. Most Brain Function is Subconscious

Our conscious minds are actually pretty limited. Ever try to read a book while listening to music? Could you focus on both things at the same time, or did your attention jump from one to the other? Our conscious minds can only really focus on one thing at a time. This is part of the reason that we are usually so awkward when trying to learn new things. Remember the first time you tried to hit a golf ball or throw a football or play a guitar? Odds are it was quite a chore. All of these activities require paying attention to lots of different things at the same time. To hit a golf ball, you have to think about the position of your feet, hips, and head, while coordinating the rotation of your body with the movement of your arms and wrists. Your conscious mind simply can’t handle all of these tasks at once, which is why beginning golfers are always terrible and end up making the same mistakes. If you’ve played golf (unless you’re Tiger Woods and learned how when you were three), odds are you remember asking yourself something like “why do I keep raising my head, swing after swing, when I know I’m supposed to keep it down!"

But after a few weeks, or months, of practice, all of these mistakes even out. You no longer have to think about feet, hips, and head position, and all the other components of a good swing. You can simply step up to the tea and hit the ball. How does this happen? Part of it is so called “muscle memory” – the ability of muscles to adapt to patterns of motion so that they can perform these motions more easily. But the fact is that even with practice, all of the various movements of a golf swing (hips, torso, arms, wrist) still have to be coordinated by the brain. So why can your brain pull all of this off so easily with practice when it struggles so profoundly to do so when you first start?

The reason is that the subconscious mind is virtually limitless. By practicing your swing, you are imprinting  movement patterns into your subconscious mind/brain. During the early awkward learning phase, you have to use your conscious mind to govern these movements so that your subconscious mind can learn them. Once your subconscious mind has learned them, conscious attention is no longer necessary to perform them. In fact, most highly trained athletes will tell you that they play their best when they don’t think about their game at all. When a basketball player is on fire and can’t miss, we actually say “he’s unconscious”.

The subconscious mind can be an incredibly powerful tool. The critical point is that to put your subconscious to work for you, you have to train it. This applies to academic learning and practical skills just as much as it does to sports. Say you want to study for a national board exam to get a professional license or get into grad school or college. You have four months. How should you do it? Most people just dive into text books and notes, highlighter in hand, and read over the relevant material time and time again until they remember enough of it. A much more efficient way is to train your subconscious mind to the point where it can recall everything you have to know with ease.

When you train for a sport, how do you do it? By just playing the sport day in and day out? Of course not. You practice skills. Soccer players practice dribbling then passing, then shooting. Tennis players practice forehand, then backhand, then serve. The idea is to develop skills which will help you play the game. A skill is nothing but a subconscious program. To be a more effective learner, you need to develop mental skills: subconscious programs that allow you to learn more easily. This applies to creative tasks as well. You can build subconscious programs that will help you be a better writer or artist, or thinker. The only way to build a subconscious skill set is to practice. Check out Maximizing Memory and Getting Creative for advice on how.