Some of our students are extremely driven and focused. Generally these are excellent qualities for superlearner. Unfortunately some of the playful aspects of marker creation require “letting go”. You cannot afford perfectionism when you read at 1000wpm. You should not remake markers when you use high-level visualization or “cartoon” method. You do need crazy stunts to link some markers together in a memorable form. The sooner you “let go” and “fool around” with imagery the better. The following discussion from our udemy course explores this point.
Anna Sarah Krämer Fazendeiro:
People having difficulties creating markers
I have been thinking about this course and reading the discussions and it seems that some people have difficulties in creating markers or coming up with images, or generally visualizing things. I was wondering why and from my own experience while starting to create markers I concluded that it might spring from the fear of doing something wrong, silly or embarassing. The difference between this style of learning and what people often associate with learning is that this is more creative – in German we have a term for learning: “sich das Lernmaterial aneignen” which means something like “making the material your own” and that seems what is happening here. But by coming up with my own images for markers that I am choosing almost randomly from the text (like Jonathan with the name “Ebenezer”) instead of trying to pick seemingly important terms and trying to remember them by their exact name, the very serious process of learning seems to be turned into something more anarchic and funny. Cartoonlike and sometimes downright silly markers start dancing around in my head. I can see how that could scare people – it definitively scares me a bit. I start wondering whether it makes sense to conjure up armies of icecubes while trying to memorize an article about the Cold War. It seems so far off from what I thought learning was. When I heard about these techniques the first time, I couldn’t believe they were of any use and only now I realize that this actually works – so I would like to encourage people that experience problems to have the courage to be silly and let their brain come up with whatever it wants to come up with and not try to shape or control that process too much. There are no unacceptable images in our heads!
Kevin Chin
I can vouch for this. You really need to LET GO, and allow your brain to think ANYTHING. My personality is naturally like this, so it’s made it easy for me to come up with markers (my only struggle is retaining markers and linking them). We live in a world where we’re not “allowed” to say certain things and think certain things, but your deep subconscious mind doesn’t “understand” or “interpret” those boundaries. If you have any thoughts and visualizations that would be considered taboo, just let them express themselves. They will only benefit you, as they’ll stick out a lot more and make things memorable.
Dr. Lev Gold
This is an interesting discussion. I was not thinking along the lines of cultural differences and conscientious mindset when suggesting possible remedies to visualization blocks. I will try to put more emphasis on openness and creativity in the future. Thank you for the insights 🙂
By the way, in the autumn we may have a variation of this course translated to German. I will try to generate free coupons for the students of the current course. Please write to [email protected] to get these coupons…
Uros Gucunja
For me, creating markers is fortunately easy. But the thing is that i have to stop and think about my marker, create a detailed image in my head and store it.
The problem starts when i’m trying to read very fast and i don’t have time to create a marker. I can actually create a simple marker, but as i still read the text i only think about the marker and my eyes just move in saccades and solely forget that i have to create a new one.
In the beginning of the course Jonathan showed how he creates markers, but he moves slowly to show us in which details he makes them. I still don’t understand how to create that much of a detailed marker at that speed.
Dr. Lev Gold
Try reading http://www.keytostudy.com/cant-visualize-fast-enough-reading-speed and http://www.keytostudy.com/markers-on-the-fly. Tell us if it helped…
Daniel Seuk Lee
Dr. Gold, from the second link you provided you wrote, “In our private one-on-one course we often ask students to remember 20 objects within 60 seconds, which includes analyzing 20 objects, building 20 mental markers and building 20 links between markers and running the full end-to-end loop at least once or twice – all of that within 60 seconds.” On average, how long does it take a student to achieve that level of mastery with markers?
Get 4 Free Sample Chapters of the Key To Study Book
Get access to advanced training, and a selection of free apps to train your reading speed and visual memory
Awesome!
“Let go” looks to be the trick. I will practice it and see, though it might take some time, given the “extra precariousness that I was trained to have as an Engineer,where every bit counts!”.
I am also an engineer. Use the rule: “No project ever is completed on time, within budget and with all spec. If you get one of them really well [choose carefully which one] and two others not too bad, consider it a success.”