Slow down. The more you understand, the less you have to memorize.
Don'tjust 'read. Stop and think. When the book asks you a question, don'tjust skip to the answer. Imagine that someone really is asking the question. The more deeply you force your brain to think, the better chance you have of learning and remembering.
Do the exercises. Write your own notes.
We put them in, but if we did them for you, that would be like having someone else
do your workouts for you. And don't just
lookat the exercises. Use a pencil. There's
plenty of evidence that physical activity
while learning can increase the learning.
Read the "There are No Dumb Questions"
That means all of them. They're not optional side-bars-they're part of the core contentl Sometimes the questions are more useful than the answers.
Don't do all your reading In one place.
Stand-up, stretch, move around . change chairs, change rooms. It'll help your brain
feelsomething, and keeps your learning from being too connected to a particular place.
Make this the last thing you read before bed. Or at least the last challengIng thing.
Part of the learning (especially the transfer
to long-term memory) happens afleryou put
the book down. Your brain needs time on
its own, to do more processing. Ifyou put in
something new during that processing-time,
some of what you just learned will be lost.
•Drink water. Lots of It.
Your brain works best in a nice bath of fluid. Dehydration (which can happen before you ever feel thirsty) decreases cognitive function.
•Talk about It. Out loud.
•
Speaking activates a different part of
the brain. If you're trying to understand
something, or increase your chance of
remembering it later, sayit out loud. Better
still, try to explain it out loud to someone
else . You'll learn more quickly , and you might
uncover ideas you hadn't known were there
when you were reading about it.
Listen to your brain.
Pay attention to whether your brain is getting overloaded. If you find yourself starting to skim the surface or forget what you just read, it's time for a break. Once you go past a certain point, you won't learn faster by trying to shove more in, and you might even hurt the process.
Feel somethlngl
Your brain needs to know that this mauers. Get involved with the stories. Make up your 0\>11 captions for the photos. Groaning over a bad
joke is still better than feeling nothing at all. . . Type and run the code.
Type and run the code examples. Then you can experiment with changing and improving the code (or breaking it, which is sometimes the best way to figure alit what's really happening). For long examples or Ready-bake code, you can download the source files from headfirstjava.corn