Basically, you have to be able to figure out what you know, how well you know it, what you can do, what you cannot do, what you do not know and what you need to know.
This requires that you need to be aware of your own thought processes, how you learn, and what different learning needs imply.
To improve your life-long learning skills, you need to be able to think about, track, and evaluate them.
Furthermore, proactive learning must be done to improve the knowledge and skill base without any direct motivation or incentive structure.
Do not just copy your notes. Do not just copy your notes. Do not just copy your notes. This will not usually help you remember or understand.
If possible, learn with others; doing 'it' first as an individual, and then comparing with the others, evaluating, helping each other - teaching each other.
Learn and work in 20-30 minute bits. Come back to the material in a day or two - give the material time to breath, mature in your head.
Try to split the learning over days - focusing, learning something for more than an hour at a time is difficult to do and good learning rarely comes from a marathon, brain numbing session.
Everyone memorizes differently. You might need memory tricks like cues, image association, linking objects as groups, creating sequences, putting the material to stories, associating the material to stories. If you surf on the web, you will find lots of suggestions to help you memorize.
You can practice problems, but you should not just repeat the same problems. Find new ones, make ones up and share. Don't cheat and look at the solutions; be honest with yourself!
Think it through. Why was something hard? How did you parse the material? How did you think about the assumptions or criteria? Open up the learning process - this is important for learning! There are more points on reflection below.
There are also tips for learning under the mental health tab - learning with ADHD. The tips might help with ADHD, but they are also general tips that others might find useful.
Why did I have difficulty learning the initial concepts?
Do I have to improve my search strategy to find better material to learn from? How do I do this?
Do I have to spend more time when learning on my own? How will I plan for this?
What kind of conscious strategy can I, or should I, use to approach topics which are self-learned?
What did I do well? What did I find hard? How can I improve the weak parts of the process and improve the learning?
If I found it hard to be motivated enough to spend sufficient time, then how can I think about the situation differently to create enough motivation?
If I had trouble with the assumptions and making sense of the material, what can I do to improve that type of understanding?
If I am going to have to do this for the next 30 to 40 years, what should I start thinking about to make it easier and more effective?
