Tip 8: Overlearn

We are very smart people. We don’t work any harder than we need to. Our perceptual systems are set to ignore steady state information, our memories are reconstructive (not exact replicas), and our decisions are based on likelihood of reward.

So it should be no surprise that when it comes to learning, we stop when we think we’ve had enough. In general, we use familiarity as our gauge of success. We stop studying when we feel like we “know” the ideas, can identify the vocabulary, and can “fake” our way through a discussion. We use “I pretty much know what I’m going to do” as our hallmark.

Ebbinghuas showed that a key to remembering is to “overlearn.” He used learning a list of words until you can remember it once as “complete learning.” Then he systematically tested to see how doing more trials impacted learning. He found what you already know: it pay to continue studying.

The best measure of when to stop studying is when you can perform the task easily. When you’re practicing your backhand in tennis, don’t stop when you think you have it. Test yourself. Quit only when you can consistently get the desired results.