When working on technical books set yourself relistic goals. 1 chapter per night often works well. Remember to stick to the 30 minutes at a time study activation session. Yes you can go for 45 minutes straight but why? By sticking to a shorter time frame, (I in fact use 20 minute max for activation) it helps to spark the interest. I.E. I challenge myself to see what I can find/learn in that 20 minutes. I use a stopwatch to time myself and stop myself from going over the 20 limit I set myself. I also take a 5 minute break after recording my findings on a mind map.
My only rule is never ever go over the time I set when I first started the study session, finished or not (I can set a fresh time when I'm done). That also means I do not change how much time I am going to spend on the study session midway through. If I feel like doing more I set another block of time after I took a 5 minute break. I find that I complete more activation with better gelling this way than if I sit for longer sessions.
The reason for this is because we are creatures of habit. If I habitually go over the time I set for myself on a project then future projects are jepodised. My mind knows when I say Ok I'm only going to spend 20 minutes on this right now that I am likely to go over this and that's where the internal conflict starts. Now that I've learnt to set time limits and stick to those limits I find even the learning process a lot more fun.
Another thing to remember about technical books. Photoread the whole book once. Then prior to each activation photoread the 5 chapters (2 before, the key chapter and 2 after). This helps make the activation/learning from each chapter much easier.
Alex
