The FAST method: how to study faster and learn more

Picture two students revising the same chapter. One spends an evening reading it over and over, and a week later can only half remember it. The other spends far less time, and on the day of the test can still explain it clearly. The difference is not intelligence. It is how each of them went about learning.

Learning faster is not a talent some people are born with. It can be learnt through a set of habits, and one of the easiest ways to remember them is the FAST method, from the memory coach Jim Kwik. Each letter is one habit: Forget, Active, State, Teach.

F is for Forget

Learning fast starts with letting go of three things.

Forget what you think you already know. If you walk into a lesson sure that you have heard all this before, your mind is closed before the teacher has started. You skim, you tune out, and you miss the detail that was new. Treat each topic as if you were meeting it for the first time, and you notice far more.

Forget everything else that is going on. In other words, do not multitask. Replying to messages, glancing at a video or thinking about the weekend while you study means only part of your attention is on the work, and only part of it goes in. Be fully present for the time you have set aside, and you will absorb much more of it.

Forget your limitations. This is the hardest one. Most of us carry beliefs about ourselves: “I’m just not good at Maths”, “I’m not a good student”, “I’ve never been able to remember dates”. The trouble with a belief like that is that it changes what you do. If you are sure you are bad at something, you put in less effort, you get a weak result, and the belief feels confirmed. Nobody can promise that you will be top of the class, but you will never find out what you are capable of while that story is running in the background.

Try this: before you start a session, put your phone in another room and write one line at the top of the page: what you want to understand by the end. Then give that one thing your full attention.

A is for Active

Learning is not a spectator sport. If you sit in class and simply watch the teacher go through the slides, very little of it stays. If you are taking notes, asking yourself questions and trying to predict what comes next, far more does.

Your notes do not have to be beautiful. Jotting down the key formulas, names and ideas is enough, because the act of choosing what to write is what makes you think about it.

One of the most useful things you can do is ask your teacher questions. It can feel awkward to put your hand up, but a clear answer from your teacher saves you the time you would otherwise spend searching online or going round your friends asking for help, and it usually clears the idea up far more quickly. Teachers generally appreciate a student who asks, and you will often find others in the class had the same question.

Try this: in your next lesson, aim to ask one question, either in class or at the end. Before you go, write down anything you did not fully understand, so you can take it to your teacher later.

S is for State

Your state is how you are feeling at a given moment: your mood, your energy, how alert or bored you are. It matters more than you might think, because what you learn gets tied up with how you felt while learning it. We remember things far better when we care about them or feel something about them than when we are switched off.

If you sit through a lesson feeling bored, the information gets linked with that boredom, and your brain has little reason to hold on to it. Try to learn while you are exhausted and you can go over the same page again and again and still retain very little.

The good news is that you have more control over your state than it seems.

• Manage your energy. Study when you are fresh, not only after everything else is done. Sleep, food and short breaks all feed into this.
• Change your posture. Sit up straight rather than slumping over the desk. It is surprising how much this changes how alert you feel.
• Find the reason. Ask yourself how this topic will be useful to you, whether in the next test, in a later topic that builds on it, or in something you care about outside school.

Try this: before you begin, take ten seconds to sit up, take a deep breath and remind yourself why this topic matters to you. It sounds small, but it changes how the next half-hour feels.

T is for Teach

Teaching is one of the best ways to find out what you do not actually understand yet. When you explain something to someone else, you have to turn everything you have learned into a form another person can follow. Wherever you stumble, or they look confused, is exactly the spot where your own understanding has a gap.

You do not need a classroom for this. You can teach a friend, a parent, a younger brother or sister, or even an empty room. When a friend asks you for help with a subject, take it as a chance for both of you: they get the help, and in explaining it, you often notice a part you had not quite got, which sends you back to your notes to fix it.

If you can teach something clearly, you have learned it well.

Try this: at the end of a study session, explain the main idea out loud in two minutes, as if to someone who missed the lesson. If you get stuck, that is what to go back over tomorrow. Our note on studying smarter, not harder has more on recalling rather than re-reading.

Put it together

Each of the four habits helps on its own. Together they cover the whole process: clear the way (Forget), engage with the material (Active), be in a good frame of mind to take it in (State), and then check and strengthen what you learned (Teach).

You do not need to try all four at once. Pick the letter that is weakest for you right now, whether that is the phone on the desk, sitting silently in class, or never testing yourself, and start there. Learning faster is not about doing more hours. It is about getting more out of the hours you already do.