Do you remember what you’ve learned? Or are you a Sponge Bob?

Soak a sponge with water.
It will absorb all the water willingly.
And as you pick it up, the soaked sponge will drip.
A good chunk of the water will drippity-drip all over you if you’re not careful.

But let’s say you are indeed careful.
Let’s say you then go on to squeeze the sponge.
Let’s give it a good squeeze, shall we?

And here’s what happens…
Most of the water, gets squeezed out of the sponge. Yet the sponge is still wet.
That means the sponge retains a minuscule part of the moisture.

Kind like your brain does when going through a new learning experience.
You know the feeling of being in a workshop.
You learn one fact, then another, then another.

If you start learning a new concept by 9am, your brain is pretty tired by 11am.
Of course you don’t realise this if you look around you.
After all, everyone’s happy, smiling. And everyone’s keen to get new information.

But here’s what’s happening in your brain.
Your brain can’t process a whole bunch of facts without rocking back and forth between understanding and application. So even as you get new information, the brain is trying to work out the overview, as well as the details required to implement the information. And at the very same time, it’s trying to find the relationship between what you already know, and how this new information relates to the old information.

Hah, you had trouble processing that last paragraph, didn’t you?
Now imagine what happens when you go to a seminar or workshop, and there’s speaker after speaker. Your brain keeps getting new information, and it absorbs the information like a sponge. Most of this information doesn’t sink in at all. In fact, most of the information can’t be recalled by you, even if you tried.

Which is why as a trainer/coach/teacher you need to understand the importance of time.
- The brain needs to learn a concept.
- Then play with it.
- Discuss it.
- Make mistakes.
- And see the connections between the existing concepts and new concepts.

Most seminars have no such review process.
Most books swing wildly from one chapter to another.
Most training courses (and we’ve had quite a few at Psychotactics in the past) have so much information, that the concept of time is ignored.

And when the concept time is ignored, real learning fails to happen.
To learn, the brain literally needs to boot down.
Take a nap.
And restart.

What’s weird is that this time isn’t just required for educational purposes. It’s also critical for sport, or learning a new language. In fact all learning requires downtime.

If you don’t have downtime, you have sponge learning.
Most of the information drippity-drips away.
Which is a shame, really

So what should you do to understand this concept of consumption better?
Here are two resources. Print them out. Read them again. And then read them tomorrow. And the day after. And then next week. And experience for yourself how the concepts seem to change and evolve with each reading. And of course, each boot down and bootup

Resources:
Understanding Layering
How Your Brain Adjusts When Given Boot Down Time