Living life from a cultivated person’s point of view offers many more possibilities when it comes to enjoying our experiences. Therefore, many people who notice that they have many concerns and show a tendency to curiosity ask themselves the following question: how can I become more cultured and learn in a sustained way about the subjects I am interested in?

Fortunately, today, thanks to the existence of the Internet and a series of public services related to education and training, anyone who wants to raise their level of culture can do so relatively easily. However, it is better to know the most effective ways of doing so, so as not to waste time.

How to be more educated: 8 tips

Through the advice that we will see below, we will review a series of habits and guidelines to introduce in our daily lives ways to learn in a constant and consistent way. Please note, however, that it is necessary to make an effort and adapt these measures to one’s own case, depending on those areas of knowledge that arouse most interest .

1. Decide what your priorities are

Time is limited, and that is why it is necessary to consider what one’s priorities are. In this way, we won’t be subjected every day to a bombardment of information from subjects that are disconnected from each other , so that we can’t understand or memorize some data from what we have learned from others.

Learning about a limited set of areas of knowledge makes it easier to start building up a good cultural level without losing it in the shuffle.

2. Don’t rely on encyclopedias

For decades, self-education has been associated with browsing encyclopedias. Although this habit is not bad in itself and in fact provides information, it is not the optimal way to learn, as it provides data in a fragmented and uncohesive way. It is preferable to read works that deal with the subject of interest in a more complete way , without limiting oneself to describing the concept that raised doubts.

3. Surround yourself with wise people

This is a key idea that many people interested in growing their culture overlook, as they have an overly individualistic conception of what it means to learn.

Regularly dealing with people who know a lot about something we are interested in makes us learn without realizing it, and in a way that tires us much less than sitting down and starting to read notes or a book.

In the flow of these conversations it is much easier to raise the doubts that arise just at the moment they occur to us , so that the answer we receive will cover the gap in knowledge that we have recently detected, without giving the opportunity to forget that doubt and never get to investigate on our own to find a solution.
In addition, these people will help you to continue learning on your own, recommending readings, audiovisual material, cultural events, etc.

4. Underline and review

It’s not enough to read. Reviewing is crucial to finish internalizing what has been learned, and there is nothing like underlining the main points and making brief notes in the margins . This will not only help you to memorize the main ideas of a text; it will also allow you to “navigate” through it more easily, so that when you want to go back several pages to refresh your memory about a piece of information, you will immediately find what you are looking for.

5. Save pages of interest

When you’re surfing the Internet, the fact that you’re diving through a sea of distractions means that when you come across educational material, you probably won’t be able to take a look at it.

For this, it is very good to have a good bookmark page ranking prepared in your web browser , so that you can easily save these pages and then place them in the category that corresponds to their topic, and write several keywords in the name of these saved ones.

6. Attend talks

It is very important not to trust everything to one’s own interpretation of the material with which one has been trained. Attending talks, colloquiums and similar events allows us to expose ourselves to debates in which we will find ideas different from our own that can make us capable of better understanding that area of culture in which we are most interested .

7. Find the best books

Finding the books that are best suited to that area of knowledge in which you want to learn more is vital. To do this, get informed and watch user reviews.

8. Update

Culture is not something immutable, but it is evolving. Therefore, you must do your best to avoid your knowledge becoming outdated . Two simple recommendations are to surround yourself with experts in the field, and to use digital platforms that monitor the progress of research. For example, you can follow several researchers or specialized magazines from Twitter.