Knowing Your Learning Style Will Make Learning Easier

Knowing your learning style is essential for getting the best results when you’re trying to learn new skills.  There are a heap of different theories about how people learn, this Wikipedia article covers a lot of them.

If you’re unsure of what works best for you, think about how you get and retain information.

  • Do you learn best when people tell you how to do something?
  • Do you learn best when you get to do something yourself?
  • Do you like to read how-to’s?
  • Do you prefer video or graphics?
  • Do you prefer a group discussion?

Finding out what works for you, will help you make the most of any learning you attempt. When I was researching this article, I found a great site in Learning-Styles Online which discusses seven different learning styles.

Knowing Your Learning Style Will Make Learning Easier - Sharyn Munro Virtual Assistance

As for me, I’m a verbal learner (you can see my test results above), I prefer to learn with words. In fact, if you have a video tutorial I will immediately jump to see if you’ve got a transcript for me to read rather than watch the video. If you don’t – chances are I will keep looking for something that I can read rather than watch.

It’s a good idea to not only understand your learning style, but to also think about the learning style of your ideal customer. Because if I’m your ideal customer, there’s no point making videos for me unless they’re very short and sweet. Around 25 seconds but definitely under a minute is the maximum time I’ll spend watching a video – unless it’s got a REALLY cute animal or contains information I absolutely can’t get anywhere else.

So creating content in the format that is most suited to the learning style of your ideal client is important, but how will you know what that is? There are a few ways to go. Firstly, you might know your ideal client so well that you’ve already discovered their ideal learning style. Alternativley, you might need to do some experimentation to find out what content is the most popular with your ideal client. To do that, create your content in a few different formats and see what gets the best results.

You don’t have to create a whole lot of unique content. Creating 1 good piece of content, and putting it in several formats will probably give you a better idea of what works than creating several pieces of content of varying levels of excellence.

Knowing the learning style of yourself, your staff and your ideal clients can make a huge difference when it comes to imparting knowledge and having it understood and retained.