How can you learn faster?

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1. Stay single. Let’s be honest, you can can get more things done without getting distracted from being in a relationship. Relationships can be emotionally and physically tiring – an energy which you could save and be invested into learning instead. I know this is not for everyone – move on if feel so!
2. Start your day early. I always find the most productive time to get most things done are in the mornings. Our brains (and body) are fresh from hours of sleep raring to start the day. If you had a good deep sleep, your performance in the morning is going to be much better.
3. Put your mobile phones on silent mode when working. How often do you check your phone during work? Often. Remove the distraction by putting it on silent mode while at work and you’ll see the level of productivity will improve.
4. A nice trick I’d use to stay focus is to simply have a pen or pencil in your hand – ready to take notes of what you’re reading. The pen acts as a focus point for you to not easily get distracted by your surroundings. It sounds trivial, but it’s not. Try to give it a shot.
5. I used to think that I’m able to work well with accompanying music. I was wrong. It started off well, at first. But as years go by, I began to realize some of the things I read did not really materialized. As it turns out, our brain is only able to process limited amount of info at a time. In short, try to minimize the distractions around you to ensure your brain processes what you’re reading or studying.
6. Don’t rely on video lectures or tutorials completely. Don’t get me wrong. Videos are great – for introductory levelled people. To become a learned person, you still need to go the old fashion way – which is to read books or e-books. In fact, audio books are great too if you prefer it that way. I know I do.
7. Again, who you associate yourself with plays important part here. Try to avoid or minimize contact with people who you feel demotivate you from studying or working. Peer pressure or their influence can be very dangerous. It’s infectious.
8. Don’t be discouraged when a person is able to read 30 pages in an hour. Most of these people are able to do so due to constant training of reading. So, start spending more time reading – give it some time.
9. Visit Quora.com to enhance your knowledge further. Quite frankly, it’s one of the best sites to keep your knowledge up to date. Most people there prefer discussions – not argument which I find very rare these days.

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4 Ways to Increase YouTube Watch Time

Structure Playlists to Drive a Linear Viewing Experience

Create playlists for your Youtube videos in order to guide future viewers toward more viewings and longer watch time.

Organize your playlists to covers topics of your niche.

First, create a playlist that demonstrates all your top-performing videos. By focusing all your best videos in one playlist, audience retention is more likely to occur and eventually, they will subscribe.

You should also create more playlists that fit well with more specific topics in your niche. For example, let’s say you own a channel that focuses on online marketing. Create playlists that focus on subtopics of ‘online marketing’ such as ‘youtube marketing’, ‘instagram marketing’, ‘twitter marketing’ and so on.

Don’t forget to fully customize each playlist that fit the subtopics; add suitable thumbnail, edit the description focused on keywords etc.

When you organize the videos in such sequences, viewers will more likely to watch other videos to find out what more you have to say. Ultimately, this will boost your watch time, which helps elevate your ranking on Youtube.

Choose Titles and Thumbnails That Accurately Reflect Your Content

The combination of titles and thumbnails can potentially impact your views and rankings on Youtube. Both act as the main trigger for people to click on your videos.

YouTube’s Creator Academy offers these suggestions for creating clickable thumbnails:

• Choose an image that accurately reflects the content of your video so viewers know what to expect when they click. It’s important not to mislead viewers, because they’ll be more likely to be disappointed and stop watching.
• Design an image that will compel viewers to click and see more.
• Use both the thumbnail and title to tell an intriguing story.
• Make sure your thumbnails will work effectively on both mobile and desktop.
• Look at the Audience Retention reports for your videos to measure the effectiveness of your thumbnails. If you see a sharp drop off in the first 10-15 seconds, your video may not be delivering on the expectations suggested by the title and thumbnail.
• Your thumbnail, title, and description should give potential viewers a good reason to watch your video over others in your niche.

Use Cards Throughout Your Videos

Cards are useful to keep viewers engaged by linking to other videos on your Youtube channel that they might be interested in.

For example, you can add cards exactly before the time in the video when viewers are most likely to drop off. You can figure out when exactly viewers drop off using Analytics.

Create Content Based on Long-Tail YouTube Keywords

Focusing on long-tail Youtube keywords can help you gain more viewers to watch your videos.

Initially, you can start researching for keywords by using Youtube’s suggestions feature in their search box. All you need to do is to type in a word your audience is interested, and a list of dropdown suggesting related keywords come up.

Then, take down these keywords so you can add later in your video tags when you upload content.

I wrote more about this here: How To Find The Right Keywords

You can also visit your competitors’ channels and pay attention to their top performing videos. Take note of the keywords and replicate the videos that fit to your audience.