Learning how to learn - it’s a priority to do that right now (if you are a student). Do it fast, and it could help lead in other subjects too. Analyzing how different learning strategies work across various tasks.
Basically, look at mistakes, look at how to eliminate them, so you have already learnt a method to eliminate a similar mistake in the future.
It's much more important to use methods that work. - (You aren’t a learning psychologist, and there are many studies on this!!!) Flashcards and past papers, those two are based on evidence.
Actual knowledge about how to learn can help more time in the long run.
Hone into the skills, self-buff of course.
It took me a long time to realize that flashcards and past papers (PLUS REVIEWING THEIR MISTAKES )were the way to learn. Younger me just thought it was ultra-tedium -> “There has to be a better way, right?”
It has to be a priority, something that is reflected upon. Yes, people get busy! But it’s still needed; otherwise, your future self may use up quite a bit of time.
When tired… Of course, it is hard… But the ability to maintain position/grades depends on learning ability. Either you go to the point of diminishing returns, or you hustle a lot, or somewhere in between. These are needed because naturally learning would be ultra-hard.
I think reflection is a good idea for learning - give some actual thought. It’s long, it’s not very visible, thus expect lots of failed attempts and uncertainties
Learn from processes and try something else - if that something else is more effective, you might need to phase it over the last, this is also known as brute force - but brute force just has a negative connotation; it might actually be the best way, if not for coercion...
Visual learning: It can be done. It's a bit harder for abstract processes, though.
In fact, you may in fact have done the higher-level one: metametalearning. Read more there <-.
You take in information, process it (possibly best to connect with other material), and test it, possibly with SuperMemo or Anki. Unconnected information is a bit harder, perhaps because memory itself cannot be controlled. Works much better than nothing for both personal knowledge and school. Yet, from my experience, learning, for instance, from my experience, it's easier to think of new ideas the more you program due to more existing experience. Let's make Anki/SuperMemo more popular!!
Unfortunately, you cannot simply force yourself to remember, or not forget, or forget, or not remember something. Neither do you know whether you can recall something from memory (because most of the time you would just look at the textbook and recognize!) Memory is hard to control. We may need a better understanding of the human brain before the full reasons are revealed, but still, self-testing (or "retrieval practice") is great for it.