One Simple Principle to Boost Your Learning Efficiency (with science)

Learning efficiency often collapses because study time turns into low-effort “passive learning,” where the brain does little thinking. Dr Justin Sung frames cognitive load regulation as a practical fix: effective learning requires mental effort, while passive learning—such as rewriting notes word-for-word or rereading—doesn’t meaningfully engage the brain’s processing. Cognitive load is the “fancy term” for that felt mental exertion; when it stays low, real learning is unlikely.

The core distinction is not whether a task feels hard in general, but whether it forces the brain to transform information into knowledge. Sung argues that learning happens in the brain through thinking and processing, so the mental effort is not optional—it’s the mechanism. He places common study methods on a spectrum of cognitive load. Simple repetition sits at the passive end: rewriting notes and rereading. More effective approaches demand more mental work, such as creating summary pages, then converting those summaries into nonlinear, relational formats that connect ideas. Pushing further—teaching the material to a 10-year-old and simplifying relationships and groupings—requires even more effort because it forces understanding, restructuring, and explanation.

Importantly, high cognitive load alone doesn’t guarantee learning. Sung offers a cautionary example: standing on one leg while juggling and getting hit with a fish while reading a textbook would spike cognitive load, but it wouldn’t improve learning because the effort isn’t directed toward understanding the content. The goal is targeted cognitive load: enough mental exertion to drive meaningful processing, not just chaos.

A simple self-audit becomes the method’s centerpiece. Learners should monitor the mental exertion level during study. If cognitive load feels low, that’s a strong warning sign of passive learning. Sung recommends running a short “experiment” over one or two days: note which techniques make the brain feel bored, tedious, monotonous, drowsy, or like it’s “falling asleep.” Then remove those techniques and study the same topics without them. The expectation is that learning won’t drop much—and time will be saved—because much of the prior effort was effectively wasted.

Sung anticipates a common objection: if 90% of studying feels passive, does that mean learning has been harmed? His answer is that it likely means 90% of the time was not producing learning in the first place. The payoff is a shift from time spent “going through the motions” to time spent actively constructing knowledge, using methods that reliably raise cognitive load in service of understanding.