Want to learn more in less time? Neuroscience has the answers.

BY JEFF HADEN, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, INC.@JEFF_HADEN

For Inc.

Long-term success is based on leveraging and maximizing things you can control. Like effort. Perseverance. Surprisingly (at least to some), being nice.

But most important, leveraging and maximizing what you know — and what you do with what you know.

Since that makes learning faster, and retaining more, a career superpower, here are seven science-backed ways to learn more quickly and better remember what you learn:

1. Constantly test yourself.

A classic study published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest shows self-testing is an extremely effective way to speed up the learning process.

Partly that’s because of the additional context you create. Test yourself and answer incorrectly and not only are you more likely to remember the right answer after you look it up, but you’ll also remember the fact you didn’t remember. (Especially if you tend to be hard on yourself.)

So don’t just rehearse your sales pitch. Test yourself on what comes after your intro. Test yourself by listing the four main points you want to make. Test your ability to remember cost savings figures, or price schedules, or how you will respond to the most common questions or types of customer resistance.

Not only will you gain confidence in how much you do know, but you’ll also more quickly learn the things you don’t know — at least not yet.

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