Different thinking, better learning: 4 proven ways to radically increase your learning today! – Kobo eBook

You have sat through thousands of hours of lessons. How many of them taught you how to learn?

This book is about the mental side of learning: how you think about your abilities, your attention, your habits and your motivation. It does not repeat the familiar study tricks. It is about what happens around your studying, because that is where the biggest gains are, and you can get them before you even open your books.

Ferdinand Brand brings together the leading scientific theories from psychology, education and neurology in four mental models:

Mindset: the difference between a fixed and a growth mindset, and how to change the beliefs that hold you back.

Modes: how to switch between focus mode and free mode, learn without your phone getting in the way, and use AI as a tutor instead of a cheat sheet.

Modeling: what willpower can and cannot do, how habits work (cue, routine, reward) and how consistency and commitment help you stick with it.

Motivation: how autonomy, relatedness and competence make you want to learn, and how feedback and smart goal setting keep you moving.

Based on more than 100 research articles, you’ll learn to:

seize every opportunity to develop

prevent procrastination

focus

double your learning efficiency

replace unproductive habits with productive ones

motivate yourself (even more)

Every part follows the same three steps: an explanation of the theory, examples from practice with stories about the author and students he has coached, and an assignment so you can apply it to your own situation right away.

Revised edition 2026. Since the first edition in 2019, AI has arrived in your pocket and science has moved on. Some well-known findings held up in larger replication studies, others turned out to be much smaller than we thought. This edition says so openly. New in this edition are sections on learning with AI, on the two best-supported learning techniques and on studying without your phone.

About the author

Ferdinand Brand graduated top of his year from the master’s program Learning & Innovation and specializes in effective studying. He was then advised to pursue a PhD on this subject. Drawing on his experience as a teacher-researcher, he now works as an expert teacher, helping multiple educational teams put proven teaching practices into action. Through his own company, he trains teachers, students and businesses to improve their learning process.