QUESTION:
I find it tough to learn by myself without a chavrusa. When I learn with a chavrusa I’m very focused and concentrating on my learning, but whenever I try to learn by myself, I space out and I find it too hard to learn. I think that if I would know how to learn by myself and not being dependent on my chavrusa, I would get a lot further. How can I be able to learn better when I’m alone?
ANSWER:
The more a person develops an inner world of his own, the easier it will be for him to learn alone. Practically speaking, get used to learning alone for a few minutes a day, and slowly increase it to longer amounts of time. Get used to thinking in learning when you have free time, either by reviewing on your own what you learned or by writing down a summary of what you learned, or just by thinking about a kashya (difficulty) and looking for an answer. Also get used to having a little bit of time to yourself where you can make a cheshbon hanefesh (personal self-accounting).
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