Quit forgetting — How to learn 101
There is a ton of advice out there on ‘how to learn’. This is not just another 5 step guide that will magically solve all of your problems. In this article, you’ll get specific directions on how to improve your learning — and more importantly — you’ll find out why these directions work.
Learning is a rudimentary skill helping us navigate through life. Yet, reaching expertise is a rare spectacle since we are overwhelmed with information nowadays.
This is my take on a guide by Dale Carnegie, an American writer, and educator, originally written in his 1937 book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’.
After spending ~4 years in the informal education industry, Mr. Carnegie’s list inspired me to re-think how I’ve learned and which learning methodologies worked for students I’ve mentored in the past. Here it goes.
1. Develop a burning desire to learn and master the subject at hand.
Give the subject enough time and thought — learning new things and forming new habits is not a walk in the park. Get motivated and visualize enjoying the fruits of your labor, and feeling satisfied with the outcomes of your hard work.
Motivation is the student’s job, and not the books’/teachers’/courses’ job.
How does [a teacher or a writer or] a manager motivate mentees? The word implies doing something to another person. But I don’t think that can happen, because motivation has to come from within. Accordingly, all [a teacher or a writer or]a manager can do is create an environment where motivated people can flourish.
Andrew S. Grove
2. (Theory) Go through each chapter twice before moving on to the next one.
When you’re learning something that you’re passionate about, you might want to go as fast as you can. But there is a better way to do it.
Go through the material rapidly once and get a birds’ eye view of the content. Understand the bigger picture.
Then, re-read with more attention to detail. This way, not only you’ll remember more efficiently, but you’ll understand the correlation between things as well.
3. (Theory) As you learn, stop frequently to ask yourself how you can apply each lesson.
How can the lesson be applied in your work and in your life? Take some time to think independently. This way, you’ll exercise your mind to use the same logic when faced with a similar real-life challenge.
4. (Theory) Keep a database of notes and key learnings.
Imagine this: 10 years pass, and you’ve been through a lot — personal experiences, courses, formal training, books, and whatnot. If you don’t remember it, it’s like you’ve never learned it. Unless… Unless you keep digital notes of all of the learnings you accumulated, giving you the chance to CTRL+F it whenever you need it.
Read or learn with a highlighter or Google Doc opened at hand to take notes. Underscore each important idea, pointer, and big revelation you’ve had. Serve yourself headlines only text that tells the lesson, with references to original ebooks, videos, articles, etc.
Don’t use notebooks. It’s a waste of time digitizing them afterward. I recommend the tool Notion.so for this.
5. (Theory) Review key learnings each month.
People are forgetful. Take some time to go back to key learnings every once in a while to refresh.
Learning is not memorizing plain information. Learning is engraving something new in your mindset, skill, or habit.
6. (Practice) Apply learned principles at each given opportunity.
Don’t wing it when you know better. Yes, using the framework you learned a while back is going to take you a bit more time when you’re trying it at first. But you’ll get better each time.
7. (Practice) Take time to reflect on the application of the lessons learned.
Check up on your progress each week and make a list. Write down:
- What you did right
- Mistakes
- And your key learnings — i.e. what you’ll change next time.
You’ll dread this part at first, but once you start noticing your progress, you’ll begin to love it.
Very important: record all of your big wins. Notice the times when you apply your learnings in practice, and give yourself some credit — you deserve it.
8. Stay in permanent Beta and see yourself become better over time.
The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.
Ralph W. Sockman
Just. Don’t. Stop. Once you stop, you start moving backward!
