Fill the gap by creating the gap first.
- Map out your semantic tree regarding the topic before learning the topic. Start with a blank canvas
- Start by thinking the output of the system first, rather than “which” input.
- Use processes as a way to
You can implement and build your skill either by creating and starting project on Monocal, or you can implement it with the client. This is the place you basically build your projects so you can implement your knowledge to build your portfolio, and skills.
How to choose what to learn now?
- The fundamentals of that domain is somehow resonates with you. Not advance and tricky part, but the boring and GTD part.
- Feedback loops is fast, you have resources/opportunities/situation to test and iterate.
- Leverages = Learning that particular skills is the most useful for you now.
- Mindset
- Limiting belief
- Imposter Syndrome
- Assumption/Interpretation
- Ethics
- Curiosity and flow
- Psychology (Incentives), attention, immerse
- Approach
- Meta-learning
- Blank Sheet Method
- Feynman Method
- Josh Kaufman : The first 20 hoursx
- DICE Framework
- Divergent, collect the dots
- Convergent, connect the dots
- Emergence, how from those dots you do something bigger
- Meta-learning
- The Content
- Pick a good course, kita eliminate 1000 decision.
- System / Feedback
- PARA Method
- After Action Review
There are 3 most important., part in learning something new, there are
- Understanding
- Remembering
- Focusing
All of these interlink with each other but the most important thing is understanding. We must go through these step by step to effectively learn something new.
Recommended Reading :
- Make it stick
- Deep Work
- Flow
- Ultralearning
- How To Learn - Josh Waitzkin
Avoiding Stupidity
- Multi-tasking. Focus on one thing at a time instead.
- Passive re-reading and highlighting. Practice active recall instead.
- Finding your unique “learning style” — the theory behind Visual, Auditory, or Kinesthetic learning isn’t backed up by strong evidence.
- Don’t ever re-read your notes.
Understanding
Most people think that in order for you to study you want to learn everything, and put everything inside your brain. Actually, what you need to do is retrieve information from your brain and put it back out, and try to fit in other components that will make it a perfect loop.
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Scoping the Subject / Meta-learning Map
Scoping your subject, associate it with other and a lot more things. Figure out where are the root of the knowledge, is it the “leave” or “branch” or the discipline?
Draw the Meta-learning Map
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Feynman Technique
Use the Feynman Technique to understand faster.
Self-explanation and the Feynman technique: explain what you’ve just learned in simple terms
The method is similar to the so-called Feynman Technique attributed to the Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. In addition to self-explanation, Feynman also emphasized that one should explain things simply so that even a sixth-grade student would understand them.
How to apply this in practice:
- Choose the subject you’d like to learn
- Pretend you’re teaching it to a sixth-grade student
- Notice the gaps in your understanding and use them to guide your further learning
A simple heuristic from my own experience:
I found that if whatever I learn can be practiced, then practice is superior to recall/explanations which are themselves superior to passive learning.
- For example with programming: write code to solve problems > explain how something works > learn passively.
- Similarly, with foreign languages: speak or write > remember/explain what you learned > passive learning.
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Active Recall
Active recall: actively test your knowledge and skills
Active Recall Framework
Instead of taking notes, write questions for yourself to go over.
- The key point is you don’t need to write down the answer for active recall question ? Why?
- He trust that he’ll be able to find the answer on lecture note or google or text book and therefore he doesn’t have to waste the time to actually write down the answer for all questions
What do you do when you don’t know the answer to question you wrote? (because the answers were not written on the question doc) — need to go back to the lecture notes or source to find the answer. It does take a little bit more time, but going back to the source can contextualize the answer
Trust you’ll be able to find the answers in lecture notes, Google, textbook etc. - you can then contextualise the answer from there; after all, seeing something in the bigger picture is the key to understanding
As with everything, colour code based on confidence
Notion toggles look like the best way to use active recall, which allows for the hiding of answers - for questions that I know the answer to, or can find the answer easily, the answer does not need to be written - can always add the answer later
It might be more effective to actively retrieve the information you’ve already learned than passively re-read or try to learn it once again.
One study that compared a method that emphasized study sessions with a method that emphasized tests and found the latter to be more effective for delayed recall.
- SSSS = four study sessions
- SSST = three study sessions, followed by one test
- STTT = one study session, followed by three tests
Even imagining that you might be tested on the material you’re learning might help improve the recall.
How to apply this in practice:
If a few days ago you learned how past tense works in the Spanish language, try to remember the rules or even test yourself on your knowledge — instead of simply re-reading the same material once again.
You can read more about the active recall practice on Wikipedia.
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Elaborative Interrogation
Elaborative interrogation (quiz-and-recall): ask yourself questions and use the material you’ve learned to answer them
Elaborative interrogation is a fancy term for asking yourself questions while studying. Sometimes it’s also called “quiz-and-recall”.
One study found that asking questions is useful for acquiring science facts. Another one showed that this method is particularly effective when you already have certain prior knowledge about the subject. But even if you don’t, elaborative interrogation still appears to be more effective than simply reading to understand.
How to apply this in practice:
- Ask yourself a question that starts with “Why” or “How” and try to answer it based on the material you’ve learned.
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Distributed Learning
Distributed learning: study less in each session but more frequently
In short, it’s better to distribute one’s practice over a period of time than cram it into one day.
In one study elementary school students were asked to study in one of the three ways: massed, clumped, and spaced.
- Massed = four lessons at a time
- Clumped = two lessons on one day and two lessons on the next day
- Spaced = one lesson per day for four days
The “spaced” group performed best, followed by the “clumped” group:
Another study compared comprehension scores under three different conditions:
- Read a text once (“single”)
- Read a text twice (“massed”)
- Read a text twice with a week-long gap (“distributed”)
When tested immediately, the second group performed best. But when tested with a delay of two days, the third group performed best.
This method is also superior for learning motor skills.
How to apply this in practice:
Create a learning schedule or find time to practice a little bit every day or every few days instead of cramming all your learning into one or just a few days.
If you’d like to learn more, read the Wikipedia article on distributed practice.
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Distributed Recall Practice
Distributed recall practice is basically a combination of the two ideas above. You test yourself frequently and modify the test intervals depending on how familiar you’re with the material or how strong your skill is.
How to apply this in practice:
Many apps simplify the process by tracking one’s performance and adjusting the intervals automatically. Anki is a free and popular app that can be used for learning foreign language vocabulary as well as other things.
Memorizing
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Space Repetition
The Magic of Spaces Repetition.
Use Space Repetition to overcome the Forgetting Curve.
Below is Retrospective Revision Timetable, you need to color code each of the date that you’re doing revision of. This way you can mark which topics that you’re not good at, so next week you can focus on that instead of randomly pick any topics.
The goal was to turn all topics into green, so once it green (you will need to test yourself, with Active Recall), once it turn green, you want to stop focusing on it, instead focusing on what you’re not good yet.
When your stuff is all green, it means you know all of it.
Copy of Retrospective Revision
🔴 🟡 🟢
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Interleaved Practice
Interleaving involves how you split up your time within one study session itself. It is the idea that we should mix up our practice as we go along within the same study session.
When you get a hang of something, turn into something else.
The interleaving practice, make study harder, and this will help you understand better. Whenever studying gets easy, we stop studying effectively.
Interleaving: how we manage the study session - not reviewing in the same order every time, and moving fluidly through multiple topics.
it is creating a difficult experience which encourages your brain to work harder to recall that information. Improving your recall.
2010 - “The interleaving of practice impaired practice performance (i.e. made the actual study session more difficult) yet it doubled scores on a test given one day later (i.e. it improved exam performance in the long term)
These two studies focused on math tasks — finding the volume of various geometric solids — but similar effects were found in other domains, such as badminton, basketball, and medicine.
How to apply this in practice:
- Interleave skills that are related — for example, different chord progressions
- Mix old and new skills to integrate them
You can learn more about interleaving by reading the Scientific American article and the Wikipedia article.
Focusing
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Pomodoro Technique
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Deep work : Turn off all distractions
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Deliberate Practice
Deliberate practice and chunking: break the big subject down into smaller manageable “chunks” that need to be learned.
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Switching
Take breaks and let your mind wander — both “focused” and “diffused” modes are important.
Physiology and Brain’s Health
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Sleep
This is hardly news to anyone. There are dozens if not hundreds of studies on the effects sleep deprivation has on cognitive performance and memory. And they all point in the same direction. Sleep takes time but it’s a secret weapon.
One study examined the effects of sleep deprivation on attention, working memory, executive function, speed of processing, and mood. You can probably guess what happened but these charts really bring the conclusions home:
You can learn more about the effects of sleep and deep deprivation on cognition and health in the podcast episode with Matthew Walker, a professor at UC Berkeley.
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Exercise
After sleep, there is one more secret weapon that is free, very effective, and thoroughly studied. Yes, exercise.
The study published in Nature is only one of many that concluded that exercise can improve cognition across multiple task types.
Even walking can be effective. Here is how walking affects creativity:
Exercise also increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) which is important for learning:
Finally, exercise has neuroprotective benefits and might even help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Different types of exercise have different effects so that it’s better to do a nice mix of resistance training (weight-training), high-intensity interval cardio training (HIIT), and low-intensity steady-state cardio training (LISS).
If you’d like to learn more about the effects of exercise on cognitive performance, check out the Wikipedia article on neurobiological effects of physical exercise.
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Nutrition
Just like sleep and exercise, nutrition might sound boring but it’s incredibly effective. Reviewing the principles of healthy nutrition is beyond the scope of this article but here are a few studies that might get you more excited about eating healthy.
Entire dietary approaches and individual foods have been studied in terms of their effects on cognition.
Foods that and nutrients that have been associated with better cognitive performance include green tea, fish, blueberries, nuts, olive oil, and many others.
Here are just a few study excerpts to spark your interest.
Blueberries have been shown to improve the reaction time and memory:
Omega-3 in fish oil — and in particular docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) — might improve cognition and delay age-related cognitive decline. And this randomized, controlled trial found beneficial effects of DHA on working memory scores:
To learn more about the link between nutrition and cognition, check out the Wikipedia article on nutrition and cognition, the summary of the MIND diet, Chris Kresser’s article, and Rhonda Patrick’s podcast.
Drink coffee and green tea — they contain caffeine and l-theanine that have nootropic effects.
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Meditate
Meditate. Mindfulness meditation in particular has been shown to improve cognition.
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Breathing Exercise
Ensure you’re breathing clean air by opening windows and/or using an air purifier. CO2 and Particulate Matter (PM2.5) have been shown to reduce cognitive performance.
I guess I’d fail your interview then ;)
Learning is 10% consuming information (e.g. books, podcasts, blogs), 20% watching an expert do it, and 70% doing it yourself.
The best learning comes from doing it yourself IMO, not listening or reading to what someone else says they did.
Something to keep in mind:
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Ideas are easy.
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Execution is hard.
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Consistency is harder.
Reading is faster than listening. Doing is faster than watching. - Naval