Compound Learning

It was good to take a few days off. As I was reflecting on how the project’s gone so far, I kept returning to the idea of compound learning.

Compound learning is like compound interest for life. When you persist in working on something long enough, everything you learn begins to compound on itself. Over time that compounding can be a powerful thing. This only applies to focused practice, though. Bouncing from project to project or topic to topic doesn’t produce the same effect.

100x100 has taken advantage of compound learning with regards to writing itself. If I can get just 1% better at writing every day — which is harder than it sounds, and I don’t claim to have done so — then it will add up. But the project hasn’t taken advantage of compound learning with regards to what I write about. It’s been a bit all over the place. That isn’t a bad thing necessarily, and my initial project goals allowed for writing on any topic, but if I’m going to continue investing in this work I want to make sure I get the most out of it.

So starting tomorrow, I’m going to experiment with a new structure: themes. For a few days at a time, I’ll write about a consistent topic. What those topics are and how long I stay on each one will vary, but by spending extra time on each one I hope to increase what I learn from the process. We’ll see how it goes — it’s an experiment, as ever.

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