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Nathan Elliott

My Default ‘Learning Stack’ — Accelerate Your Learning

In this post, I will discuss tools I use to organize my learning and improve my ability to not only learn and retain material but also to make it available for quick search and reference, so that when the inevitable memory lapse occurs I can find what I need. If you are trying to improve in a challenging topic like software engineering like I am, I would highly recommend you take the time to organize your learning in some manner. The information in this blog post was influenced HEAVILY by this blog post from Derek Sivers, several blog posts and podcasts from Tim Ferris (the guy is a learning machine), particularly about Evernote, and Scott Young (see his website).

Tool I. Evernote

Evernote allows you to make several different virtual notebooks on different topics and fill them with notes on subtopics. I have a large notebook called “Web Development” and nested notebooks based on different topics and languages, such as a “Ruby,” “Javascript,” and “MySQL” with notes about specific topics, for example a note titled “Enumerable” in my “Ruby” notebook. There a few major advantages in using Evernote.

  1. Organization: You can organize different material into a file system, which makes it not only easier to keep track of in Evernote but also easier to keep track of in memory because you can more easily recall the material in an organized grouping and take advantage of what cognitive psychologists refer to as chunking.
  2. Search: Search in Evernote is awesome. Type anything into the search bar and results will come up immediately, listing the note (or notes) the searched item is listed in. This has saved me quite a bit of time when I have forgotten a particular coding pattern or method in my code.
  3. Flexible formatting of material: Just like a real notebook, you can enter material in virtually any way you wish. I often enter material in a Q&A format to take advantage of the next tool I will discuss called Anki, which is a virtual flashcard app. You can also cut and paste code directly from your text editor and paste it into a note to look the same way it did in your editor and paste in pictures or diagrams.

Tool II) Anki:

Anki is a memorization software app that utilizes spaced repetition learning. It is designed as a virtual set of flash cards in which you put a question or prompt on one side of a card and an answer on the other. Documentation and tips for use can be found here. I often take notes I have made in Evernote and cut and paste them directly into Anki. If you don’t have time to read through all of the Anki documentation, here are 2 key pointers for use:

  1. You need to have a complete understanding of any material you add to your virtual deck of cards in Anki. The spaced repetition algorithm they use operates on the assumption that you have learned the material and need reminders to keep the material fresh at specific intervals of time so that it will be drilled into your longterm memory. It is not for material you are still trying to understand.
  2. Anki is most effective for material that requires rote memorization, such as definitions, method names, etc. It is not good for contemplating fuzzy, philosophical topics. If you are unsure about adding an item to Anki, just ask yourself if you would add the material to a real deck of flash cards and you should be fine.

Tool III) Paper Notebook:

In my paper notebook, I will draw 1 page diagrams to sum up material I am learning (See Tim Ferriss’s The 4 Hour Chef). I also make doodles and drawings representing different material I am learning as nemonic aids and to create mental associations between different topic areas that relate in some way (layers of a cake for different pieces of the Ruby on Rails development stack for example). Scott Young has a nice article discussing a similar technique here. I also use the paper notebook to jot down app ideas when they come to mind.

You certainly don’t need to use the tools I use to organize your learning. However, you should put some system of organization for your learning in place. If you haven’t created an organization system for your learning yet or aren’t satisfied with your current results, go ahead and give my default learning stack a shot and let me know what you think.