I Spent 2000 Hours Learning How To Learn — Pt.3
I used to struggle with grasping new concepts. So, over the past three years, I have compiled thousands of notes from books, YouTube videos, podcasts, articles, and speeches on the topic of learning.
Including compiling these notes, I have applied what I have learned, and adjusted the techniques, to create systems and tricks that have helped me boost my comprehension and learning to unforeseen levels.
This is part 3 of the series on my top findings on how to learn efficiently and effectively.
Audit Your Screen Time
The first step into becoming a more efficient learner is not to focus on the learning process itself, but on your thought-process behind why you engage in distractions.
As many of you probably know, you have the ability to track how much time you use your devices for and what apps you use them for. Apple and most Android devices include this built-in, you just have to turn them on in settings.
By having access to this, we can reflect on how we use our devices. Once a week, look at your average weekly screen time and other stats and ask yourself these questions.
- How much time did I spend on my devices engaging in non-important and non-urgent distractions?
- Which apps do I go to when I engage in these non-important and non-urgent distractions?
- What activities could I do with this time instead? Be specific here.
- What will I tell myself this following week, when I feel the need to use these apps?
I call these ‘Screen Time Audits.’ Write your answers down on a piece of paper, once a week, and keep your answers at arm’s length. Block out when you will do these audits in your calendar.
When you feel the need to engage in a waste of time through your device, look at your scheduled time, and stay away from these time-sucks, so you will not have to be face-to-face with your own disappointment when the time to audit comes by.
By controlling your screen time in the way described above, you take the first step to better learning.
Join YouTube University
It is a widespread fact that the best way to learn new things is with active recall, where you have to engage with the gears in your mind to recall something. Using this over time is very beneficial.
However, when introduced to new subjects or topics, active recall will not help very much, as you are new to the topic. If you are still very uncomfortable with a new subject, and already have some base-level information on it, the best way to engage further is to learn the information in a different light.
If you are a student, and you visited a teacher’s lecture and want to understand more, find another professor giving a similar discussion on the topic on YouTube. If you are studying a book about a psychology topic, find a scientific article or explanation online that reflects on the topic from a slightly different perspective.
I call YouTube a University somewhat as a joke, but it really is a great way to be introduced to a new topic from multiple different perspectives (as long as you are being intentional, and not being sucked into the rabbit hole.)
Understanding the same knowledge from slightly different perspectives can help your brain create connections that you wouldn’t have realized before. After this, you will feel more comfortable engaging in active recall, but understand that this is not a substitute.
Utilize different resources covering the same topic from a different perspective to help your brain flourish.
Connect Knowledge Using A Second Brain
As everyone knows, our memory can be kind of an idiot sometimes. Sometimes, big connections or revelations can be lost in what seems like a blink if we are not too careful.
The Second Brain system is aimed at fixing that. Popularized by Tiago Forte, the Second Brain is a personal knowledge management system aimed at creating connections between ideas and information, almost in the way like your brain does.
Apps like Obsidian do this the best. Using links and block references, you can create links between your knowledge. Revisiting things you have typed down later, you can see how it connects with other areas of your expertise, some of which you may have forgotten. This becomes beautiful to watch in the graph view.
By using a Second Brain to store your mental connections, you relieve yourself of the duty to constantly revisit new connections in your mind. Instead, they are set in stone on your computer, so you can revisit them when refreshing your knowledge later.
I encourage you to visit Nick Milo’s Obsidian for Beginners series on YouTube to learn more.
Connecting your knowledge and thinking with a Second Brain unlocks a new level of thinking and learning that would previously have seemed unimaginable.
If you found this valuable, get more of my stories here.
If you would like a Part 4, or have any feedback for me, let me know in the comments. I appreciate it.
