2 — Leveraging Mind
“Of what I know I am certain but of what I do not know, well there is no bigger mystery than that.” (V. Snow, 2017)
A certain level of competence is a prerequisite for flow. In the first stages of learning anything new the process is effortful and tedious. However, over time as we rehearse the task becomes more efficient, requiring less focused attention. Often in our work we are leveraging an existing skillset of which we may have an abundance of knowledge. We can maximise our existing expertise on a topic to simultaneously build our knowledge base and work more efficiently.
Our brain is an exquisitely efficient machine which uses heuristics (mental shortcuts) to maximise its processing capability in order to overcome system limitations. In addition our memories are potentially infinite storage capacities which store and retrieve information in somewhat predictable ways. Understanding some basic theories of cognition we can take advantage of the way in which our brain works. How to leverage the mind.
Read the following paragraph and extract the critical pieces of information.
You might be thinking why do we actively ask ourselves “why is this important?” and “how can we use it to achieve our aim?” and extending this “what other extracted pieces of information is it connected to?”
Extracting the data is important but it is hardly where you should stop. Taking the next step and actively considering the data in specific ways as your extract it is playing on the richness of your existing memory networks. This is a form of elaborate encoding. Continuing with the above example.
This is a shallow extraction. I am purely analyzing the paragraph for meaning but you can do this for any purpose. We have broken the paragraph down into its essence,
A single wealthy man I perceived as fair game for local families with an eligible daughter.
Without noticing, while we read the text we are connecting the information to our existing knowledge base. We already have a schema (mental representation) for the time period this paragraph is set in and with that we have preconceived notions about marriage and society during that time. This is the elaborate semantic network we leverage when presented with new information and also the reason why it’s critical to focus on “why” the information is important rather than just extracting it objectively.
Here is another example taken this time from Psychology,
This time I am going to provide the context of extraction. The primary aim in reading the above paper was to research the link between inhibitory processes and impulsivity. I will analyse two extractions below.
This seems rather simple on the face of it but underneath we are doing something vital to learning; effortful encoding. During each extraction, we are forced to think about (a) why the information is important and (b) how we can use it to achieve our aim.
Summary
· It’s all in the way we connect information
· Don’t under-estimate how much you already know
· Extract the critical pieces of data from the background noise
· Think of each new aim/learning objective as building on your current web of knowledge
