Learning to Learn
Over the past few years, I have dipped my feet (with varying levels of success) into several random pursuits — creative writing, learning Chinese, ML programming, Taekwondo, teaching, etc. Now, I won’t bore you with the details of these individually and what successes & failures I personally had. Instead, I would like to share my takeaways on the learning process itself. Concepts that I wish I knew at the beginning to make the learning process easier.
1. Asymmetry of Time scales
For the purposes of deep focus, large chunks of time are needed. There is mental ramp-up time & cool-down time. Ramp-up time can itself be 30 mins to an hour and is very hard to avoid or speed up consistently. You do yourself a disservice if you try to rush it. Similarly, there is cool-down time. After a session, you want a period of low stimulation for the brain to free-associate & integrate the new information. This will not happen if you are being assaulted by random stimuli (like watching a movie immediately afterward). For this reason, a four-hour slot is much more effective than four one-hour slots.
Note that exact optimal time-frames will vary from person to person. It will also vary from task to task. Personally, I find that mental tasks require a longer warm-up time than physical tasks (and hence need larger chunks). This may be because physical tasks have a knack for forcing your mind into focus, while mental tasks can only start in earnest once your mind’s random wandering has abated.
Avoid context-switching like the plague. Reduce irrelevant stimulation as much as possible when trying to learn something new.
2. Personal & Social Intelligence
In order to learn, you need to be able to block out time. And to achieve this, you need assertiveness. Your time and attention are always under siege from the world all around you — from family, friends, colleagues, and marketing departments. You need to know thyself, be clear about your priorities, and be able to assertively say NO to everything else.
Planning your time ahead & consistency makes this easier. If you are deciding in every moment where to spend your time then you will end up falling for the instant gratification option. Reduce decision-making. Set aside a specific time, and then guard this time strongly.
Developing a social circle around the thing you are trying to learn can do wonders. It keeps your motivation levels high and prevents you from getting stuck at a hump. It also deepens your understanding when you discuss & debate one another.
3. The paradox of choice
Where to start? There is an infinity of resources on the internet. You can’t know in advance which learning material is the best. Everyone claims to be the best. Should you start with a formal course/trainer, or rather pick things up on your own? Analysis paralysis ensues.
It’s good to follow a structured approach while starting out. This will save you from going over the same introductory material again & again at different places. A structured course that starts from level-zero and goes up in a gradual, rigorous way will ensure your learning journey starts on the right track.
But how do you select which course to follow? Which person to make your guru? Based on my experience, this question is less important than it seems. It is more important to get started. If the material is from any decently credible source, it will lead you in the right direction. And once you know the direction, you gain experience and start getting ideas on how to proceed on your own.
Do not be worried that sometimes it feels like plodding through & you are not making fast progress. Some efforts will even lead you down dead-ends where you don’t learn anything new. But even this is part of the learning experience. Malcolm Gladwell famously said that it takes 10,000 hours to master any craft. While the exact number of hours may be debatable, what is important to note here is that adequate time needs to be spent. A lot of this time will indeed be spent making mistakes and plodding through.
4. Personalization in Learning Styles
Consuming information & retaining information are two different activities and one must understand their own mind’s nuances for each of these.
We process information differently over visual, audio & text inputs. I find that it’s most effective for me to consume big chunks of information over video. It’s more entertaining & takes less effort than reading a book. It’s more effective than a real-time classroom session even, as I can pause & rewind wherever I wish to.
However, I have also realised this only leads to loading the information into short-term memory. Unless I do anything else, my brain is likely to discard this buffered information quite soon. To transfer it into long-term memory, a reproduction of the same information is mandated — either by writing it down or explaining the same concept to someone else (my wife is the default guinea pig for this). Reproducing the information myself seems to activate a different process in the brain and helps with longer-term retention.
Let me know in the comments what realizations you’ve had on your learning journey.
The amount of learning resources available today is ridiculous. If you are one who derives joy from learning new things, it is worth critically thinking about how you can the most of this beautiful opportunity!
