Effective learning

Humans, as inherently curious creatures, have always been drawn to the joy of learning. Our civilization’s history is proof to our love for ventures into the unknown. Each new discovery, each instance of being proven wrong, is an opportunity to upgrade our view of the world.

Even after the formal education phase, my thirst for knowledge remains intact. Over time, I’ve found myself instinctively employing a specific technique to swiftly absorb knowledge from diverse fields. This post is a deliberate effort to articulate and share this valuable technique.

Unknown frontiers are calling

It makes sense to differentiate between known unknowns and unknown unknowns. The former refers to areas of knowledge where we are conscious of our lack of knowledge. These are characterized by the following questions:

• How does that work?
• Why does it work?
• What is X/Y?
• What is X/Y suitable for?
• etc.

The second group of unknowns is harder to pin down as we are completely unaware of their existence. The techniques I am about to describe are more useful for the former group, although they may also lead you to discover unknown unknowns.

Discovery is learning

Every time you absorb new knowledge, your neural pathways undergo a transformation. New connections are forged, andexisting ones are either reinforced or weakened. Embracing new information may sometimes necessitate the severing of old connections, leading to a loss of associations. Yet, unlearning is often the key to progress. The speed at which you can adapt your mindset is directly linked to your potential. In fact, it’s not just a correlation, but also a causation. The faster and more effectively you absorb knowledge, the better equipped you are to navigate the world. When I say ‘absorb ‘, I don’t mean blind acceptance; it’s more about the rate at which you can process information and efficiently filter, store, or modify it. It’s the speed at which you manage your mental models.

Mental models

You’ve got to have models in your head, and you’ve got to array your experience – both vicarious and direct – onto this latticework of mental models.
Charlie Munger

As we live, we construct mental models to understand how the world works. Some people regularly update their mental models to fit their experience, while others alter their explanations of events to the model they hold. Success is found on both sides of the aisle. I believe in understanding reality and updating my mental models to closely match it. As you experience more and more, you’ll see that some models or ‘way things work’ can generalize very well to different areas. These are high-level, abstract models, and you can find many collections on the web. My favorite is Shane Parish’s Mental Models series.

You can browse here for a gist of these high-level models.

Discovery Framework

When you learn, your mind manages your models about the world. Here is the process I use regularly to effectively update my worldview while having fun. Here are the three steps.

Gain a holistic view

Do yourself a favor and look around before you get buried in details. Aim to get a holistic view and feel of the terrain. It’s also a good idea to begin with the end in mind and regularly look at the compass pointing the way. Your journey likely won’t be a straight line—and it doesn’t have to be. However, you should always know roughly where you are and whether the goal you are pursuing is getting you closer.

Get dirty

There is only so much you can learn without getting your hands dirty. Knowledge is distilled by application. Getting hands-on will multiply your learning effectiveness. There are lots of ways to engage with the new material. Aim to find the best one for your situation.

Share

The best way to learn is to teach. Consequently, the most effective way to consume new knowledge is to do so as if you would need to teach it tomorrow. Aim for deep understanding; look for connections, correlations, and causations. Search for whys, and you’ll be amazed at how much more solid your knowledge is. Students learn the surface; trainers learn the depths. Sharing your knowledge not only reinforces your understanding but also contributes to a larger learning community.

Gaining a holistic view

Build up a mental model before you do anything. This has quite a lot of benefits:

1. It engages the knowledge you already have, priming you to accept new material.
2. It triggers your imagination, which is a natural extension of your world view and intuitions.
3. It will serve as the basis for the hypothesis you’ll test later.

Alternatives

How does it work? Why does it work that way?

Previously, I wrote about the best question: What do you think? 

During discovery, it is crucial to think and reason before engaging with what’s already out there. One of the best ways to do this is to find answers to the questions above and consider alternatives and generalizations. Those who have spent much time in math competitions know the value of alternative and general solutions. These are worth extra points, and for good reason.

Generating multiple ways of working and generalization will deeply engage your mind and force it to make connections it otherwise wouldn’t. Lots of your existing mental models will come into play and serve you well during this process.

Pieces of the puzzle

The way to eat an elephant is piece by piece. Exercise your deconstructive powers and break down the domain into smaller parts. Chances are, the domain isn’t completely new to you, so many of the moving parts will be very familiar. Once you have the pieces, you can start conquering them one by one.

This method served me well, as a good chunk of my time is broken up into small bits and pieces. I have a 20-minute bike ride in the morning and afternoon. I wait in line to pick up a package for 5 minutes. I finished a meeting early and had 10 minutes to kill. I constantly return to these small idea domains during these small chunks and think about them.

Now, you are ready

Once you are somewhat confident about how it all works and why, it’s time to test that model in reality. First, read up on the theory and engage with people who know this domain. Read books, articles, and references, listen to podcasts, and talk to people who know this subject well.

Large language models are fantastic for bouncing ideas off of. As you consume material already out there, you constantly test your understanding. And it isn’t a one-way thing; you also test the world and make sure what you read actually makes sense, given what you already know.

Researching NGRX and NGXS was truly a two-way reality check for me. I read a lot of things that I already knew to be false or incorrect. Reasoning through the fundamentals of state management allowed me to spot overgeneralized and incorrect claims.

Getting dirty

You can only go so far in theory, although that can be very far, as you probably know from theoretical physics. Anyway, getting hands-on with the newly discovered knowledge will multiply its effectiveness.

Hypothesize, test, reflect

A good number of scientific discoveries are built on this process. Now that you already know, or think you know, how stuff works, it’s a good idea to try it out. Design tests so they lead to confirmations or falsifications. You are also free to test for “proxy truths,” as in, if the condition you want to test holds, another condition should hold as well. However, you must be careful about causation, its direction, and correlation.

Have you ever felt that you know something must be there for the phenomenon to occur, but you can’t articulate what it is, yet when you find it, it is obvious?

That’s your intuition speaking to you. Following the scientific process led many curious minds to world-changing conclusions. Follow it, and it’ll lead you, too.

Shorten the feedback loop

The speed at which you can test is critical. There is never just a single hypothesis. Usually, there are a lot, and new ones are generated as you go along. The more ideas you have, the more you need to test. The output of each test may influence the next ones. The faster you can run through a loop, the more efficient your learning.

Strive to shorten the time it takes to test a hypothesis.

Keep a log

While you relentlessly pursue your goal, keeping a log of where you are and what you are thinking is a good idea. This is invaluable when you reflect and distill thoughts. It doesn’t have to be a very structured format, but something that lasts longer than your short-term memory is needed.

As you progress, you will inevitably stumble upon multiple sidequests. Take them! Completing these extra challenges will help you gain a broader view of the subject.

Sharing what you learned

True explorers keep the end in mind while they discover novelty. They learn as if they would need to teach it soon. And that isn’t far from the truth either. Great discoveries are worthless if no one knows about them. You should do the same, and once you are familiar with the terrain, take someone with you.

Sharing can take many forms, from training sessions to informal group discussions, from writing about your lessons to talking to a fellow intellectual. It’s best to find someone who disagrees with you to get an alternative perspective. You could also write a blogpost about it to help others engage. This step forces you to clarify your thoughts and relive your journey. It is a form of repetition which solidifies knowledge.

Now go; great things are awaiting you. Be sure to let others know about your discoveries.