Have you ever wonder if you can learn something in a short space of time than usually takes years in like weeks or months? Maybe something like a new language in a few months? As a person who likes learning new things, I have a to-learn list (Learning Projects) I created at the beginning of this year with the aim of finishing them by Christmas. While, having a list of things to learn is a good start, trying to learn each one in a short space of time is challenging.
My problem is: I want to learn a whole list of things but only have a limited time each week. So what can I do to compress all these things in the time available?
After researching the area of productivity and rapid learning, I discovered a wide range of material, research, and books that can help. I have decided to summarize this and break it down so everyone can benefit from this.
For the rest of this post, I will just call it Ultra-learning a term I am borrowing from a few books written about this topic. I will break down this post into the core concepts and how I can apply this. I will include a downloadable cheat sheet at the bottom of the post.
My Observations of the Current Education System
Let’s take a step back to think about how we have been taught since we enter the schooling system.
The following are my own observations after learning more about the ultra-learning. These are just my observations and may not be everyone else:
1. What we learn at school, while some things are useful; in a lot of cases, are not. How much of algebra did you use after school?
2. The method taught at school or universities can be outdated and is designed for the 20th century and not the 21st Century.
3. We learn a lot of facts at school, but have anyone noticed we don’t the best ways to learn? When was the last time someone taught you how to read?
4. There is a mismatch in today’s education system with the labor market. While education is getting more expensive, it doesn’t necessary to prepare us for the real world.
5. Once we finish school, most of us think its the end of our learning phase. What we learn at school is only the beginning of our learning journey. It is by no means the end.
With the above points out of the way, I want to talk about the following core concepts.
Basic Concepts to Understand Before We Start
1. Work Less to Achieve More
The 80/20 Rule Principle “The Pareto Principle” is a principle that states 80 percent of your result is generated by 20 percent of your efforts. The ratio may not be 80/20 but the core message is a small effort can create large results in most areas of life. For example, you can go to google and find the top 39 countries out of the 195 countries contain the wealth of about 90% of the world’s wealth.
2. Have an Open Mind
Do not be constraint by limiting beliefs such as:
- “it’s impossible to learn a new language in a few months” or
- “that’s how I use to learn to do my additions in maths and there are on another way”
If we have limiting beliefs and restricts our minds and limits all the opportunities. We need to have an open mind and try new ideas.
You may have heard it takes 10,000 hours to learn a skill. The question I would like to ask is do we need to learn everything about that skill? If you were learning a language, do I need to know how to write the language? Or is the only part of the language I need to know is to ask for directions and get by while traveling?
3. Think About Why We Want To Learn This
The scope – It is important to identify why we are learning the skill and focus on the component we need to learn rather than learning all aspects of the skill.
The depth – Now in terms of the level of the skill, if I wanted to converse comfortably in Spanish, do I need to learn the 88,000 words in the Spanish vocabulary. Or do I learn the 2000 most commonly used words in Spanish to get by with approximately 80% of the most commonly used words to be able to hold a normal conversation?
The “Why” is it very important and this will drive you to keep pushing ahead. The why will lead to the depth and breadth of our learning. For example, I want to learn how to build a report in Microsoft Excel for my meeting next week. The purpose is to present the status of the project in a summary format.
So what do I need to learn to create this report? I need to know the following functions in excel. Let’s assume my skill level is basic.
1. I will need to know how to create a basic table
2. I need to know how to link worksheets
3. I need to know how to use a pivot table
4. I need to know who to use condition formating
5. I need to know how to create a bar and pie chart.
That’s all I need to know. These functions make up less than 5% of the functions available in Mircosoft Excel but are the most commonly used ones. For me, it’s all I need to learn between now and next week. The ”Why” helps me work out the “What”. I will touch on this later in the blog.
Great Authors and Teachers, I came across online.
While they are not my teachers at school; authors and content creators who publish information online or in a book are doing so to share the knowledge and wisdom to interested people around the world. We can learn so much from them. I have borrowed concepts from the following books and people and want to thank these wonderful people for writing these books and providing these resources online.
I will add a link to their books & podcast at the bottom of this post.
- Kwik Brain PodCast – Jim Kwik,
- The Art Of Learning – Josh Waitzkin,
- Ultra Learning – Scott H Young, and
- Mind for Numbers: by Baraba Oakley
Concepts Borrowed from The Kwik Brain Podcast – Jim Kwik
The FAST Method
Jim Kwik, a world-renowned memory expert and coach to Hollywood Celebrities recently talked about the FAST method in one of his podcasts. I will provide a link to the Kwik Podcast Below
FAST (Forget, Active, State, Teach)
F-Forget
- Jim suggests we forget what we already know about the subject so you can learn something brand new. A lot of people think they already know the subject and the cup is full. Start with a beginner’s mind. This makes a lot of sense as what we already know can constraint our learning.
- Forget about your limitations. This is more to do with having a limited belief. The more open we are the more we can learn. If someone told you when you’re young that you are not good at maths, is this true? Of course, not. You can train yourself to be better at it. Our learning is limitless
- Forget about other distractions around the world. We need to focus on the things we can influence and ignore things we can’t change
A-Active
- At school, we sit down and learn passively. This is not enough in the 21st century. We need to be active learning. We need to be involved, take notes, ask questions, participate and be involved. Passive learning is not enough today. We need to learn actively.
“Your brain doesn’t learn through consumption. It learns through creation” – Jim Kwik
S- State
- According to Jim, the current state of our mind is important. “All learning is State-Dependent” Jim Kwik.
- Jim’s formula for learning is Information + emotion = Long Memory.
- Do you remember most things you learned from school? A lot of times you don’t. It’s likely you were bored at that time. If you want to learn something you need to control your state. The most important thing is how you feel when you learn something. You can create an environment with no distractions. We need to get into a state of curiosity and excitement when we learn.
“All learning is State-Dependent” Jim Kwik.
T-Teach
The best way to learn is to teach it. You learn something twice when you teach it.
Concepts borrowed from The first 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything Fast! by Josh Kaufman
According to Josh Kaufman, who is the author of The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business and the book, The first 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything Fast! Josh came up with a three-part blueprint. I will summarise it below
3 Part Blueprint
Concept 1 – Imagine Disaster
The disaster scenario: Imagine a target performance in the next few weeks. Picture yourself to use that skill in the next few weeks. For example, if you picture yourself wanting to speak French. Imagine yourself in a small French Town where nobody speaks French. There is no access to the internet and you are lost. You desperately need to ask for directions or look for a shop to buy a bottle of water. What do you do? Use your body language? You need to imagine using the language in that scenario to get you out of the situation.
So what will I need?
- I will need to introduce myself.
- I will need to know the basic words of the places. I need to know how to ask the direction to go like the hotel, to the bakery, to hospital and so on.
- I will need to know the common verbs to get around town. So I need to know words like car, hospital, water, food, hotel and so on
- I will need to be able to structure the sentences to ask these questions.
By imaging this disastrous scenario, I am able to come up with a list of things I need to learn and also the order in which I need to learn them.
Concept 2 – Know Just Enough
Now I know what I need to know. I need to know how to learn it. I need to be knowledgable enough to distinguish whether what I have learned is correct and be able to correct it while practicing.
Once I know enough and start practicing and self-correct. This is a process that I can keep on going and if I identify any gaps in my knowledge, I will conduct more research. I can use coaches, mentors and other resources. To make the most of your first 20 hours learn enough to self-correct.
Concept 3. Struggle and Sleep
Break up the Practice sessions. Use short and intense practice sessions and sleep. Scientists have found developing motor skills is the most effective if you practice it within 4 hours of sleep. The brain only upgrades your ability in the new skill only when you struggle with it. The more intervals of struggle and sleep the faster your will improve. Sleep consolidates and encodes what we learn during the day.
TIP: Practising 20 minutes in the morning will help you focus and 20 minutes before you sleep will increase the odds of consolidating the skill while you sleep. If you practice 40 minutes a day and by the end of the month you would have practiced 20 hours of your new skill.
Concepts Borrowed From Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career by Scott Young.
Scott undertook an Ultra learning experiment and decided to go overseas with a friend to learn four languages in 12 months. Scot was able to learn four languages(Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, and Korean) in a space of 12 months. He set himself and a friend a constraint to only speak the language of that country while they were there. He was able to achieve a conversational level for all four languages during that time. He termed this method Ultralearning. The difference between Ultra learning and other learning is Ultra learning is self-directed and intense. Standard learning has a standard syllabus and a lot of the things you’re learning are not used. Ultra learning is where the student takes control of what they learn by designing their own syllabus. They learn from many sources and teachers unlike in a traditional classroom setting. The core principle of Ultra learning include:
Concept 1. Make a Meta-Learning Map
Take learning in your own hands and spend about 10% of the learning time trying to understand the following:
- Core concepts – What concepts do I need to learn to achieve x. For example, if I want to have a conversation in a language, do I really need to learn how to write the language?
- Facts – What facts do I need to memorize. For example, I need to learn the 10 most commonly used verbs of Spanish. Do I need to learn the 88,000 words in Spanish or do I learn the most commonly used 2000 words that are enough for most day to day conversations?
- Procedures/Movements – An example is an artist identifies accurately getting the face features correctly in a portrait is both essential and important factor of success. Designing a practice drill to master this skill the key to your success.
Now that we have the above three concepts, we can put all of them in a Meta-learning Map. Using the concepts, come up with a list for each concept and identify the most challenging items and design drills for each of those items.
Concept 2. Design a Practice Drills
This is to engrain the challenging but essential concepts that are key to the success of the skill. The practice drills are exercises that help you practice the challenging skills identified in your Meta-learning map.
Put all the above in a list and identify the most challenging items and design drills for each of those items. For example, designing an exercise on how to practice tones of Mandarin Chinese. This may be one of the most challenging parts of speaking Mandarin Chinese and a practice drill to master the sound helps you overcome this. You may be able to use various apps or just get a tutor just to focus on your tone.
Concept 3. Overlearn
An example is if you are playing chess or any other competition, play in both your current proficiency level and the one above. For a 5th Grader learning maths, it’s like going to do 5th Grade Maths and 6th Grade Maths. The question you have to ask yourself is “What is my target performance and what is my next level?”
Concepts borrowed from A Mind for Numbers: by Baraba Oakley
The core principle here is: We have two modes of focus. We can have an intense mode of focus and a diffuse mode of focus. When we are in an intense mode of focus we are better with sequential and logical thought. When we are in a diffused mode, we are more relaxed and it allows our brain to have a wider range of thinking. It’s like daydreaming and allows your subconscious mind to do the thinking and expand our thoughts
The way to apply this concept is: We go into a focus mode for about 25 minutes and take a 5-minute break. We commit to a few rounds of this and then go to a diffuse mode. The diffuse mode will give your brain an insight into the problem. Going for a walk during your break is a good way to let the ideas sink in.
“I just walk when I come back it just all pours out on its own” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
How to Apply the Ultra Learning Concepts
Now we have all the concepts understood… How can we apply it?
I am going to apply this to my own learning projects. For now, I will approach it in the following way.
Categorize your learning projects
Let’s decide on the size of your learning project and then set aggressive timeframes. Say something that takes a year – target a couple of months. I will bucket my learnings into three key groups. Let’s call it Small, Medium and Large
1. SMALL LEARNING PROJECT:
I consider a learning project that traditionally takes a few weeks as a small learning project. I would use an example like learning a fairly complex mathematical concept, a complex science concept or a basic software tool as a small project. Timeframe: I would target a 3-week project to be learned within a few days. Yes, this may be aggressive but using what we’ve learned, it is definitely achievable.
2. MEDIUM LEARNING PROJECT
This Medium size project usually takes a few months – learning a new more complex software tool or a skill like a painting.
Timeframe: We can condense this from a few months to a few weeks.
3. LARGE LEARNING PROJECT
This large project that usually takes years, for example, learning a language. We can condense the timeframe to months.
Let’s take learning Italian as an example:
In my To-Learn List, I will group these items and prioritize them to what I want to learn first. We have to remember our goal is to be proficient. I am not trying to get a Nobel Peace Prize or achieve Mastery.
For Small Learning Projects-Which Method Should I Use?
For Small Learning Project like learning how to use Photoshop or similar software.
1. I will ask myself why I need to learn this, What I need to learn and What is the minimum level of skill level I need.
Using the Photoshop Example.
I need to which software either photoshop or something else takes the least time to learn. My goal is to be able to edit graphics. So whether its Photoshop or GIMP, I need to find a tool that is relatively easier to learn and does roughly the same job.
2. What do I need to do? Using the photoshop example, I want to be able to overlay an image onto another background, I need to change the image quality and resize the image.
3. Level of Proficiency – As long as I can get these three things done with the bare minimum effort I have to achieve my goal. Like in the book the First 20 hours, I am going to borrow the Just Enough Concept.
Just Enough Concept
I will apply the Disaster Scenario from the First 20 hours book when I am thinking about what I need to learn. I am visualizing walking my team members through Photoshop or an equivalent tool next week.
Meta learning Map
Now I am under the pressure and will start planning. I will adopt the Meta-Learning Map. This will be modified as it is not as complex as say learning a new language.
Using the Meta-learning map I will break down what I need to learn into 3 steps: Concepts/facts, Procedure and Overlearning
Concepts/Fact
- I will consider all types of tools similar to photoshop
- Download the correct software version
- Learn the type of files I need to save the graphic
- Learn how to make objects transparent. Learn how to make overlay one image on top of the other
Procedure
- Free resources are available online blogs, YouTube or a low-cost course of learning platforms like Udemy.
- I will need to assess how time poor I am.
Now I have all the information. I will create a timetable for myself to execute them over a few days. - I will space them task out to early morning and evening.
- I will also break my sessions to 25-minute chunks to use the concept of intense.
- I’ve made a schedule and have included it below
For Large and Complex Learning Projects-Which Method Should I Use?
For larger projects, I will follow the Ultra Learning Method as a base framework and incorporate other concepts along the way.
Alternatively, I will break the Large Project into sub-component and apply some of the principles from the 3 Part Blue Print from The first 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything Fast!
Determine what I need to learn and the importance
Let’s look at an example: Say studying a language. I will approach this firstly with the 80/20 Principle. Identify the top 2000 words I need to learn (that consist of about 80% of the daily vocabulary a Spanish user will use
Design the Ultra-learning Map
I will repeat the same with the Verbs and Grammar structure.
Decide on the best method of learning
Design the Practice Drill
There are various methods. I can apply flashcards to learn the vocabulary, watch special youtube videos to target the specific verb or grammar.
Listening: Immerse me in the language by watching something in a subject in interest in Spanish.
Overlearn
For listening commit to basic and intermediate level at the same time. For speaking practice with a Native Speaker either via skype or one on one (assuming I am not in that country). Immersion is the best method. Make your surrounding Spanish – Watch and listen to Spanish Content and all things Spanish for Overlearning.
There is a lot of information to absorb. I am planning to use these concepts and apply them to my own learning project. I will publish my learnings, methods and share my results at a later date.
For now, I have design a summary FACT SHEET you can download. I will include it Free below
Final Thoughts…
As long as we keep an open mind and try new things we will always be able to learn something new. There are a lot of people out there who have discovered new and better ways of doing things, so why not leverage off others to save yourself time and energy to improving your daily life.