Have a look at this hall of fame of amazing works people did to summarize what they learned about learning how to learn!
Some really good materials from different people e.g. videos, articles, blogs about learning how to learn.
In summary then, we learned that analogies provide powerful techniques for learning. We learned about how the brain’s two different thinking modes focused and diffuse, each helps us learn but in very different ways. Finally, we learned that learning something difficult can take time. Your brain needs to alternate it’s ways of learning as it grapples with and assimilates the new material.
So it means that people who are less agreeable or more disagreeable tend to show higher creative achievement.
And the way that I find easiest to remember those five factors is to use the acronym OCEAN, which stands for openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. And now that we’ve looked at that personality characteristics of people and then tried to relate their personality characteristics to their degree of creative achievement. We find that there are two correlations here one of them is not surprising at all. Openness to a new experience is associated with great achievement. But then we find something that’s perhaps not quite as intuitive, there is a correlation also with agreeableness but that correlation is negative. So it means that people who are less agreeable or more disagreeable tend to show higher creative achievement. And I think that we might consider this to be a facet of nonconformism. Those who tend to challenge the status quo, challenge models, and don’t believe things just because other people have said them. I think that these are our folks who are more likely to be creative achievers.
Trying to figure out what’s the higher altitude view, stepping back from a problem and thinking about well, why am I doing this? What’s the bigger picture?
The other thing that I really like to do, and sometimes we’ve recommended this in exercises to enhance creativity. Is to do a powers of ten exercise. And for those who haven’t seen it, there’s a great video. You can easily get it online. Well you just look up powers of ten video I think that will do the job. It basically starts with an imagine of a man sitting or lying in a hammock. And then the camera zooms ten feet above, then 100 feet above, then 1,000 feet above, it goes by powers of ten. Ultimately you’re exploring the cosmos in outer space. And then it zooms back down into the man. Then it goes powers of ten inside the skin. Goes into the cell, goes down and reveals the molecules, and then finally, and what’s really mind blowing, is how far you have to go when you start getting into subatomic space. Where you’re really surrounded by nothingness. More vast than the universe itself. So I think that getting that kind of exercise, getting that perspective. Trying to figure out what’s the higher altitude view, stepping back from a problem and thinking about well, why am I doing this? What’s the bigger picture? But then also drilling into individual facets and details, by zooming in and zooming out from a problem. I usually find I get a much better idea of the problem scope and different perspective on that problem.
So, to mind map, take that piece of paper, turn it sideways and write the topic in the center of the page, then draw a circle around it.
But the thing is, if you think about it, outlining engages your focused brain. That’s the part of the brain that’s good at spelling, and grammar, and alphabetical order in this sort of very specific tasks. When you’re writing, you want to create, you want to think of things, you want to make new connections, and that’s where you really need the diffused brain. So, to mind map, take that piece of paper, turn it sideways and write the topic in the center of the page, then draw a circle around it. Once you’ve drawn that circle around it, then, just write whatever springs into your brain. The thing I also like to say, and people find this a little bit gross sometimes, but I say it’s kind of like vomiting onto the page. So, don’t criticize yourself, don’t second guess any of those ideas that occurs to your brain, then write it down.
if you don’t practice with your growing chunks, they can remain faint and it’s harder to put together the big picture of what you’re trying to learn.
When you’re trying to figure something out, if you have a good library of these chunks, you can more easily skip to the right solution by metaphorically speaking, listening to whispers from your diffuse mode. Your diffuse mode can help you connect two or more chunks together in new ways to solve novel problems. Another way to think of it is this, as you build each chunk it is filling in a part of your larger knowledge picture, but if you don’t practice with your growing chunks, they can remain faint and it’s harder to put together the big picture of what you’re trying to learn. In building a chunked library, you’re training your brain to recognize not only a specific concept, but different types and classes of concepts so that you can automatically know how to solve quickly or handle whatever you encounter.
Think of it like links in a necklace. Each time you practice or retrieve the information from your own brain, the links in the neural necklace become stronger.
Our neurons—tiny biological cells— are fundamental building blocks of learning in the brain. We make connections between neurons as we’re learning. The clumps of connected neurons as we learn something form what we call “chunks.” The connections we make between neurons strengthen with practice, forming neural pathways that help us recall information more easily. Think of it like links in a necklace. Each time you practice or retrieve the information from your own brain, the links in the neural necklace become stronger.
metaphors can help our brains form connections and make sense of complex topics.
Metaphors, as it turns out, are not just a literary device. They play a crucial role in how we understand and process new information by linking it to information we already know. By linking these abstract concepts to the more concrete, familiar ideas already in our minds, metaphors can help our brains form connections and make sense of complex topics.
Transfer is the idea that a chunk you’ve mastered in one area can often help you much more easily learn chunks of information in different areas that can share surprising commonalities.
You want your brain to become used to the idea that just knowing how to use a particular concept, approach, or problem-solving technique isn’t enough. You also need to know when to use it. Interleaving your studies, making it a point to review for a test, for example, by skipping around through problems in the different chapters and materials can sometimes seem to make your learning a little more difficult, but in reality, it helps you learn more deeply. Interleaving is extraordinarily important. Although practice and repetition is important in helping build solid neural patterns to draw on, it’s interleaving that starts building flexibility and creativity. Transfer is the idea that a chunk you’ve mastered in one area can often help you much more easily learn chunks of information in different areas that can share surprising commonalities.
Transfer is important. When I can understand a concept well in one area, I should use it to transfer to another concept in another area e.g. any questions about influence, buy-in I immediately recall the STAR when managing multiple releases acting Debbie. I want to be able to pick that STAR so quickly for other capabilities as well. The trick is the transfer.
What you think you know, you find out when you try to explain it to somebody else, that’s why teaching is one of the best ways to learn.
What you think you know, you find out when you try to explain it to somebody else, that’s why teaching is one of the best ways to learn. But even if you don’t go full blown to tutoring somebody else, just in discussing it with a set of peers and colleagues, okay, this is what I think I know. And they challenge you. Okay, well that’s not what I thought I thought, but let me explain. And they will either, you will either validate what you thought, or you will find a, the fallacy in what you thought. And they do the same thing. And so you help each other by explaining material to each other.
He’s a smart guy, and he was talking about a particular academic paper, particular concept he didn’t understand, and his approach wasn’t to throw his hands up and say, “Well, I don’t get it, it hurts, too difficult”, but he went through meticulously not only trying to understand everything that was in that paper but of the papers it sourced. He read through them very carefully and combed through them and tried to make sure he understood all the supporting ideas. So for me, I’ve kind of adapted that into this idea of taking a blank piece of paper out and writing as if I’m trying to teach someone else what this idea is all about or what this process for solving a particular type of problem is all about or what it means. What I find happens is that you usually get to points where you have some friction, where you have to be too vague or you can’t really be as exact and precise as you want to be, and those are usually the things that you don’t understand. So, you can go back to your notes, you can go back to the textbook, look up that exact spot and figure out, “Oh, this is the part I’m missing. I’m missing step three of this process. Or I don’t really understand why step three works, maybe I can ask someone, a teacher or a friend.”
To prevent procrastination you want to avoid concentrating on product. Instead, your attention should be on building processes
The essential idea here is that the zombie habitual part of your brain likes processes because it can march mindlessly along. It’s far easier to enlist the friendly zombie habit to help with a process, then to help with a product. By focusing on process rather than product, you allow yourself to back away from judging yourself, am I getting closer to finishing? And instead you allow yourself to relax into the flow of the work.
I’m not too concerned with my procrastination. I’m more concerned with over-eating. I don’t have a real strategy to avoid eating yet. But I will find a way. When there’s a will, there is a way.
Write a list the night before you sleep
Writing the list before you go to sleep enlists your zombies to help you accomplish the items on the list the next day. If you don’t write your tasks down on a list, they lurk at the edge of the four or so slots in your working memory, taking up valuable mental real estate. But once you make a task list, it frees working memory for problem-solving. Planning your quitting time is as important as planning your working time.
- Keep a planner journal
- Commit yourself to certain routines and tasks each day
- Give your zombie a reward
- Delay rewards until your zombie finishes the task
- Eat your frog first everyday
It is even possible to implant false memories, which are indistinguishable from real ones by simply suggesting.
Memories are not fixed but living, breathing parts of your brain that are changing all of the time. Whenever you recall a memory, it changes, a process called, reconsolidation. It is even possible to implant false memories, which are indistinguishable from real ones by simply suggesting and imagining, especially in children who have vivid imaginations.
Another key to memorization is to create meaningful groups that simplify the material. Let’s say you wanted to remember four plants that help ward off vampires; garlic, rose, hawthorn, and mustard. The first letters abbreviate to GRHM. So all you need to do to remember is to use the image of a Graham cracker.
You need to be in your most relaxed state like running, and not thinking about the problem, then you could suddenly solve that problem later on.
I’ve never ever, well I have solved problems in the bath, that’s a somewhat more relaxing case. But even in the bath, it’s an artificial environment in which you’re relaxed. You’re in water, you’re doing things, you’re freeing up the mind, the mind is absolutely not thinking about that problem, it’s doing other things. In my case definitely the bath example not withstanding, physical activity plays a big role. Exactly why? I don’t know, but I do know it works.
It’s the switching gears to something else that I find, I need willpower to do that.
So the one moment where I will procrastinate is starting something new, for obvious reasons. You’ve been in the groove, you’ve been making progress and it’s slowed down and you’ve got to get in another groove. I know that that takes willpower and effort and like everybody else I do have a procrastination streak. But the only time it affects me is making that switch. Once I’ve done it, I’m away in that domain until I’ve either solved that issue or done it or completed it or got tired of it and need a break. That I found works extremely well… But then I have to sort of stop that and do something else, and that’s when there’s these hiatus moments when I procrastinate. It’s the switching gears to something else that I find, I won’t say I find it difficult because I’ve been doing it all my life. But you do need willpower to do that. At least I find I need willpower to do that. If I’m not careful it will just fritter away with social media or whatever.