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How to Learn Anything
Episode 25
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Today at a Glance:
Learning is a skill—but we need a new way to approach learning that is fast, nimble, and tailored for our ever-changing digital reality.
The framework for learning anything: (1) Identify & Establish, (2) Research, (3) Skin in the Game, (4) Engage Community, (5) Teach, and (6) Reflect & Review.
The New Way to Learn
Learning is a skill—arguably the most important skill. But unfortunately, despite its importance to your career and life, it’s not one you’re ever explicitly taught how to approach.
Let’s fix that.
Today, I will share a tactical approach to learning anything.
Introduction
Curiosity and inspiration are not predictable—they strike at random (and often inopportune!) times. But they must be acted on.
Growth is a natural byproduct of acting on curiosity and inspiration.
“Inspiration is perishable. When you have inspiration, act on it right then and there.” - Naval
Ok, so let’s assume you've been bit by the curiosity bug and are ready to act on it. Now what? You’re inspired and motivated to learn, but you don’t even know where to begin.
All your years of school didn't really prepare you for this. The "old way" of researching and learning—reading textbooks cover-to-cover, checking books out of the library, scouring footnotes for primary and secondary sources—is slow, arduous, and a relic of our analog, industrial past. It may work for school (e.g. if you are writing a final thesis or research paper), but it fails spectacularly in the real world.
You need a "new way"—a fast, dynamic, and nimble approach tailored to the new, ever-changing digital reality. I’d like to propose a “new way” for consideration.
This learning framework involves six key steps:
Identify & Establish
Research
Skin in the Game
Engage Community
Teach
Reflect & Review
The general structure is fixed, but its application is intended to be dynamic & iterative.
Let's walk through the steps...
Identify & Establish
The framework begins with a blank page—one that you will progressively fill out as you work through the steps.
Identify the topic and quickly write down everything you know about it. Put the topic at the top of the page and drop in the extent of your current knowledge below it. It’s ok if you know nothing about it. The goal is just to get something down on the page. There are very few things as intimidating as starting from zero, so we can use this quick blast to engage in some mental trickery to get going.
Here’s a simple example of what this start might look like. Nothing fancy (
Published on 4 years, 4 months ago