Wet stone flag.
10 Things Quick
Learners Do Differently To Pick Up Anything
Jon Brooks
Never before has there been so much information readily
available at our fingertips.
Never before has there been so many free resources to
learn new skills and expand our minds.
But with this unprecedented access to knowledge,
never before has there been so much confusion about what
advice one ought to follow.
More often than not, what separates the people who seem
to pick things up fast and excel
at everything they try isn’t that they’ve stumbled on the
best insights out there.
Rather, it’s that they’ve learned how to learn well.
Here are 10 things quick learners do differently to pick
up anything.
1. Use the 80/20
rule
In 1906 an Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto,
observed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned
by 20% of the population. Taking the observation further
he noticed that 80% of the peas
in his garden were produced from 20% of the pods. Y
ears later, economist Joseph M. Juran called this 80/20
rule the Pareto principle.
Productivity experts like NYT bestselling author Tim
Ferriss have popularised this approach
as a means to learning quickly. For instance, when it
comes to learning a language
a good question to begin with is: what are the 20% of the
words that are used 80% of the time?
Find the 80/20 rule in the subject of your studies. What
are the main ideas? What are the most important elements that yield the biggest
return on investment? Start with these questions.
2. View failure as
feedback
We often try to avoid failure at all costs. We typically
engage in pastimes we feel competent in
and try not to venture out of our comfort pits for fear
of looking like a dork. We play it safe.
This isn’t the way we’ve always been. When learning how
to talk, we would mumble and sing
and talk gobbledegook for hours on end to anyone who
would listen. When first learning to walk,
we would crawl and stand and fall hundreds of times,
sometimes hurting ourselves,
and try again a few minutes later.
Think about all of the hobbies you had growing up–yo-yo,
skateboarding, drawing, instruments, sports–every month there was a new fad
every kid had to try.
We were excited to learn, to improve, whether that meant
failing along the way or not.
The greatest minds in history keep this childlike
curiosity their entire lives.
Thomas Edison, arguably the greatest creative scientist
of all time,
was racing to invent the light bulb before anyone else.
He failed over 10,000 times.
When asked in an interview how he felt about his
failures, without a missing a beat he replied:
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that
won’t work.”
There can be no learning without failure. Embrace it.
3. Simplify
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” – Leonardo da
Vinci
The idea of the superhuman learner who reads 15 books on
different subjects at once,
while learning 10
different languages and writing 3 novels, is a myth.
Multitasking leads to poor performance.
A study conducted by the University of London found
that people who had their email on
while doing work that required concentration lost 10 IQ
points.
If you haven’t slept for 36 hours, you lose 10 IQ points.
If you smoke marijuana, you lose four IQ points. Too many
distractions make us dumb.
Super learners, like Leonardo da Vinci, went through
periods of intense immersion.
Although he is famous for being a scientist and an
artist, da Vinci didn’t take an interest in maths until he was 40. Then he
spent five years learning everything he could about it.
With learning, we must simplify. We must give all of our
attention to one topic at a time.
Taking on too many tasks at once weakens our ability to
learn.
4. Ask “why” five
times to dig deeper
When we see someone perform a magic trick, we’re usually
presented with three acts:
the pledge, the turn and the prestige. An ABC if you
like.
To the magician, however, there are rarely just three
acts, but dozens.
In between A and B there is a further A1, A2 and A3 which
the audience never sees.
Good learners look deeper than what is merely presented
on the surface.
Quick learners ask why multiple times, even when they
think they know the answer.
They probe further. Knowing is not enough, we must
understand.
The next time you are presented with a subject you want
to learn,
ask “why” five times to dig deeper.
5. Keep a positive
attitude
Positive psychologist Martin Seligman has done lots of
research on learned optimism.
While everyone has a range, everyone can improve their
level of optimism.
If you want to be a quick learner, optimism should be one
of the first things you learn.
Optimists don’t feel happy all the time. Optimists feel
the same amount of negative emotions
as pessimists. The difference is that optimists bounce
back quicker. If you’re faced with a setback,
a rejection, or a failure–all of which are inevitable in
the learning process
–the more likely you’ll be to interpret it as helpful
feedback.
We can learn to become more optimistic by simply
challenging our instinctive thought processes. The next time we get an F on an
exam instead of instinctively thinking, “I’m terrible,
and will never improve,” we should challenge this
assertion: “Did I study as hard as I could have?
I’ll never ever improve? Not even if I spend 1000 hours
more practicing?”
6. Practice what
has been learned
Daniel Coyle, in his book The Talent Code, explains
the three essential components
of skill acquisition as: passion, deep practice and
master coaching.
Theory without application is a huge waste of
time. Benny Lewis, author of a popular language learning blog, said that
he lived in Spain for six months and attended Spanish courses,
yet still had terrible Spanish. He made the simple
decision to start speaking it every day
even if he looked like an idiot. In less than three
months he was fluent.
We are physical beings. In order to internalize lessons
we have to physically go through the motions. Imagine trying to learn how to
play piano by reading about musical notation,
or entering a boxing match after reading up on how to
throw a punch. It will never work.
There’s a reason there’s the saying, “practice makes
perfect.”
Nobody ever says, “Reading theory makes perfect.”
7. Ask experts for
advice
Most of the greatest learners in their field had mentors.
In Robert Greene’s book, Mastery, which is all about quick learners, he
dedicates a third of the book to what he calls “The Ideal Apprenticeship.”
Greene believes that having experts and mentors is invaluable when it comes to
learning:
“In the stories of the greatest Masters, past and
present, we can inevitably detect a phase
in their lives in which all of their future powers were
in development, like the chrysalis of a butterfly. This part of their lives–a
largely self-directed apprenticeship that lasts some five to ten years –receives
little attention because it does not contain stories of great achievement or
discovery.
Often in their Apprenticeship Phase, these types are not
yet much different from anyone else.
Under the surface, however, their minds are transforming
in ways we cannot see
but contain all of the seeds of their future success.”
The great thing about living in the information age is
that there are plenty of experts to learn from. While having one-to-one tuition
from a master is useful, it’s not essential.
We can find mentors on YouTube, or in books that we can
learn from by imitation.
As an aspiring artist I often copy the works of Leonardo
da Vinci.
Green sums up the apprenticeship phase as follows:
The principle is simple and must be engraved deeply in
your mind: the goal of an apprenticeship i
s not money, a good position, a title, or a diploma, but
rather the transformation of your mind
and character — the first transformation on the way to
mastery.
8. Do not pretend
to understand when you don’t
I made this mistake when I went scuba diving in Cyprus. I
daydreamed throughout the seminar expecting to learn while I was in the water.
That was a big mistake.
When you have heavy equipment on your back, being just a
few feet underwater feels like
you’re on the bottom of the ocean. It was terrifying.
On a ship, when an order is given it’s always repeated
back to the captain.
The captain needs to know that you understood his
instruction.
This rule came about because people were nodding along
compliantly without really understanding what the captain wanted them to do.
How many accidents happened because of this?
We learn so well as children because we have no
self-image. We’re not trying to be seen as clever.
If a young child doesn’t understand something, he will
usually ask a million questions until he does. By pretending to understand something,
you’re falling prey to an egotistic need to appear smart. Quick learners
appreciate how little they know, then go about learning it.
9. Balance
scepticism with open mindedness
Leonardo da Vinci said:
“Study the science of art and the art of science.”
Einstein said:
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the
mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.”
Both of these masters were scientific and creative in
equal doses. They knew how to be scientific, but they also knew the limits of
logic when compared to imagination.
To be a quick learner you have to treat every past idea,
no matter how it first appears,
with a pinch of salt, while at the same time respecting
it enough to test it out.
If you dismiss an idea too quickly, you are being too
skeptical. If you get sucked into an idea
too quickly and let it start dominating your life, you’re
being too suggestible and open-minded.
A quick learner takes what works, discards what doesn’t,
and moves on.
10. Small rewards
From the outside video games seem illogical.
We choose to spend hundreds of hours carrying out tasks that don’t
need to be done, don’t improve our lives outside of the game, and we pay to do
it. The secret video games have is the balance between reward and challenge. When
you’re playing a video game you don’t need to wait until the end of the month
to get your reward.
You get it immediately. There’s an ongoing feedback loop
throughout the task,
sort of like having a mentor offering their feedback as
you go.
We need to balance our learning with rewards if we’re
going to stay motivated long enough
to learn what we need to learn. Everyone’s reward may be
slightly different.
For some it will be having a cup of coffee after an hour
of practice.
For others it will be showing off what they’ve learnt in
a performance of some kind.
Find out what your reward might be and implement it into
your learning schedule.
All work and no play…
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/10-things-quick-learners-differently-pick-anything.html
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