How to Learn Faster - Mind Hacks

in #mind8 years ago

I learn  new stuff all the time. Josh Kaufman, author of the book, "20 Hours"  boils the process down to its essentials and talks about how you can  grasp a new skill in 20 hours of practice. His rules are:

Watch this Video - Inspiring

https://youtu.be/5MgBikgcWnY

  1. Deconstruct the skill
  2. Learn enough to self-correct
  3. Remove practice barriers
  4. Practice at least 20 hours (in a month)

You  won't be a virtuoso, but you will be amazed at how fast you learn. This  is what makes me what Josh calls a "learning junkie": when I hit that  first plateau after that first amazing learning curve, I get strongly  tempted to learn something new so that I can make fast progress again  instead of banging my head against the wall.

For what you do  after the first 20 hours, check out this highly detailed article by a  guy who learned the MIT’s four-year computer science curriculum in one  year:
http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/...

The executive summary of the 3500-word article is:

  1. Take your learning goal, and craft it into a compelling, obsession-worthy mission.
  2. Find material to learn from, structure it into a flexible curriculum.
  3. Define feedback mechanisms to constantly direct your future learning efforts and ensure high-intensity, active recall.
  4. Test and enforce a schedule that is sustainable over the entire lifetime of the project.
  5. Develop a long-term retention strategy (formal or informal).