UltraLearning

By Scott H. Young

1. Design your project well

   • Pick your constraints carefully
   • Set aside enough time
   • Limit your materials and methods

2. Train focus and productivity

   • Eliminate distractions
   • Create a productivity system
   • Progressively train your focus

3. Learn actively

4. Quicker, deeper, more accurate feedback cycles

   • Do the cycles more quickly
   • Do the cycles more deeply
   • Get more accurate feedback

5. Space your practice out

6. Process deeply to retain more

7. Overlearning (for retaining the skill longer)

Summary

1. Ultralearning is the smart, strategic way to skill up for personal fulfillment and professional advantage

2. Metalearning is a crucial, yet overlooked, step for reaching a big-picture understanding of your field

   • Metalearning - Process of learning how to learn
   • Breakdown by creating metalearning map
     • concepts - what needs to be understood
     • facts - what needs to be memorized
     • procedures - what needs to be done
   • Benchmarking - research people who've acquired a similar skill or institutions that offer accreditation in your field of study
   • Allocate 10% of the total time for metalearning

3. Simple mental strategies can defend against distractions and refine your focus

   • pomodoro technique
   • interleaving - deliberately alternate between materials and modes of learning
   • mental arousal - levels of energy and alertness

4. Taking the shortest route from theory to practice allows you to skill up smoothly

   • Transfer - process of learning something in one context and then transfering it to another
   • directness - project based learning
   • immersive learning

5. Use drilling to hone your skills to perfection

   • direct-then-drill approach
   • rate-determining step - part of the process that precipitates a chain reaction, unlocks the next level of knowledge or opens up the broadest range of applications
   • time-slicing - isolate one step in a more involved process and repeat the step until you've pefected it

6. Using challenging recall strategies is the best way to retrieve information you've learned

   • judgement of learning - reason we prefer review over recall

     Essentially, when we're able to process or understand a concept without difficulty, we judge that we've learned that concept. Reading back over something we've already learned creates the impression that we've grasped this new information. That's why we gravitate towards passive review strategies: they conform our perception that we're learning successfully

   • desirable difficulty

     the difficulty posed by recall is ultimately desirable, as it maximizes our chances of retaining what we've learned

   • free recall - write down everything you've learned, in as much detail as possible

7. Elicit high-quality feedback to identify your weaknesses and improve your performance

   • Outcome feedback
   • Informational feedback
   • Corrective feedback

8. Smart, strategically-spaced memorization sessions ensure that what you learn really sticks

   • Spaced Repetition System (SRS)
   • Refresher project
   • Overlearning

9. Cultivating deep understanding is the surest path to finding your intuitive brilliance

   • embrace the struggle

10. Strategic experimentation lays the groundwork for true innovation

    • copy then create

11. Actionable advice - Pick the brain of an expert

    • project aligns with you career objectives

Josh Waitzkin - How to Cram 2 Months of Learning into 1 Day | The Tim Ferriss Show

• What types of bio-markers do you track in coaching clients
• What is an individual's Resonance Frequency?
• What is Trigger Work?
• What types of tools do you use for tracking HRV?
• What mechanisms can people use to better structure their days?
• Regarding MIQ (Most Important Question) is it specific or can it be broad?
• How do you teach people to block time for more focused work?

Takeways

• Deliberate practice is important. Practice long and hard for scenarios that will occur
• End with a bang. This is the part that really gets drilled into your brain
• If possible, use biometrics. Let your body guide your decisions
• Be proactive and not reactive
• Sit on a most important question before you sleep and let your sub conscious find you the answers
• Step away with gas left in the tank. Circulate between complete relaxation, and complete high intensity focus, and not in the middle
• Have a trigger. Find something that can bring you to the zone at a moment's notice