Mind & Productivity

Learning How to Learn

Use the handful of proven techniques that make anything you study stick, in less time and with less rereading.

This course is for members

$9 unlocks every course in the library, this one included, plus a credit to build a topic of your own and at least 10 new courses every month.

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What you will learn about Learning How to Learn

The 7-day sprint
  1. What Learning Actually Is. Learning is building durable, retrievable memory through three stages: encoding, consolidation, and retrieval, and only the third one is under your direct control every day.
  2. The Illusion Of Knowing. Fluency, the feeling that material is easy and familiar, is a bad predictor of whether you will be able to use it later, so you have to test your judgment instead of trusting it.
  3. Retrieval Practice. Pulling information out of memory strengthens it far more than putting it in again, so self-testing is a study method, not just an assessment.
  4. Spacing. The same amount of practice produces much more durable learning when it is spread across days than when it is crammed into one session.
  5. Interleaving And Variation. Mixing different problem types or skills within a session teaches you to tell them apart and choose the right approach, which blocked practice never does.
  6. Elaboration And Explaining. Knowledge sticks and transfers when it is connected, so asking why and how something works, and explaining it in your own words, does more than memorizing statements.
  7. Feedback, Sleep, And Your Own System. Competence comes from targeted practice on your weak points with fast feedback, protected by sleep and undivided attention, run on a schedule you actually keep.
The 80/20: the 7 concepts that matter most
  • Retrieval practice
  • Spacing
  • Distrust fluency, measure instead
  • Interleaving and varied practice
  • Elaboration and prior knowledge
  • Feedback and deliberate practice
  • Attention and sleep as prerequisites
The core idea, explained like you are 5

Memory is built by pulling information out, not by putting it in again, so effortful recall is the core act of learning.

Then the quiz and the ladder

10 questions that correct you when you are wrong, and beginner, intermediate, advanced levels, each with a practical exercise.