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Ultralearning
by Scott Young
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"For those who know how to use technology wisely, it is the easiest time in history to teach yourself something new."
Scott H. Young
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“Over the last twenty years, the amount of knowledge easily accessible from a quick online search has exploded…Yet despite this incredible advance, it is not as if the average person is thousands as times as smart as people were was a generation ago. Being able to look things up is certainly an advantage, but without a certain amount of knowledge inside your head, it doesn’t help you solve hard problems.”
Scott H. Young
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Ultralearning
It is a strategy for acquiring skills and knowledge. Ultralearning is a potent skill for dealing with a changing world. It has three main characteristics:
- It is a strategy. A strategy is not the only solution to a given problem, but it may be a good one.
- It's self-directed. It’s about how you make decisions about what to learn and why.
- It's an intense process. Ultralearners always search for and take unusual steps to maximize their effectiveness in learning.
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Why Investing In Mastering The Art Of Learning Hard
- Economics: Average is over. But even if the economic landscape is rapidly changing may, we can engineer our response to it by aggressively learning the hard skills we need to thrive.
- Education: Ultralearning can fill some of those gaps when going back to school isn’t an affordable option.
- Technology: The space of learning possibilities is immense, just waiting for ambitious autodidacts to come up with new ways to exploit it.
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9 Principles of Ultralearning
- Meta-learning: Start by learning how to learn the subject or skill you want to tackle.
- Focus: Carve out time in your day, and hack back distractions.
- Directness: Practice the thing you want to learn. Learn by doing.
- Drill the weakest points: Break down complex skills into small parts.
- Retrieval: Testing isn’t simply a way of assessing knowledge but a way of creating it.
- Feedback: Know how to use it without letting your ego get in the way.
- Retention: Understand what you forget and why. Learn to remember things.
- Intuition: Develop your intuition through play and exploration of concepts and skills.
- Experimentation: Get outside your comfort zone by cultivating an experimental mindset.
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Why We Procrastinate
At some level there’s a craving that drives us to do something else, there’s an aversion to doing the task itself or both.
Much procrastination is unconscious. We’re procrastinating, but we don’t internalize it that way.
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Learning: Common Sources Of Distraction
- Your environment: be aware of what environment you work best in, and test it. Multitasking may feel like fun, but it’s unsuitable for ultralearning.
- The task you’re trying to learn: certain activities, due to their nature, are harder to focus on than others.
- Your mind: negative emotions, restlessness, and daydreaming can be some of the biggest obstacles to focus.
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Three Types Of Feedback
- Outcome feedback: this tells you something about how well you’re doing overall but offers no ideas as to what you’re doing better or worse.
- Informational feedback: this feedback tells you what you’re doing wrong, but it doesn’t necessarily tell you how to fix it.
- Corrective feedback: the best kind of feedback to get is corrective feedback. This is the feedback that shows you not only what you’re doing wrong but how to fix it.
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“Knowledge expands, but so does ignorance, as with a greater understanding of a subject also comes a greater appreciation for all the questions that remain unanswered.”
SCOTT H. YOUNG
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
11
Key Ideas
The modern polymath
... is someone who becomes competent in at least 3 diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1-percent skill set.
In another words, they bring the best of what humanity has discov...
Creating an atypical combination of 2+ skills
Even if you're merely competent in these skills, combining them can lead to a world-class skill set.
Example: Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, one of the most popular comic strips of all time, was not the funniest person, not the best cartoonist, and not the most experienced employee. But by combining his humor and illustration skills while focusing on business culture, he became the best in the world in his niche.
Creative breakthroughs
Most creative breakthroughs come via making atypical combinations of skills.
Researcher Brian Uzzi, a professor at the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, analyzed more than 26 million scientific papers going back hundreds of years and found that the most impactful papers often have teams with atypical combinations of backgrounds.
3
Key Ideas
Never Too Late To Learn
The general perception is that an old brain past its prime cannot learn new things, as it cannot grasp information like a young adult.
New studies show that complex skills like reading ...
The Adaptiveness Of The Brain
- The adaptiveness of the brain, which scientists have now better understood is called Neuroplasticity.
- Studies show that brains of adults and elders can learn a new language just as a child could, provided they get the opportunity and are not inhibited towards making mistakes.
A child's brain is indeed completely raw, known as 'Tabula Rasa' and they can find it easier to master certain skills of perception, but at the same time, adults have the advantage of analysis, self-reflection and greater discipline.
Psychological Barriers
The barrier to learning in adults may consist of preconceived notions, negativity or lack of confidence.
Older adults also underestimate the power of their own memories, reinforcing the belief that they cannot learn or remember, and making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Education has no age limit, and older adults need to break these psychological barriers to learning, leading to profound benefits and a sharper mind.
3
Key Ideas
Speed and transfer
Consider at what speed you should try to do things in order to improve performance.
We can often learn something quickly, but without attaining a master level (like getting good at esti...
Failing to Reach an Ideal
There are two problems you can encounter when you're trying to learn something.
- You have a clear understanding of what you'd like to do and how you're going to do it, but you're unable to implement the approach you've chosen. Slow things down so you can pay more attention to every aspect of the problem.
- Speed learning is effective when you're not sure what the ideal should be and need more information to work it out. A good example of speed leading to move closer to quality is in entrepreneurial fields. Many fail because they picked the wrong problem to solve and wasted too much time trying to solve it.
Going faster vs doing it right
The balance between going faster and doing it right depends on what you're trying to achieve.
- Faster feedback means more information to find out your key challenges and possible solutions.
- Slower helps you focus on a strategy you've chosen, allowing you to execute it correctly.