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How to become a quick learner and use it to your advantage
“Success demands singleness of purpose. You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects.”
If you try to learn everything at once, you’ll waste too much time switching between activities and become frustrated with your lack of progress.
These days, many people proudly call themselves “multitaskers”. However, studies have shown that only 2% of people can actually multitask effectively and that switching between tasks costs us up to 40% of our productive time.
Fast learners know that in order to quickly pick up a new skill, it means giving it your undivided attention and having to say “maybe someday” to a dozen other things that you’re also interested in.
Once you’ve decided on a skill you want to learn, it’s time to do some preliminary research. You need to know what you’re getting yourself into.
The idea is to quickly familiarize yourself with the skill until you have a mental map that identifies:
Doing this work upfront will help you come up with a plan for learning, and avoiding mistakes that sabotage your progress.
The easiest way to start your research is to simply do a Google search with a few of the following terms:
While it’s good to strive for high-quality output, that won’t be possible without first having experience. To gain experience, one has to actually get started. After a certain point, you’ve got to get out of the classroom and into the field.
Any progress is good progress when starting out learning something.
Between the amateur and the professional stages, there are hundreds of mistakes. The faster the amateur experiences those mistakes, the faster they’ll become a professional.
Taking notes and knowing about something is different from actually being able to do it.
We can spend all our time discussing what exactly a bicycle is and the mechanics and physics of how it works. But nothing is going to be accomplished until we get on the bike itself and apply what we’ve learned.
Quick learners always translate lessons into action. It can be difficult at times. And there’s no faster way to learn than hopping on and falling down.
Studies showed that having not only a self-oriented goal (enjoying one’s future job) but also a “beyond-the-self-oriented” goal (having a positive impact on the world around them) increased the students’ GPA in their academic career.
Knowing what exactly the skill is going to be used for will not only sustain motivation but make it clearer what information is useful and what isn’t, making the learning process that much faster.
A quick learner is someone who can understand and process information in a relatively short space of time.
Apart from being able to understand the information, as a quick learner, you should be able to apply what you've learned in a given situation. Fast learners usually have excellent listening and analytical skills.
Your CV is often the first thing that employers read to help them decide if you'd be a good fit for the role. Consider emphasizing being a quick learner in the following sections of the document:
A cover letter is typically an essential element of a job application that helps the hiring manager get to know you better.
In the letter, you can use skills keywords to make yourself seem like a more desirable candidate.
Focus is key for learning. If you are not paying full attention to what you are trying to learn, it’ll make learning more difficult and slower. So, while you may believe you are a slow learner, you are most likely just a distracted learner.
Once you improve your focus, you’ll be surprised by how much faster you can internalize new knowledge and skills.
If you believe learning myths like “you either have it or you don’t” or “old dogs can’t learn new tricks,” you will create a negative placebo effect that can make your learning s
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 estimating answers to math problems. While you might get within close proximity, you'll seldom get to the exact answer.)
Learning to do something with precision will require a different technique and can take much longer to master.
There are two problems you can encounter when you're trying to learn something.
The balance between going faster and doing it right depends on what you're trying to achieve.
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