“Success demands singleness of purpose. You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects.”

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:<ul><li>Keys to success</li><li>Major pitfalls to avoid</li><li>Subskills to focus on</li></ul>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:<ul><li>“beginner’s guide to” + skill</li><li>“biggest mistakes” + skill</li><li>“before you s<warningtag>tart” + skill</warningtag></li><li><warningtag>“things I wish I knew” + skill.</warningtag></li></ul>

Get started on the right foot

Also called Pareto’s principle, the rule states that 80% of your results come from just 20% of your efforts.<ul><li>80% of a business's profits come from 20% of its customers</li><li>80% of your time is spent with 20% of the people you know</li><li>80% of the fun you have come from 20% of the activities you do</li></ul>A big part of becoming a fast learner is about breaking a skill down into smaller chunks. Then you can examine each chunk, and focus on the 20% that will have the highest impact while disregarding the trivial 80% that’s not going to make a real difference.Another perspective: “What are the 20% of obstacles whic<warningtag>h are causing 80% of my problems?” ﻿If you can target the biggest, hairiest, most glaring obstacle that is preventing you from learning quickly, and focus on erasing that from existence, then you’ll open the door to rapid progress.</warningtag>

80/20 your way to success

There are two main ways you can do this:
<ul>
<li>Get feedback from other people: When it comes to speaking a new language, for example, you can get immediate feedback by learning with a teacher.</li>
<li>Setup your own feedback systems: If you’re learning to play guitar, you can make recordings of yourself playing, and listen back. When you listen back, you’ll hear things that you never noticed before.</li>
</ul>
A word of warning: getting feedback is sometimes the hardest part of learning a new skill. Most of us cringe at the idea of opening ourselves up to criticism.

Becoming a quick learner: Get rapid feedback

The problem with trying to practice perfectly is that you may end up spending way too much time overanalyzing and overthinking about how to get it “right”, rather than just doing it.
A case in point is the language learner who spends countless hours studying grammar because they don’t feel “ready” to speak yet.
Too often, the idea of perfect practice gets mixed up with our fear of making mistakes and being judged by other people. This leads to three things, none of which are good:
<ul>
<li>Procrastination</li>
<li>Unwillingness to take risks</li>
<li>Frustration.</li>
</ul>

Becoming a quick learner: Speed over perfection

<ul><li>People will tell you that you need to find a mentor, but these days you can find dozens of them without even leaving your house.</li><li>In the age of free information, more and more experts are offering their advice online and sharing their successes, failures, and secrets with anyone who will listen.</li><li>It can be a tremendous source of motivation to follow in the footsteps of someone who has already done it. Not only will you benefit from their proven tips and tricks, it also helps you set realistic expectations for yourself so that you don’t become discouraged in the process.</li></ul>

Learn from the experts

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.

Becoming a quick learner: One thing at a time

<ul><li>Pre-commit to at least 20 hours of practice. As soon as you start learning a skill, you must finish the 20 hours, without giving up, no matter what.</li><li>After the 20 hours, you’ll have experienced enough of the skill, and be far enough along the learning curve to decide if this is really for you.</li><li>One of the easiest things to do is to make a commitment that forces you to show up, whether that’s a language lesson, a jam session with your friends, or a coffee with a potential customer.</li><li>It’s important to note that the 20 hours need to consist of dedicated practice with 100% concentration. Simply thinking<warningtag> about it or reading about it doesn’t count.</warningtag></li></ul>

The 20-hour commitment

How to become a quick learner and  use it to your advantage

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Problem Solving

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Learning & Education

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Career

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Entertainment

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Personal Development

How to Become a Quick Learner

These are the keys to quickly learning any skill.  If you apply these principles to your life, you’ll finally be able to call yourself a “quick learner”.

Do you know someone who is seemingly good at everything? This guide shares the secrets of fast learners, and will help you pick up a new skill in no time.

The No BS Guide to Becoming a Fast Learner

The No BS Guide to Becoming a Quick Learner

Non-REM sleep is necessary in order to survive. Mild sleep deprivation increases the risk of chronic health conditions and severe sleep deprivation can lead to hallucinations or death. However, the benefits of REM sleep remain inconclusive. Studies show no obvious adverse effects when participants were deprived of REM sleep. <ul><li>Hypothesized benefits suggest certain negative behaviours which should be unlearned are rehearsed through dreams.</li><li>REM sleep is proposed to help transfer memories from the hippocampus to the cerebral cortex.</li></ul>

Benefits of REM sleep

Before REM sleep, the three prior stages of sleep occur progressively slow bodily function and brain activity. These stages are known as non-REM or N1, N2, and N3. However, during REM sleep, the eyes move rapidly sideways. The heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure increase to their values while awake. REM sleep is the longest period of the sleep cycle, lasting 70 to 120 minutes.

REM definition

During REM sleep, brain wave activity increase, as measured on an electroencephalogram (EEG).<ul><li>N1 sleep shows slowing of the normal alpha wave pattern noted during the awake state.</li><li>N2 sleep introduces K waves - long, high voltage waves - lasting up to 1 second, and sleep spindles - periods of low voltage and high-frequency spikes.</li><li>N3 sleep is characterized by delta waves, or high voltage, slow and irregular activity. </li><li>During REM sleep, sleep patterns show low voltage and fast waves, some alpha waves, and muscle twitch spikes associated with transmitted rapid eye movement. </li></ul>

REM and your brain

The most vivid dreams occur during REM sleep. These dreams are often elaborate and emotional experiences that include sadness, anger, apprehension or fear.  A person can more readily recall a dream when they awake from REM sleep. However, the purpose of dream content is not currently understood. Sigmund Freud suggested dreams were a representation of unconscious thought. Another hypothesis proposes that dreams are a random brain activity during REM sleep and not a meaningful experience.

Dreams and REM sleep

REM is an active and final phase of the four-stage sleep cycle characterised by increased brain activity and autonomic nervous system functions. The brainstem and hypothalamus mostly control this stage of sleep. Many theories hypothesise that REM sleep is helpful for learning and memory formation, but the purpose and benefits of REM sleep are still unknown.

Rapid eye movement (REM sleep)

REM sleep is the final stage of the sleep cycle showing increased brain activity. Vivid, elaborate, and emotional dreams occur during this stage.

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Health

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Science & Nature

What Is REM Sleep? Definition and Benefits

Much of life boils down to figuring out a path for yourself and then getting yourself to actually walk it. We often fail to stick to our plans because we’re not confident in our chosen path. And we fail to find paths forward because we don’t try enough things to find our footing.Decision and action are always combined. The challenge is taking the next step.

Finding a Path and Walking It

In practice, most ideas—even groundbreaking ones—tend to be derivative or incremental. Even ideas that look original usually start out as a permutation on something already extant. Given background and context, even the most radical suggestions look like incremental steps.This suggests that the best way to have better ideas is to expose yourself to more ideas. To the ones used by people who are accomplishing things in same the direction you’d like to go.

Coming Up With Ideas

Working hard all day doesn’t matter if it’s on the wrong tasks. The most critical factor in your productivity is what you decide to work on.The question of what to work on is under-discussed. There’s plenty of advice on getting work done: setting up good habits, creating productivity systems, project management, and planning. Yet, there’s relative silence for the crucial decision of which projects to pursue.

What to Work On

A fundamental distinction is between having too many ideas or too few.<ul><li>Having too many ideas creates the problem of prioritization. Evaluate your current activities and cull those that don’t make the cut.</li><li>Too few ideas can leave you feeling stuck. You want things to be better, but nothing pops out as worth pursuing. As a result, you put half-hearted efforts into tasks you’re not sure will work.</li></ul>The “right” quantity of ideas isn’t a given. Instead, it’s a mental threshold for what’s worth pursuing. Dialing it up forces you to focus, and dialing it down lets you explore more options.

Ruling Out, Ruling In

<ul><li>A threshold for action is a crude way for filtering your projects. Advice to “do less” or “do more” misses the crux of the issue. Which efforts should you drop? Which ones should you undertake?</li><li>Having adjusted your threshold, and hopefully immersed yourself in a range of possible idea templates, now you need to cross over from a notion to a commitment.</li><li>A commitment can come from either direction. You can lower your threshold for action, generate a new idea and decide to pursue it. Or you can tighten your standards and commit to focusing on a pursuit you are already engaged in. </li></ul>

Making the Choice

Working hard doesn't matter if it's on the wrong things. Thoughts on making the hard decisions about what to focus on.

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Productivity

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Leadership & Management

How to Decide What to Work On - Scott H Young

Getting out of your comfort zone can re-invigorate you—and teach you a thing or two along the way. Penny Adams, a pet photographer, found a burst of inspiration after attending a three-day workshop. Instead of losing productivity to the three days away, she was able to come back refreshed and ready to go.
If your work is starting to feel mundane, consider taking a course, attending a conference, or learning an adjacent skill. Finding a community of like-minded professionals can also expose you to new perspectives.

Invest in learning

Focusing only on big goals (and how far away you are from them) is demoralizing. To help curb idea slumps in the future, set up a way to automate positivity. 
A simple weekly reminder in Slack for your team to share their wins helps everyone appreciate the journey.

Celebrate small wins

If trying a new angle on the same topic isn't working, how about abandoning your niche altogether for a moment? Jason Bradwell, the Senior Director of Group Marketing and Communications at Deltatre, turns to fiction writing to give his ideas space and time to form.It's tempting to dive deeper into the subject matter to try and unlock the next insight, but reading something creative helps my brain relax without totally switching off. It's beyond just thinking outside the box—it's closing the box and putting it in storage.

Spend time on an entirely different topic

Customer support logs are a great place to reconnect with the purpose of your work (not to mention, they give you a gold mine of blog post ideas). 
Go to Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit to see what the audience is talking about. If possible, investigating branded communities or other groups is really helpful.

Talk directly to the end-user

You can also find inspiration from your team. Sometimes that means brainstorming with a colleague you don't usually talk to (diverse perspectives help a lot), but depending on your role, internal inspiration might be a bit more literal.Sometimes, if you're in a slump, you just need to pull in a fresh point-of-view.

Spotlight your team and community 

Sometimes you'll be sick of working on the same thing every day. That's ok! While you can't ignore the task at hand, you can lean into the lack of excitement. Feeling uninspired isn't always something you need to force yourself to fix, and in fact, boredom can be good for productivity.Anthony Garone, a technical content writer, finds that "boredom is the breeding ground for a great idea," and he creates that boredom by taking a walk (which can absolutely boost your creativity).

Let yourself be bored

I asked people what they do when they're in an inspirational slump, and it turns out everyone has thoughts—because everyone's been there. Here's what I learned.

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Motivation & Inspiration

How to get out of an inspiration slump at work

It is a great theory to call out the inconsistencies of others, but it has been criticized for allowing circular reasoning.The problem is that coherentism has been criticized on these very internalist grounds. If we can be justified in believing things based on no other authority than my own beliefs, then it allows the possibility of any outlandish beliefs.

Critics of coherentism

There is a branch of philosophy concerned specifically with how we justify our beliefs. The chief concern of "epistemic justification" is determining what counts as a good reason for believing something and how we come about those reasons. While there is a smorgasbord of different theories, one of the bigger is known as "coherentism."Coherentism is a view that settles for circular reasoning. It does so knowingly because the alternatives are just as bad, if not worse.

Epistemic justification

Epistemic justification is the area of philosophy that asks: what counts as enough to justify a belief? Coherentism is the theory that states a belief is justified insofar as it coheres or is consistent with our other beliefs. It is a great theory to call out the inconsistencies of others, but it has been criticized for allowing circular reasoning.

The No BS Guide to Becoming a Fast Learner

What Is REM Sleep? Definition and Benefits

How to Decide What to Work On - Scott H Young

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

How to get out of an inspiration slump at work

CURATED BY

The No BS Guide to Becoming a Fast Learner

What Is REM Sleep? Definition and Benefits

How to Decide What to Work On - Scott H Young

It's time to Read like a Pro.

How to get out of an inspiration slump at work

CURATED BY

It's time to
Read like a Pro.