This reminds me of Elon Musk's approach to learning. He <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/">recommends </a>viewing knowledge as a tree: Make sure you understand the fundamental principles, the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to. To 'learn', we need to do more than merely feeding ourselves new information. Expanding our intelligence requires connecting new materials to what we already knew (the second phase of learning). That, in turn, requires something to connect to. There's no adding branches without a solid trunk.

Which 'one of those' is this? You can see how different mental models in our head will cause us to reach different conclusions about which course of action should be taken. On an unconscious level, you can think of mental models as psychological lenses that color and shape what we see. They not only tune what we think and how we understand, but also guide which connections and opportunities we see in the first place. The more limited one's repertoire of personal constructs, the greater the anxiety and the fewer the degrees of freedom one has in anticipating and acting upon events in your daily life. This helps explain why your sister can't seem to move beyond her divorce, in spite of all your attempts to give her new things to do. She treats everyone in terms of a simple construct, 'trustworthy vs. will leave me in a flash like Sam did' and in so doing she reduces her degrees of freedom and retreats from re-engaging with life and moving ahead.

Learning how to learn: how to make your ROI on reading explode Learning is a heavily misunderstood concept. As a paradigm example of deep work, we understand that, when reading, directing your full attention to the material at hand is essential. Grasping complex information is hard. But this is only half the battle.

The Complete Guide to Effective Reading

Petal Gvgeyu