How do you feel when you hear stories of people
who learned the basics of a language in a
month, who graduated in half the time or who
could memorize an impressive amount of information?
Do you feel like you’re inferior because
you don’t have that ability?
Do you envy those great brains?
Do you think that what they do is impossible
and that there’s some trick behind those
stories?
Well, you must know you are able to achieve
similar things.
You can learn in a faster way and use your
brain in a much more useful way, even if you
believe you weren’t born with enough intelligence.
All you have to do is follow some principles
that those people followed, too.
If you learn how to learn like they did, you’re
going to incredibly leap forward in the way
you learn.
In today’s Arata Academy Summary, we’ll
see nine principles of fast learning which
are described in detail in the book “Ultralearning:
Master hard skills, Outsmart the Competition,
and Accelerate your Career”, by Scott Young
[source: https://arata.se/source-j7vk]
This book shows how common people like you
and me managed to learn any kind of topic
in an efficient and fast way when they followed
the nine principles we are going to discuss here.
Principle 1 - Metalearning: First, design
a map with your studying strategy.
The first characteristic that defines people
who learn fast is the importance they give
to metalearning.
Metalearning is the art of learning how to
learn.
Most people, when they want to learn something,
go straight to read a book, watch a video
or attend a class about that topic.
They start by trying to learn the subject
itself.
People who learn fast don’t do that.
Before starting, they design a metalearning
map.
They spend at least ten percent of the time
learning how to learn that topic.
That metalearning map seeks to answer three
questions: Why?
What?
How?
First you must explain to yourself the reasons
why you want to learn that topic.
It may be a desire you have to know something.
It may be a skill you need to develop for
your job.
It may simply be some compulsory subject from
your school or university.
Afterwards, you need to define exactly what
you want to learn.
Which are the specific points?
What are the pieces that form those points?
What knowledge do you need to emphasize?
What points can you exclude?
Finally, you need to understand how you’re
going to learn that.
What’s the best method?
Is it reading books?
Which books?
Is it practising any skill?
How are you going to practise it?
Is it taking exams?
Which exams?
Your map doesn’t need to be perfect.
It just needs to show you the right direction
for you to follow the correct path from the
beginning of the journey.
The idea is for you not to waste time learning
useless things, checking out bad materials
or using an inefficient learning method.
You can watch the episode 175 of the series
Hello!
Seiiti Arata [https://arata.se/hello175] so
that you can get more information on how to
design your metalearning map.
Principle 2 - Start now, continue and always
improve.
Another characteristic that sets ultra learners
apart is the ability those people have to
keep focused on their studies.
In order to do that, you need to improve your
ability to concentrate.
In the current world, full of distractions
and cell phone notifications, the ability
of staying focused on only one task is increasingly
rare.
Those who do have that ability, will most
certainly stand out, not only on the learning
field, but also on their professional career.
The best way to develop this ability to focus
is to divide your time into different blocks.
[https://arata.se/study05] so that you can
focus exclusively on learning what you want
to learn.
Having a hard time to focus when studying
is usually related to three problems: starting,
maintaining and optimizing.
The first problem is starting to study.
It’s the famous procrastination, the habit
of leaving for later what you should be doing
now.
To overcome the problem of starting to study
you simply have to realize that you are procrastinating.
When you’ve realized that you’re procrastinating,
try to convince yourself that you’re going
to study just for a couple of minutes before
making a pause.
Everyone can do anything for five minutes.
The trick is simply to get started.
Once you’ve started, you can pick up the
pace and end up studying more than you had
initially thought.
Once you’ve overcome the problem of beginning
to study, the second step is to keep the focus
on your studies.
That is, apart from starting, you have to
keep on studying.
If you manage to avoid the distractions, you’re
going to enter a state of flow and you will
start to have a much higher performance in
your studies.
Watch the episode 134 of the series Hello!
Seiiti Arata [https://arata.se/hello134] if
you want to understand better how the flow
state works.
Here, once again, the technique of dividing
the time into blocks is very useful.
When you schedule blocks of time to focus
on your studies, you also need to plan the
breaks, a time to enjoy.
For example, you can separate periods of 50
minutes to focus on your studies and a ten-minute
break after each block.
Apart from that, try to study in an environment
that doesn’t foster distractions.
Keep your phone away, turn the TV off, block
web pages and social networks.
If you get distracted easily, try to improve
your mind.
It’s much more difficult to study with a
mind full of anger, anxiety and frustration.
In order to free yourself from those evils,
you can try meditation, therapy or any other
practice that relaxes your mind.
After overcoming the difficulty of starting…
and solving the problem of continuing to study,
now we’re going to conquer the third and
last problem, which is to optimize your focus.
That problem is solved with practice: the
more you practice the skill of keeping your
focus on one topic only, the stronger that
skill becomes.
In order to optimize your focus, make sure
you know where you are and start small.
If today you can only concentrate for five
minutes, try to keep focused for ten minutes.
Soon those ten minutes will become fifteen,
twenty, fifty.
By being a more focused person, you’re going
to be better at using the third principle
of ultra learners: directness.
Principle 3 - Directness: Go straight to the
point.
The third principle that all those who manage
to learn fast have in common is directness.
It’s the ability to go straight to what
matters.
The fastest way of learning anything is to
spend a lot of time practising what you want
to learn.
The learning idea of directness is directly
linked to the situation or context in which
you want to use what you’re learning.
For example, let’s say you want to learn
a new language.
Directness would mean to go straight to the
point and starting to speak to a native speaker.
To read books in that language.
To write in that language.
That’s not what most people do.
Usually, when people want to learn a new language,
they start by using gamified apps, they watch
lessons about fictional situations, they take
multiple answer tests.
That principle applies to everything.
If you want to learn how to code, the best
way to do it is to create a program of your
own.
If you want to learn how to draw, you must
start to draw.
If you want to learn how to speak in public,
you have to give a speech.
The straighter to the point you go, the faster
you’ll learn.
And in case you feel you’re not yet prepared,
remember that you’re going to learn by doing
things.
The problem is that doing directly what we’re
learning is uncomfortable, difficult, frustrating.
That’s why we prefer to spend our time reading
books, watching videos, and using apps.
It gives us the impression that we’re learning
something, and at the same time we stay inside
our comfort zone.
Going straight to the point is probably the
biggest differentiating factor of ultra learners.
They go straight to what’s interesting for
them.
And, when they try to do something and they
don’t succeed, then they check out reference
material to solve that specific point and
they go on.
One of the challenges of the straight to the
point learning is that sometimes you won’t
have access to the exact situation to which
you’d like to apply your learning.
For example, if you want to learn how to fly
a plane, you won’t be able to start actually
piloting a plane.
In those cases, what you need is to simulate
the real experience as much as you can.
That way, when you find yourself in the real
situation, you’re going to be much better
prepared than you would be if you had simply
read books and watched videos or lessons.
Let’s see four strategies you can use to
apply the directness principle to your learning
process.
Directness strategy 1: Project Based Learning
One of the best ways for learning something
directly is to carry out a project.
To organize your studies in sight of producing
something, instead of just consuming didactic
material to learn something abstractly.
For example, if you want to learn music, your
project can be to compose a song.
If you want to learn how to sell online, your
project must be to publish a web page and
make a sale.
If you want to learn how to code, your project
may be to create an app and release it.
Even more abstract and less practical topics
can be the base of a project.
For example, if you want to learn philosophy,
your project could be to publish an article.
Directness strategy 2: Immersion
The immersion strategy is very well known
for language learning.
People who spend years studying a language
passively, usually know less than those who
make an exchange program and live in a foreign
country for six months.
Immersion means to surround yourself with
what you want to learn.
That forces you to practice for a much longer
time.
Besides language learning, you can practice
immersion by joining groups of people who
are actively engaged in learning about something.
Or getting a job, even if it’s not paid,
in the field you want to study.
Directness strategy 3: The flight simulator
method
Some of the knowledge areas don’t allow
you to practice directly what you want to
learn.
Flying a plane, performing surgery, building
an apartment block.
You won’t be able to accomplish those things
from the beginning of your studies.
In those cases, you must use the flight simulator
method.
You must simulate the skill you want to learn
in a way as similar to reality as possible
but maintaining everyone’s safety.
The flight simulator method can also be used
when immersion isn’t possible.
For example, if you can’t go to China to
learn mandarin, at least you can change the
language of your phone, your computer, the
videos you watch.
You can try to speak to Chinese people on
the internet.
Whatever can simulate the real experience
is valid, and it’s going to accelerate your
learning.
Directness strategy 4: The challenging approach
The last directness strategy is to intentionally
increase your learning challenge.
You must design a great objective, that contains
in itself the whole skill you want to learn.
For example, you can start to learn a language
today and already schedule a language proficiency
test in six months from now.
The challenging approach is going to put you
in a high demanding position.
The idea is that the sole greatness of the
challenge prevents you from wasting your time
studying and never learning anything.
Whatever the strategy you use is, the most
important thing for you to do is to understand
the principle.
The best and fastest way of learning anything
is practicing that topic in real life.
Principle 4: Strengthening: Attack your weak
points
You know when you’re studying something,
and at some point you find it hard?
Most of us tend to give up and avoid facing
difficult things.
Ultra learners do the exact opposite.
They use the strengthening principle and attack
directly their weak points.
The best way to strengthen weak points is
to break concepts or skills into smaller parts.
Afterwards, you learn each one of these smaller
parts.
And only then you put them all back together
in order to understand the entire skill or
concept as a whole.
When you don’t attack your weak points,
it can become draining and make your learning
process slower.
That happens especially when those weak points
are basic concepts, initial knowledge that
form the foundations of other more advanced
concepts.
Every time you study, try to find what your
weak points are in that field.
Write it down on your metalearning map.
And start making the effort to learn it, spending
blocks of time exclusively on each weak point.
The sooner you identify those weak points,
the better.
Probably those weak points will come to light
when you try to put your knowledge in practice.
In those cases, you must begin to alternate
between practice and strengthening.
For example, let’s say you’re learning
how to code.
Then you start trying to code an app, and
you find an obstacle with variables.
That’s a weak point that you need to study
harder.
You go back to the theoretical materials and
study that specific point until you manage
to apply it to your project.
The advantage of this method is that you will
study more the things you need to learn and
will waste less time studying what you already
know.
Every cycle of obstacle and learning will
be a step forward in your journey.
This principle requires you to be willing
to expand your comfort zone by dealing directly
with knowledge you find difficult.
The easiest way to apply strengthening is
to create blocks of time and devote them exclusively
to studying the identified weak points.
Going back to our example, you understood
that you had trouble dealing with coding variables.
So you’re going to select blocks of time
to study that topic alone.
Those blocks of time can be short, of twenty
five minutes, or longer, of fifty minutes
or an hour.
In that set time, you need to put away all
distractions and keep focused on the chosen
weak point.
If the weak point is very broad, try to break
that weakness into smaller parts.
And then dedicate blocks of time to each one
of those smaller pieces.
Principle 5: Retrieval: Try in order to learn
To learn something means to retrieve the information
you need.
What’s the best way of knowing whether you’re
able to retrieve information about the topic
you’re studying?
By trying.
Among the many ways of learning there are,
the one that shows the best positive results
is trying to retrieve information without
consulting any material.
Trying to retrieve facts and concepts from
your memory without using books is more efficient,
but more difficult, too.
That’s why very few students use the retrieving
technique as a studying method.
Usually students prefer more comfortable techniques
like underlining, summarizing or drawing mind
maps.
In addition, a lot of students think they
don’t have enough information to test themselves.
They believe that they first need to read
all the material, write some summaries, and
only then will they be ready to start testing
whether they’re able to retrieve information
without consulting any material.
Ultra learners go a different way.
They start testing themselves from the beginning
of their studies.
They understand that retrieving information
from their memory is one of the most effective
means to learn anything.
They understand that, precisely because it’s
more difficult, that method implies a better
learning.
Important!
The test can’t be difficult to the point
that retrieving information becomes impossible.
You can delay your first test a bit, but you
shouldn’t delay it so much that you forget
what you studied.
Among the methods for retrieving information,
the one that works the best is called the
free recall test.
In this test you have to remember as much
information as possible, without checking
neither questions nor answers.
The free test leads to better results than
the tests with questions, alternatives or
answer tips, those in which students receive
clues about what must be remembered.
The worst kind of tests are the recognition
tests.
Recognition tests are those of multiple choice
that don’t require much reasoning, like
the following one.
How do you say apple in Swedish?
Äpple.
Then, when I say the word “äpple”, which
image is correct, the right one or the left
one?
You got it right if you said that the right
answer was the image on the right, but that
didn’t help you learn much.
This is a recognition test, in which you just
have to choose the right answer among multiple
given answers.
In those tests, the right answer just needs
to be recognised, not created.
That’s why you learn less.
In order to know what information you need
to memorize, the best thing to do is to apply
the directness method.
If you go straight to the point and practise
what you’re studying, experience itself
will show you what the most important information
is.
A simple and effective way of testing your
ability to retrieve information is by using
flashcards and spaced repetition.
You can use special programs for that, like
Anki.
Watch the forth video of the series Study
Arata to know more about spaced repetition.
[https://arata.se/study04]
The negative point of flashcards is that they
only work for a specific kind of learning,
based on questions and answers.
If you’re learning how to play the guitar,
for example, flashcards aren’t as useful.
The more diverse the information is, the smaller
the usefulness of flashcards will be.
In those cases of very diverse information,
the best way of applying the retrieval of
information is trying to teach what you have
learnt.
After you’ve studied a topic, try to write
down everything you remember about that subject,
without consulting any material.
Imagine you have to teach that to a child.
What information would you choose?
This is one of the principles we discussed
in the Feynman Technique [https://arata.se/study14].
Another option is to change the way you take
notes.
Instead of taking notes and making summaries,
try writing down questions.
For example, at a history class, instead of
writing down that the Magna Carta was signed
in 1215 by King John Lackland, write down:
“Who signed the Magna Carta?
When?”.
That way you’re creating material to practice
the retrieval of information.
If you’re studying for something more practical,
like how to code apps, or how to play the
guitar, try to create challenges that can
be solved later without consulting any materials.
Retrieving information is the most effective
way of fulfilling your studies.
But that’s only the half of a bigger cycle.
After testing yourself, you need feedback.
You need to know whether the information you
remember is correct.
In order to obtain it, we need to see the
sixth principle of ultra learners: feedback.
Principle 6: Seek corrective feedback so that
you can keep improving.
Getting a fast and continuous feedback is
a habit that takes part of the strategy that
a lot of ultra learners use.
In a normal school situation, students wait
too long to get feedback.
Usually, students study a subject and only
after three or even six months it’s when
they take an exam to get feedback about what
they learnt.
In fast learning it’s not possible to wait
for so long.
You need to receive steady feedback about
what you’re learning.
When you don’t get that kind of fast and
precise feedback, the result is usually stagnation.
You spend a long period of time studying a
topic or practising an ability without progressing.
Sometimes, a lack of feedback may even lead
to a worse performance.
But you have to be careful with the kind of
feedback you get.
Some studies show that harsh criticism can
have the opposite effect.
In the same way, compliments to your ego can
end up damaging your learning process.
The ideal thing is that the feedback tells
you what you’re doing wrong and especially
how to correct that mistake.
That’s very different from useless feedback
like “you’re silly and you will never
learn that!” or “you’re so intelligent!”
Our ego can hinder the processing of feedback…
even if we received high quality feedback
that told us what we did wrong and how we
can solve the problem.
A lot of students get sad when they are criticized,
even if it’s constructive criticism.
That’s why they avoid getting any kind of
feedback.
The best thing is to go straight and take
the most sincere and constructive feedback
possible.
This can be obtained from a good teacher or
even through automatized systems that evaluate
your answers and show you where you made a
mistake.
Both teachers and algorithms will basically
give you three kinds of feedback: feedback
about the result, informative feedback and
corrective feedback.
The feedback about the result is the most
common one, and often the only kind of feedback
available.
It’s when someone evaluates the result of
what you made: your project, the grade in
a test, the answer to a question.
The informative feedback doesn’t only analyze
your result as a whole, but also specific
parts of what you produced or even of how
you produced it.
For example, you played a piece on the piano
and the general result was good.
But the teacher gave you feedback about how
to better position your hands.
Or you coded an app and the teacher realized
that you could have gotten the same result
using a different code.
The corrective feedback is the hardest to
find, but it’s the one that can accelerate
your learning the most.
That’s the feedback you usually receive
when you have a private teacher, a tutor.
Someone who has experience in the field you
want to learn.
And someone who is paying close attention
to your learning process, showing you what
to do and what not to do.
There are four different ways to obtain feedback.
The first technique is to avoid interference
and to focus only on the useful information.
For example, you received feedback that mixes
personal offences with some constructive criticism.
Instead of getting angry and ignoring the
feedback completely, learn to ignore the offences
and to focus on the constructive parts.
The second technique is to avoid completely
positive feedback.
That is, avoid asking friends or relatives
about your results, because they will only
compliment you.
Instead,try to get feedback from someone you
know that’s going to make good criticism.
The third technique is the meta feedback.
When you find it difficult to find someone
to help you, use your own critical sense.
Whenever you finish studying a subject or
conclude a part of a project, make a sincere
self-evaluation.
How was your performance?
What could have gone better?
Which are the weak points that need to be
strengthened?
The fourth and last technique is the highly
intensified fast feedback.
Try to increase the quantity, frequency and
speed of your feedback.
Instead of asking for one person’s opinion,
ask ten, fifteen, twenty people.
This technique has an advantage, because we
don’t want to show any weak points to so
many people; that way we make an effort to
learn more and better.
No matter what technique you use, once you’ve
received high quality feedback, you need to
focus on retaining what you learnt.
And that’s the next principle ultra learners
use.
Principle 7: Retention: Don’t fill a leaky
bucket.
You need to retain the information.
Being able to master an ability or to learn
how something works is useless if you can’t
retain that knowledge.
In order to retain information better, you
need to use some strategies so that knowledge
doesn’t escape your mind as water in a leaky
bucket.
First we need to understand why we forget
what we learn.
The forgetting curve shows that we tend to
forget quickly what we learn.
There’s an exponential reduction in our
knowledge, especially in the beginning.
Later, that loss of knowledge decreases with
time.
One of the most effective strategies to retain
information is the spaced repetition system.
We space the study sessions in several intervals
during the duration of our learning process
so that we don’t forget what we’re learning.
Programs such as Anki help us control the
breaks between study blocks.
And with skills that can’t be practiced
with flashcards, you need to practice some
other way, creating procedures, deliberate
practice and specific routines.
Of course not all knowledge can be transformed
into procedures.
So you may need overlearning.
With overlearning, you learn much more than
necessary.
This way what could be advanced knowledge
ends up becoming more basic knowledge.
And that more basic knowledge is more difficult
to forget.
For example, you want to learn how to learn
the basis of a coding language to use it at
work.
With overlearning, instead of learning only
the basic skills that you will use, you go way further.
You learn how to code in an advanced way in
that code language.
This way you will learn the basics in a way
that will be very hard to forget.
There’s also another very well known strategy
of retention: mnemonics.
Mnemonics is a series of techniques that help
us remember something.
For example, we make diagrams, symbols, words
or sentences related to the topic we’re
learning.
The stranger the relation is, the hardest
it will be to forget.
Principle 8: Intuition is the ability to process
a great amount of information in a very small
period of time.
Intuition is acquired through experience.
The eighth principle of ultra learners is
the most abstract of them all: intuition.
Intuition is hard to explain, but, in the
learning field, it can be defined as a way
of thinking based on principles.
For example, when an experienced mathematician
faces a difficult problem, he knows that he
needs to use the general principles of mathematics
before examining the details of the problem.
Just thinking about the basics, the mathematician
knows in advance which options to consider
and which ones to reject when trying to solve
the problem.
Intuition tends to come with experience.
The more time you spend learning a topic,
the more intuitive things will be for you.
Sometimes intuition seems to be magic, but
it’s actually something much more ordinary.
It’s simply the production of a huge amount
of information in a short period of time.
That makes your brain find shortcuts when
it needs to learn something new inside that
knowledge area.
In order for you to start developing your
intuition, you can’t give up when you face
difficult problems.
When you find something that is beyond your
knowledge, don’t give up.
Insist more than you would usually insist
to see if your brain manages to solve that
problem intuitively even without having the
necessary specific knowledge.
The second rule is trying solutions to be
able to say that you understood them.
Instead of simply applying a formula or using
a solution created by someone else, try to
recreate the way the other person achieved
the solution formula.
That may take time, but it’s going to create
a much deeper knowledge than if you simply
applied already created solutions.
The third rule is to always start with a specific
example.
Even if the subject you’re studying is more
abstract, try to think about an analogy in
the real world so that your brain considers
some problems and solutions intuitively.
The fourth rule is not to fool yourself.
Always be sceptic towards your understanding
of the subject.
Did you really understand what you just studied?
Or are you just willing to go ahead and finish
your studies as fast as possible?
If you didn’t understand completely, you
may end up being a victim of the Dunning-Kruger
effect.
The Dunning-Kruger effect happens when someone
who has a partial understanding of a subject
believes he knows more than someone who actually
understands the topic.
The Dunning-Kruger effect happens because,
the more you study something, the more questions
you will have about it.
While someone with basic knowledge has more
certainties, advanced students have more doubts.
We’ve already seen that, in the Feynman
technique, if you’re not able to teach what
you learnt to a child, then you probably don’t
understand the topic completely [https://arata.se/study14].
And now we’re going to see the last principle
that those who manage to learn in a fast and
efficient way is: experimentation.
Principle 9: Experimentation: Explore beyond
your comfort zone.
The last of the nine principles ultra learners
use is experimentation.
We talked about this experimentation principle
slightly in our discussion about the use of
the scientific method for the resolution of
your personal problems [https://arata.se/hello174].
Experimentation is one of the steps of the
scientific method: observation, formulation
of hypothesis, EXPERIMENTATION and analysis
of results.
The same way scientists make experiments to
find the best solution to a problem, you must
also use experimentation as a key to become
a true master of the topic you’re studying.
When you start learning something, usually
you only need to follow the steps of someone
who has learnt that already.
You follow a book, a course, or even replicate
a success case and you learn the basics.
Nevertheless, if you want to advance and become
a master, maybe even surpass your teachers,
you’re going to need experimentation.
You need to experiment in order to find the
best solution for your case.
And, in this journey, you’ll start to have
your own ideas, you may even start disagreeing
with your old teachers.
This is how new knowledge is created, especially
in those fields that require creativity.
There are three ways to experiment.
The first way is to experiment with different
learning materials.
If you always studied following one method,
try using another.
If you always used books, try attending presencial
classes.
If you always followed a teacher, follow another
one who has the opposite approach.
The second way is to experiment with different
techniques.
If you’re learning something more practical,
like learning how to paint or how to play
bagpipe, you can try using different techniques
to see if you get better results.
The third way is to experiment with different
styles.
If you always studied classical guitar, try
studying more modern styles.
If you always studied american cinema, try
studying iranian cinema.
If you studied how to write poetry, try studying
how to write novels.
Experimenting is not easy.
But precisely because it broadens your comfort
zone, experimentation brings you excellent
results.
It’s as if it made you complete a level,
going from knowing that topic to mastering
it.
To do that, you need to have a mentality of
growth.
You need to understand that your brain evolves
as it learns and adapts to new knowledge.
That understanding can be taken into practice
with some specific techniques.
One well known experimentation technique is
copying first, then creating.
That is, you copy what other people do and
you use that as a starting point to experiment
something different.
When you do that, you’re bound to deconstruct
the previous work to see how it’s made.
Another experimentation technique is to compare
methods side to side.
If there are two ways of learning the topic
you’re learning, put those methods next
to each other and compare them.
What do they have in common?
What is different about them?
How can I use the best of each one of them
to create a method made by myself?
There’s yet another experimentation technique
that consists on placing restrictions on your
own study.
One of the greatest learning challenges when
you’re advanced is that you start to think
that you already know what to do.
That’s the famous knowledge curse.
A good way of breaking that knowledge curse
is to leave that state of “I know that already”
by placing restrictions that make old methods
impossible to use.
For example, if you’re learning how to code
and you’ve always solved a problem using
a hundred lines script, you can force yourself
to solve the same problem using fifty lines.
That kind of restriction makes you experiment
with different solutions, and that way you
broaden your mastery of the topic.
You can also experiment by mixing different
abilities you have that aren’t related.
That can make you stand out from other students
in the same field.
For example, a chemical engineer who learns
how to speak in public can have a professional
advantage over another chemical engineer with
the same knowledge level but who knows nothing
about oratory.
Finally, you can experiment with high specialization.
If you want to know a bit of everything, that
can make you stay in mediocrity.
For example, let’s say you’re studying
physics.
If you want to be good at classical mechanics,
quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism
and relativity at the same time, you will
probably stand out in none of them.
It would be better if you chose just one of
those fields and find a specific topic within
it so that you can try to go all the way through
it.
Whatever your experimenting technique is,
the important thing is to be sure that experimentation
is the principle that brings all nine principles
of ultralearning together.
After all, learning isn’t but a big experiment
in which you acquire knowledge a lot of times
through trial and error.
Start your first ultralearning project
Because you followed this Arata Summary until
this point, you must be very interested in
knowing how to learn more and better.
In some way, learning is important for you.
The book Ultralearning is makes it clear that
accelerated learning projects aren’t always
easy, but they are certainly possible.
It’s not necessary to be a genius to learn
things in a faster way than most people.
You only need to have a method.
That method can be divided into five practical
steps.
The first step is doing some research and
designing your metalearning map.
The second step is preparing a calendar.
It’s having clear deadlines to learn each
topic defined in the map and planning the
necessary time during your week to study.
The third step is implementing your plan.
Knowing that no plan is perfect, you should
start with what you have today and improve
as time goes by.
The fourth step is analysing your results.
When your plan of studies ends, evaluate what
went well and what didn’t.
That way, when you decide to study a new topic,
you won’t make the same mistakes.
The fifth and last step is deciding what you’re
going to do with the knowledge you obtained.
You can choose to maintain, relearn or master
what you learnt.
All knowledge decreases with time when it’s
not used.
That’s why I’m asking you: what are you
going to do when you finish your studies?
The first option is to maintain your knowledge
without any goal in mind, without any desire
to take that knowledge to a new level.
To do that, you just need to practice that
skill every day a little bit so that you won’t
forget it.
The second option is to relearn it.
Sometimes, the cost of relearning something
is smaller than the cost of maintaining that
knowledge over time.
So, you accept the fact that you’re going
to forget it… and in case you need that
knowledge in the future, you’ll just need
to quickly relearn it.
The third option is to master what you learnt.
It’s going deeper into that topic you learnt,
becoming a true master in that field.
That can be accomplished through ongoing practice
or by following a new ultralearning project,
this time with deeper knowledge.
Regardless of your choice, what you must keep
in mind is that you’re able to learn anything.
You just need to follow the nine principles
you learnt in this summary and apply the most
effective study techniques discovered by science.
In the course How To Learn Faster, we see
in detail what those techniques are.
And, particularly, we see how you can put
those techniques into practice, in your everyday
study, to master the art of accelerated learning.
That’s why I invite you to watch right now
a special class from the How To Learn Faster
course at https://arata.se/howtolearn
