Category: Learning

I came across a brilliant method to learn and retain new information. It is from Shane Parrish of the blog Farnam Street. Basically, when you are learning something new, from a course or a book, take out a blank sheet of paper and write down what you already know about the topic/subject – in a mind map form.

After you finish a session (or a chapter), spend a few minutes adding to the map with a different color. Before you start the next session, review the page. When you’re finished with the course or the book, put this “mind map” into a binder that you periodically review.

I am doing a course Building A Second Brain by Tiago Forte and started doing the mind map. It’s incomplete but looks something like this:

It works well because the blank sheet primed my brain for what I was about to learn. When I put down on paper what I already knew, it forced me to search my memory. As you went through the course I added to my current knowledge. I removed things that I thought were incorrect and added new things as I learned them. The method not only improves retention but helped me connect ideas.

One caveat is, to use your own words and not that of the author. Try to connect it to something you already know — a memory or another idea. Also, make note of any unanswered questions you have while learning. And, on the side, write down the main ideas of the book/course using your own words.

Why is it so hard to learn a new skill in the beginning?

When I started blogging three years ago, I struggled a lot. It was taking me 7 to 8 hours to write a post. I would get frustrated, write sentences repeatedly, try to make the paragraphs flow, and work late at night so that I could publish the damn thing.

When I started sketching, it was even worse. My skeches were terrible, and I would feel horrible posting them on Instagram.

When we try something new, we are usually terrible at it, and we know it. We get disturbed at the prospect of being horrible at something, so much so that we quit to escape from the feeling of angst.

The early times of trying something new are always challenging, but a little persistence can result in huge increases in skill. The human brain is optimized to pick up new skills extremely quickly. If we could persist and practice systematically, we can experience dramatic improvements in a very short time.

I recently started writing books. For years I was convinced that it takes at least a year to write a book. Until one fine morning, I woke up and decided to write a book. That too in one week. And I did that.

I treated the book as an experiment to learn the process of writing a book. Taking the same approach as writing blog posts, I broke the book into smaller chunks and concentrated on one chunk at a time.

In the beginning, I struggled. I was all over the place. I was writing and rewriting and had no idea what I would cover in each chapter, but as the days passed, I was beginning to develop a routine for myself.

There were times I was trying not to throw my computer across the room when I got overwhelmed but then pushing through the early frustration, I developed simple techniques to meet my daily quota of writing.

First, I figured out I only have 4 -5 productive hours a day, so I made sure I didn’t waste them. Second, I learned that if I cover the core concepts first, I can fill in the blanks with research later. Third, I realized I concentrate on the smaller chunks at a time I can go through more in the given time.

As a result, I finished my book in time to publish it within a week.

So successful was this approach that I am now using it to write a book a month.

It didn’t take me 10,000 hours to master the skill of writing and publishing my first book.

Malcolm Gladwell was the first to make Dr. K. Anders Ericsson’s 10,000 rule famous through his book Outliers. Through several examples, Gladwell found that it takes around 10 years or 10,000 hours of practice to reach the top of ultracompetitive, easily ranked performance fields, such as professional golf, music performance, or chess. In those fields, the more time you’ve spent in deliberate practice, the better you perform compared to people who have practiced fewer hours.

But there is a caveat.

Most of the time, we are not seeking to become world-class golfers or chess players. I didn’t write a New York Times bestseller in one week. I just wrote a book. My focus was on solving a problem (mine as well as my readers) and hence I wrote a useful book.

In the process, I learned a skill in one week.

To learn a new skill, you need to figure out what is the focus. In my case, the focus was on solving a problem.

If you are learning career skills, your focus may be on performing well enough to produce a result that’s meaningful to you and useful to your employer.

If you are learning personal skills such as a hobby, your focus should be on enjoying the process and having fun.

Rather than Malcolm Gladwell’s (aka Dr. K. Anders Ericsson’s) 10,000 rule, I subscribe to Josh Kaufman’s “20-Hours rule”.

Josh Kaufman, the author of The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything Fast states that it takes you just 20 hours of deliberate practice to learn a new skill.

The concept of the “10,000-hour rule” is very intimidating. It can serve as a barrier to learning anything. If you believe it takes that long to see results, you’re less likely to start in the first place.

And the idea of “mastery” is also a deterrent. We don’t have to “mastery” every skill we ever learn. Developing new skills in a way that allows us to perform “well enough for our own purposes.” This approach is by far the most practical approach for skill acquisition.

According to Josh Kaufman, you can learn just about anything if you commit to “deliberately practice” for 20 hours.

About 40 minutes to one hour a day is all you need to get the results you’re looking for. It is not to attain mastery or for competitive performance but to get good enough.

Jeff Kaufman suggests 10 Principles of Rapid Skill Acquisition in his book The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything Fast!,

• 1. Lovable project — It’s important to pay attention to what you’re personally most interested in learning. Even if you think you “should” focus on learning something else, when you’re naturally interested in a particular skill, you’ll learn extremely quickly. So follow your interests where they lead, and avoid forcing yourself to grind through abilities you’re not interested in exploring.
• 2. One skill at a time — Don’t choose multiple skills at the same time. Concentrate on one skill at a time and give it your full attention.
• 3. Target performance level — Decide what you want to be able to do. It is called a “target performance level.” If you have a clear idea of how good you want to become, it’s much easier to find specific practice methods that will help you get there as quickly as possible.
• 4. Deconstruction — Most skills are really just bundles of smaller subskills you use at the same time. Break the skill down into smaller parts. By breaking down the skill into manageable parts, you eliminate the early feelings of overwhelm and make it easier to get started.
• 5. Critical subskills — Practice the most important subskills first. A few subskills will always be more important than others, so it makes sense to begin by practicing the things that will give you a significant increase in performance. By focusing your early practice on the most critical parts of the skill, you’ll see a dramatic increase in your performance after a few hours of practice.
• 6. Barriers to practice — When learning a skill, there will always be barriers that interfere with the learning process. These barriers could be internal such as fear or self-doubt, or external such as distractions (a ringing phone, knock at the door, TV). Eliminate any hindrances for one hour.
• 7. Make time — The exact amount of time it takes to acquire a new skill depends on your desired performance level — if you don’t make things harder than they really need to be, it’s not at all uncommon to reach your initial objective in a few hours.
• 8. Fast feedback loops — Find a way to get fast feedback on your progress so that you can correct yourself quickly and stay on the path of speedy learning. You can hire a coach or take time to reflect on your mistakes and correct them.
• 9. Short bursts — Numerous studies in the fields of motor and cognitive skill acquisition have established that the first few hours of practicing a new skill always generate the most dramatic performance improvements.
• 10. Quantity and speed — Practice quickly and often and do not focus on achieving perfection. It’s better to recognize that you’re likely a beginner, and you shouldn’t expect yourself to be an expert from the start. By prioritizing quantity and speed, you’re less likely to get frustrated and subsequently demotivated during the initial stages of practice.

Kaufman field-tested the “First 20 Hours” on a wide variety of skills in several contexts — fine and gross motor movements, cognitive processing, personal hobbies, and professional skills.

The general pattern looks like this – when you start, you’re horrible. But you improve quickly as you learn the essential parts of the skill. After reaching a certain level of skill quickly, your rate of improvement declines, and subsequent improvement becomes much slower.

This phenomenon is called the “power law of practice,” and it’s one of the most consistent findings in skill acquisition research. According to Kaufman, this effect has been known since at least 1926, and it’s been replicated many times in studies of both physical and mental skills.

Even when you have learned a new skill, you will lose it over time if you don’t continue to practice it.

Skills deteriorate over time is a given, but it is also easy to re-acquire a skill after you’ve learned it. It usually doesn’t take much practice to bring your skills back up to past levels once you know what you’re doing. An hour or two every few months is usually sufficient to maintain your current level of performance. You’re just reconnecting parts of your brain that haven’t been connected in a while. The neural wiring is still there; it’s just a bit rusty.

Is there any skill you would like to learn?

Would you be game enough to test Josh Kaufman’s “First 20 Hours”?

I would like to hear about it here.

You can write your first book in one week. I did it. So can you. Want to know how? Just download the book and get going.

As I sat with my laptop after dinner, wanting to start writing this post, I got distracted by the docudrama playing on the TV. 

Titled ‘Becoming Bond’ is a documentary on George Lazenby, who acted as James Bond in the film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The movie was a super hit and, to date, is considered as one of the best if not the best Bond movie ever. 

Lazenby, who has never acted in a film before (he was a car salesman and a model before the role), acted superbly and was offered a contract for six Bond movies and a million-dollar signing amount.

Guess what he did? 

He said no.

That’s right! 

To date, his declining of the James Bond role is laughed at. It is a standing joke and is referred to as ‘doing a Lazenby’ when someone walks out of something lucrative. 

But this is not how Lazenby sees it. Even though, to date, he is not sure why he said no to the deal, he doesn’t regret it.

To him being James Bond meant surrendering his own sense of self. 

While he admits there are days when he regrets his decision, he has put James Bond behind him. “I got married, I had a couple of kids. I went into real estate; I was very successful there. And I race motorcycles. I always wanted to race motorcycles.”

According to him, it’s very hard for people to understand, but living life on your own terms in your own way is a much better life. It is a much fuller life. 

Becoming Bond was never was his end goal. When asked which would he prefer, a stereotype James Bond or a car salesman like he used to be, he said, “A car salesman like I used to be.”

He says, “The best thing to do is to know yourself. Feel yourself. And be yourself. I may not be great, but I am an original.”

He is proud of his life. He was a kid with half a kidney and was expected to live till 12. He is 76 now and has done everything and more than he ever expected to. 

“I can’t think of anything I would change,” he said. 

When asked what did he hope people remember about his life, he said, “I would like them to know that you could defy what is expected of you.” 

You could defy what is expected of you.

That was the line that grabbed me. 

That was the message I wanted to get across in this post, and Lazenby gave it to me on a platter.

Like Lazenby, content writing was not my end goal. 

I got into it like Lazenby landed the James Bond role. By pure chance. 

I was happy writing fiction. I was happy learning to write a novel. I was happy sketching and painting. Making cartoons.

Instead, I was expected to write an article a day. I was told this is how the algorithm works. The more you write, the more you put in front of readers. The bigger publications you write for, the more people see your work. 

For a while, I did all that thinking I am doing the right thing by fulfilling what is expected of me. 

But, in doing so, I surrendered my sense of self.

I would have continued doing so had I not listened to Lazenby’s last words in the documentary.

I wanted to write this post to announce that I am starting 90 days of Focus on Fiction.

I was feeling guilty disappointing my readers that I will not write a post every day.

That Focusing on Fiction means that I read fiction, write fiction, breathe fiction. It will be a while before my brain starts thinking like a fiction writer. 

At the moment, it is so full of non-fiction that all I can’t bring myself to write a story. Any story. 

The truth is I have not written any fiction for almost two years now.

So I am going to defy what is expected of me and do what I want to do. 

I am going to concentrate on writing fiction. 

I will still write on Medium but sporadically. 

If I have anything to share, you will find it here, on Authorpreneurs publication.

I am not going away; I am just being true to myself. I also didn’t want to feel guilty on the days when I could not write a post because I am grappling with inventing an interesting character and wondering whether to give her a love interest or turn her into a murderess. 

So if you don’t hear from me for a few days, this is what I am doing.

Playing god with fictional beings.

Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash

Do you know what we writers lack? 

Do you know what we writers lack? 

A proper curriculum to do develop writing skills. 

Most of us have embarked on writing without any proper training. Some like me got into it because our writing sucked, and we wanted to get better at it. 

No wonder writing is such a hard skill to master. 

Every other artistic field has a way of teaching the basics. Two years ago, I learned how to draw cartoons. I followed a curriculum for six months that taught me all the basics. Once I learned that all I needed to do was practice every day. Today I am a confident cartoonist.

Every professional invest in the continuation and enhancing of their skills. Doctors, Accountants, Teachers, Insurance, attorneys, and every other professional — all spend a ridiculous amount of time and money training each year to stay on top of their professions.

There is no such requirement when you are a writer and working for yourself. 

Shouldn’t writers be staying on top of their profession? 

Yes.

Some of us do online courses and seminars in a haphazard way which, rather than enhancing our skills, leaves us baffled and frustrated.

Since we are left to our own resources, wouldn’t it be better to make our own learning plans?

A learning plan is a secret weapon that you can apply to anything you want to learn by yourself, whether it is writing, sketching, painting, or playing a musical instrument.

When I joined Medium, I got terrified by the number of things I needed to learn and the sheer size of the platform.

After weeks of frustration, I made a list of everything I thought I needed to know to come across as an informed writer. I called it my Medium Learning Plan. I broke each item on the list into bite-size pieces to make it easier for me to learn.

Then every day, I picked something from the list and learned it either by reading about it or watching videos, or practicing on my own. I didn’t stop until I felt confident enough to cross it off my list. 

Some topics were simple, and I only needed a basic understanding of them. Others like ‘Categories,’ ‘Setting,’ and ‘Publications’ were complex, and I had to go back to them repeatedly. But the key was I invested in my continuing education. 

What surprised me was that once I had a written plan, I was not intimidated by the size of the list. In fact, it was really easy to learn them in bite-size pieces, one tiny skill at a time.

After just a few weeks of my learning plan, my knowledge took off. Within a year, I have a knowledge base to write several articles based on what I learned.

That should be your goal too. Anytime you find yourself thinking, there is so much I need to know but don’t know where to start, make yourself a learning plan. 

If you don’t take the time to make the plan, your learning will be haphazard, and you won’t grow.

My original Medium Learning Plan has grown over the months, and it will keep growing, but here it is to get you started with yours:

My Medium Learning Plan

My learning plan had four sections. I keep on adding to it as I realize there are more things I need to learn and cross off the ones I become competent in. 

1. Medium Platform

a. What are the different features of the platform?

b. How to set up my profile page?

c. How to write and publish an article?

d. All the features of Medium Editor.

e. What information does Medium stats provide, and how can I use it (topics, categories, views, reads, fans, engagement, earnings, backlist)?

f. Various settings and how to use them effectively.

g. What is Control Your Recommendations and how to use them effectively?

h. What is Partner Program and how it works?

i. What are fans and followers? What is the difference?

j. How to get more followers and fans?

k. How do comments work? When and how to provide and respond to comments?

l. Do and don’t of the platform. Read Medium Policy and Medium official blog 3 Min Reads.

2. Publications

a. What are Medium publications?

b. Which are the prestigious Medium publications?

c. How to write for publications?

d. Which publications should I be targeting? What are their publishing guidelines? What kind of content that those publications are seeking?

d. How to start my own publication (technical know-how).

e. What are the benefits of starting a publication?

f. What niche will my publication serve? 

g. How to grow my publication (subscribers and writers)? 

h. How to provide value with my publication? And everything else.

3. Writing

a. How to write my background story?

b. How to write an article?

c. Anatomy of good Medium articles?

d. How to write articles that are useful even for years to come? 

e. How to write them in a reasonable amount of time (1–2 hours)?

f. Article templates.

g. How to build an acceptable frequency for publishing?

h. What will be my system of writing regularly (time of the day, place, location)?

i. How to generate ideas for articles?

j. How to do research?

k. What will be my editing strategy. Will I do it myself, or can someone help me—my self-editing checklist. 

l. How to write great headlines?

m. How to get interesting images?

4. Habits

a. Write every day.

b. Write using a stopwatch. 

c. Master Pomodoro Technique.

c. Write ten ideas a day.

d. Walk/Gym every day.

e. Four-hour writing day.

Hope this is helpful.

Make your own learning plans.

Read articles where people share their experiences. Makes notes from them and keeps them handy.

Do not cross off an item until you are fully competent in that skill.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash