hey friends welcome back to the channel
today we're talking about learning now
learning has been probably one of my
main superpowers since i was very young
and learning how to learn is one of
those like meta skills that no one ever
really teaches us but that can have like
an enormous impact on our life in
basically everything that we do for
example when i was in med school i
learned how to learn and therefore i
could study for everything that i was
doing more efficiently and that freed up
my own time to do things like set up a
business and set up this youtube channel
and these days even though i don't have
many more exams to prepare for learning
is still a huge part of my life trying
to get better at making these youtube
videos trying to get better at running a
business all this stuff involves
learning and so in this video i'm going
to share nine tips that i found really
helpful that are evidence-based about
how we can learn anything we want faster
let's go tip number one is to sharpen
the axe now this is from a quote that's
attributed to abraham lincoln where he
famously said that if you gave me six
hours to chop down a tree i would spend
the first four sharpening the axe and
he's really talking here about the power
of preparation and this definitely
applies to learning anything as well
let's say we are studying for an exam
and we want to learn it a little bit
better reading a great book called make
it stick would be a great way of
learning how to learn or checking out my
skillshare class on evidence-based study
techniques equally let's say we're
trying to learn something like the
guitar or chess or anything like that
something that's not related to studying
we should still spend a decent amount of
time figuring out the meta learning
behind what we're actually going to
learn like how we are going to learn the
thing for example when i was learning
how to play the piano by ear i spent a
decent amount of time on the learn piano
subreddit where people were explaining
how to learn how to play piano by ear
and just spending a little bit of time
sharpening the axe before i actually sat
down to learn the thing really helped
accelerate my learning process tip
number two is to use crutches to
optimize our focus now whenever we're
learning anything it's really tempting
to
kind of learn it in the background like
practicing the guitar while watching tv
or something like that but obviously
when we're fully focused on the thing
that we're learning our brain learns the
thing a lot better and so i've found a
few different crutches or hacks that
have been particularly helpful in
helping me focus on things one is the
five-minute rule which is a general tip
for productivity as well which is that
if we want to do something we're finding
ourselves like having difficulty in
starting out doing the thing like
actually getting started overcoming the
activation energy the five-minute rule
says that we just have to convince
ourselves that we're just gonna do the
thing for five minutes and then after
we've done it for five minutes we're
allowed to just not do it but more often
than not i find that if i've been
practicing the guitar or playing the
piano for five minutes i do then want to
actually continue to practice another
thing that's really helpful is to just
chuck my phone away i literally take my
phone i toss it onto the sofa or on the
floor like a good tosser and then i'm
ready to focus and not be distracted
with the thing that i'm trying to learn
all right tip number three is to find
opportunities for immersion so um
there's a great book called ultra
learning by a chap called scott young
where he talks about his journey through
learning languages in like three months
at a time and becoming fluent in a
language in three months and the key to
that as all language learners say is
immersion just being as immersed in the
language as possible and the general
principle here is that we learn best
when we're in the environment where
we're actually going to be using the
skill so for example when i was learning
how to do magic to become a close-up
magician yes i was doing some practice
in front of my webcam and in front of my
mirror just to get the sleight of hand
down but really my webcam or mirror is
not it's not the arena in which i'm
going to be performing it and so i made
it a point to try and perform magic for
real people as much as possible i would
take a deck of cards into school and i'd
have cards in my room at all times and
so friends would come over i'd kind of
hey be like hey do you want to see magic
trick and eventually once i got okay at
performing for friends and family i
started then reaching out and doing paid
gigs even though i was nowhere near good
enough in my head to get paid to do
magic eventually i did end up getting
paid to do to do magic and those like
walk around gigs and balls and parties
helped improve my abilities in a way
that just doing it in front of the
mirror really wouldn't have done tip
number four is to figure out what are
our weak links and then use lots of
drills and stuff to improve them so if
we use medical as an example i had a few
subjects that i was pretty weak in
neurology was one of them if you'd asked
me what is guillain-barre syndrome i'd
have been like oh god i have absolutely
no idea i didn't even have a mental
model for where it would fit into the
subject of neurology and so when it came
to studying efficiently for my exams i
knew that okay i have to drill the
things that i'm weakest on and i spent
just a whole day basically creating a
one-page syllabus of just neurology just
focusing on that one subject
and just because i spent like eight to
12 hours that day doing it i basically
plugged it as an area of weakness and
now it was no longer an area of weakness
and the question i would keep on asking
myself every day when i was sitting down
to study was if the exam were tomorrow
what topic would i be the least happy or
the most pissed off about and then i
would just study that topic and this is
really good because whenever we're
learning or whenever we're studying or
anything like that it's very tempting to
just do the stuff that seems familiar to
us if we're studying for an exam you
know it's very tempting to open up the
book to page one and just even though we
already know what's on page one if we're
learning the guitar it's very tempting
to just play through songs that we've
already played before but really the
learning only happens when we're trying
to fix our weaknesses and we're trying
to operate at a decent level of
difficulty if something is too easy
we're not gonna learn anything at all
and so if we want to maximize our
learning and learn anything faster we
want to really hone down on what are
these areas of weakness what are these
weak links and how do we use drills to
improve those as quickly as we can tip
number five is to test ourselves now
this is a thing that in the world of
studying is called active recall but it
also applies to the world of learning
anything in general i have a whole video
about that that's linked in the card
over there and if you want to find out
more you can definitely check out my
skillshare class about how to study for
exams also linked in the video
description by the way skillshare are
sponsoring this video i'll tell you more
about them a little bit later anyway the
idea behind active recall or retrieval
practice is that we don't learn by
trying to put stuff into our brains we
actually learn counterintuitively by
trying to take stuff out of our brains
and so if you've had that experience
where you've read something in a
textbook or on a website and someone
asks you about it a few days later and
you've completely forgotten about it
that's just because you haven't tested
yourself on that knowledge and the word
testing has all these negative
connotations because we think of testing
as like a school thing and we get graded
and we get judged but if we move towards
thinking of testing ourselves as being a
strategy for learning everything becomes
so much easier that's why when learning
to play the guitar there's only so many
tutorials you can watch before you
actually start having to put it into
practice when you're studying for exams
there's no point reading the textbook
and just summarizing what's in the
textbook the point is you have to test
yourself so that your brain has a chance
to work to retrieve the information and
that is what really drives learning and
in the field of learning there is this
concept called the desirable difficulty
concept which basically just means
something shouldn't be too hard where
just like for example if i were to try
playing tennis against roger federer it
would just be too hard i wouldn't really
learn anything but equally if i were to
try playing tennis against a
ten-year-old who doesn't know how to
play it wouldn't be fun i wouldn't learn
anything because the difficulty is at
two different extremes i want to be
playing tennis against someone who is
like at my level or a little bit better
than me because that is the real arena
in which i'm gonna be learning and
that's why having a coach for example is
really good because a coach can moderate
their play style to be at my level and
therefore i'm more likely to learn that
is desirable difficulty and so whatever
we want to learn efficiently we want to
apply this concept to try and make it a
little bit more difficult learning is
not supposed to be easy it is supposed
to be hard and if it's hard then it
means we're doing something right tip
number six is to get intense feedback as
often and as quickly as possible so
feedback obviously is how we learn we do
something we see that we're doing it
wrong and then we improve the thing and
again feedback is one of those words
that
can seem a little bit like dirty at
times especially if we're starting
something out where we're not sure of
our own abilities if we get constructive
or critical feedback that can really be
a blow to our ego if you're the sort of
person that needs the ego massage then
at the start of learning something what
you need is praise and encouragement for
example if i was just starting to learn
how to sing and people would just give
me critical feedback immediately i'd
probably feel a little bit like okay i
don't really want to sing i'm one of
those people who just can't sing equally
if i were to start drawing and people
would be like oh haha that's really crap
you should do this instead i'd probably
feel pretty bad about it and therefore
it wouldn't help me continue on the
journey so i think at the start of a
journey for most of us we need that like
injection of
positivity and enthusiasm rather than
necessarily critical feedback but if we
do decide to switch gears and to start
taking learning something super
seriously we want to kind of avoid the
praise and recognition aspect of it
which is kind of unhelpful and instead
focus on the critical constructive
feedback what can we do differently
again this is why having a coach for
stuff is actually really really helpful
ever since getting a personal trainer my
everything in the gym has improved my
biceps have gotten bigger i'm a one step
closer to becoming a gym shark athlete
because now i have someone who is like
there and then giving me feedback on the
things that i should do differently
whereas before maybe once in a blue moon
i'd film a video of myself send it to a
friend they'd reply a few days later
it's not really a tight feedback loop
and really it's the tight feedback loops
that encourage learning whether it's for
exams or whether it's for anything else
in life tip number seven is the concept
of over learning which is that when
we're learning something we actually
want to try and understand or learn it
in more depth than we necessarily need
to and the idea here is to continuously
be asking why a thing works the way that
it does so for example when i'm working
as a doctor and i see senior doctors who
you know
most of being a doctor admittedly is
about following guidelines and following
a prescribed set of rules and basically
a flowchart for everything that we do
but and and so there are some doctors
who
have that have that view of you know all
i have to do is memorize the guidelines
or look them up but then there are other
doctors who have a more first principles
understanding approach to medicine which
is that okay i know what the guidelines
are that i should prescribe this drug
but i'm actually going to take a step to
figure out why that's the guideline why
do they do that what's the paper what's
the evidence around this
and you know in in my experience it's
hard to say that you know camp 2 is
objectively a better doctor than camp
one but certainly the sort of doctor
that i want to be is the doctor who
understands stuff from first principles
and understands the rationale for doing
stuff rather than just memorizing the
guidelines this applies to music theory
in the guitar as well i had a guitar
lesson this morning and we were talking
about how it's very easy to learn how to
play anything by just following a
tutorial but when you follow a tutorial
the thing that you're learning is you
know my fingers are going in this
particular position whereas what we want
to try and get to and john mayer talks
about this a lot on his instagram
what we want to be getting to is just an
understanding of music theory so that
instead of i put my fingers in a b and c
positions we think okay i'm playing a c7
chord and the reason i'm playing a c7
chord is because of this and therefore
my fingers are going to go in a b and c
position and so the end result is is the
same we're still playing that chord and
we can still probably just play the song
but when you have that deeper
appreciation of the
the reasons behind why things are the
way that they are it just makes learning
anything else in that particular sphere
much easier and much more efficient tip
number eight is all about spacing this
is something in the world of studying we
call spaced repetition basically there's
a concept called the forgetting curve
that was discovered by a chap called
ebbinghaus in like the 1800s and the
forgetting curve is that whenever we
learn anything whether it's like a fact
or a skill or whatever we're just going
to forget it and our memory for the
thing is going to decay over time and so
we have to keep on practicing or testing
ourselves on the thing to actually
continue to have our brain kind of use
up space for that kind of thing because
it's like with our muscles when we don't
use our muscles our muscles are going to
atrophy and they're going to get smaller
and we're going to get less hench
equally with our brain if we learn let's
say a language when we were five years
old and then we don't use it for the
next 10 years we're actually going to
forget most of the language because our
brain doesn't need to have that
information in it anymore but thankfully
we can combat the forgetting curve by
using this concept of spaced repetition
this applies not just to exams but to
any other skill as well it's just that
if we kind of repeat the thing at spaced
intervals so let's say i might learn a
song on the guitar on day one and then i
might repeat it again tomorrow and then
i might test myself on it again next
week and then next month and then six
months from now and if i've spaced my
repetition of this thing enough
eventually playing that song is gonna go
into my muscle memory it's gonna go into
my long-term memory and i won't need to
practice it very much anymore to be able
to play it whenever i want now if you're
trying to learn something that has
specific facts there's all sorts of
different apps that you can use to help
with spacing the one that i personally
enjoy the most is free and it's called
anki after the japanese of for
ankishimas which i think is to memorize
and anki is just like an incredible app
that completely revolutionized my
experience of med school it does have a
bit of a learning curve and so did you
know i have an entire skillshare class
about how to use anki the basics along
with some advanced tips along with some
guides on how to use anki to learn
absolutely anything along with bonus
interviews from other students all
around the world that are using anki for
stuff very effectively if you want to
check that out and any of my other like
10 classes on skillshare you should hit
the link in the video description
because skillshare i'm very kindly
sponsoring this video so if you want to
check out my class on anki or my class
on evidence-based study tips or any of
my three classes about how to be more
productive then hit the link in the
video description while i was filming
this video skillshare had an offer of
giving you 30 off the annual premium
subscription but they've actually
changed up that offer so now if you're
one of the first thousand people to hit
the link in the video description you
will get a one month free trial
completely free to skillshare premium
where you can check out my anki class
and all the other 10 classes i've got
skillshare so hit the link in the video
description be the first 1000 people to
hit that link to get a one month free
trial this is amazing it's a no-brainer
you can just watch all my classes so
thank you skillshare for sponsoring this
video and finally tip number nine is to
teach what you are trying to learn we
all we often have this thing of like oh
i'm not allowed to teach something until
i become an expert at it but there's
this concept that c.s lewis talks about
that i talk about a lot called the curse
of knowledge which is that when we when
we're trying to learn something often
we don't learn best from experts we
learn best from people who are just one
step in front of us along that same
journey so the way i think of it is that
i would rather learn from a guide than
learn from a guru guide versus guru and
i would rather be a guide than try and
be a guru and certainly for me i found
that when i was going through medical
school my favorite revision sessions or
lectures would be the ones that were
given by medical students in the year
above me rather than those given by
world class nobel prize winning
professors because those guys were like
old and like really far removed from the
things that i needed at the time whereas
another medical student just one year
above me was like really really helpful
and then when i started teaching medical
students when i started teaching guitar
when i started piano and youtube as well
with my part-time youtuber academy i
found that anytime i try and teach
something it really solidifies my own
knowledge and understanding and learning
of the thing itself and so now i have a
general policy that whenever i'm
learning anything i'm documenting my
process while learning it and that helps
me learn better because i know that i'm
possibly going to be teaching this thing
a few months or years from now if you
like this video you might like to check
out two specific books about learning
one is called make it stick and the
other one is called ultra learning and
you can actually find summaries for both
of those on short form which is my
favorite way of getting summaries of
books that'll be linked in the video
description if you want to check it out
and if you're interested in the science
of effective learning check out this
video over here which is from a few
years ago but it's still generally one
of my favorite videos of all time that
i've ever made one of the best ones i
think as well and it's all about the
power of active recall and why testing
ourselves is the best thing ever and i
talk about a lot of scientific evidence
around it and loads of people have said
that that video alone has changed their
life so thank you so much for watching
hit the subscribe button if you aren't
already and i'll see you in the next
video bye