How to Become a
More Effective Learner
Research shows that we
consume five times more information, today, than we did 30 years ago. With the
ease of access to information, and the constant exposure to news, e-learning,
social media, emails and videos — you would think that we
would be smarter as a result. Sadly, this is not the case.
Unfortunately, access to knowledge doesn’t mean that we are learning.
Heuristics of learning
We all know that to be successful
in today’s fast moving tech age, it’s important to keep learning and to
constantly up-skill. If anything, the ability to learn fast is what keeps
companies alive — for individuals, it’s the ability to learn new skills
and apply them to your
roles at work and in life.
The key to effective learning is to
not be a passive consumer of any and all kinds of information. Effective
learners are intentional about what they take in, they shortlist the very best
channels to consume great information.
When we are constantly reading
anything and everything, our brain ends up taking bits and pieces of information
that are at odds with each other, and ‘mushes’ them into a half-baked
‘Frankenstein’ monster in our minds.
This does more harm that good to us
in the long term.
How our brain interprets
the world: frameworks and schemas
It’s becoming more and more
apparent that we need a system to organise information into knowledge. Once we internalise knowledge, we
can transition into learning by finding utility and value in the basic principles.
This is also known as the concept of ‘first principles’ — when we break something
down into its most basic and fundamental values, it is more useful to us.
We can observe ourselves acting on
first principles when we decide to do something different, take a new approach
or interpret things in new ways.
Frameworks
Our brain uses frameworks as a
system of categorising information. Without it, we would be confused about
everything, all the time.
We use frameworks during the
process of thinking, and when we challenge new ideas with respect to the old
ones. Think of it this way, remember the movie Fight Club? Your new
idea is Brad Pitt and your old idea is Edward Norton, fighting it out to see
which one is better for the task at hand.
Schema
In psychology, a schema is the
assumed beliefs that we all fall back on. In other words, it’s our world view,
made up of all the interactions and experiences that we have had in our lives.
Schemas are really helpful because
they help us to understand complicated interactions in the world. Think of a
framework as all the hardware that makes up your computer — you need the hardware
because it’s the interface between your hands and the code that the computer
interprets. Now, think of schemas as the operating system or the software that
makes the computer come alive. The software limits your options, it gives you rules that
you must abide by in order to interact with the computer properly.
Developing positive
learning frameworks and schemas
So, when you approach a learning
opportunity, you are not coming at it with a blank slate. You are bringing your
baggage along with you. If you believe that you are a slow learner, or that you
just aren’t that smart — you will act that story out.
Research shows that positive self talk can help you to get out of
your negative frameworks and schemas that have been built up over the course of
your life.
Change your internal dialogue
Before you start your learning
task, try saying these mantras out loud, ten times each:
·
I am unstoppable
·
I am persistent
·
I am valuable
·
I am capable
·
People are relying on
me
·
I am learning for
myself
Try this out for a week, right
before you start your learning task. The difference will be astounding.
How senior leaders can
help their employees stay motivated to learn
Grant Cardone says to keep
learning, but to be careful of using complements as a metric for how skilled
you are.
There are 2 reasons for this:
1. People only notice about 10% of
your personal growth
2.
Compliments are
irregular and disproportionate to the level of actual progress you are making.
Compliments vs
encouragement
Compliments are acknowledgements.
They are nice to hear and they allow for an amiable interaction. But, they are
low investment and only make the recipient ‘feel good’. This isn’t enough to
help employees stay motivated to push the boundaries and learn.
Now, I’m not saying that senior
leaders shouldn’t give compliments. It’s just that they aren’t sustainable and
don’t empower employees with enough motivation to push through the uncomfortable
challenges that learning a new skill requires.
Used effectively and tactfully,
encouragement is something powerful. When someone takes the time to encourage
you, they are not just acknowledging you, they are building your spirit. Great
managers, senior leaders and mentors will often use encouragement to follow a
critique or criticism of employees’ work. They show them exactly where they
went wrong and then affirm their efforts and volition. Encouragement leaves
employees better off because it inspires and empowers them to take action — it gives them energy
and inspiration that will help them
overcome their failures and push through the uncomfortable learning challenges
that they will inevitably face.
Fun fact: the word ‘courage’ is taken
from the root proto-indo European word ‘kerd’. This literally means heart. It
also creeps into words like cardio, core and credulous.
Willpower
You only have a certain amount of
willpower that you can use per day. You are more likely to make your worst
decisions during periods when your willpower is depleted.
The American Psychology Association defines willpower as:
·
The ability to delay
gratification, resisting short-term temptations in order to meet long-term
goals.
·
The capacity to
override an unwanted thought, feeling or impulse.
·
The ability to employ a
“cool” cognitive system of behavior rather than a “hot” emotional system.
·
Conscious, effortful
regulation of the self by the self.
·
A limited resource
capable of being depleted.
The New York Times
Bestseller, Thinking Fast and Slow, says that willpower is a
function of our System 2 brain. This is the part of our brain that takes
energy, effort and focus — it is also the part of brain that is the laziest,
because it requires so much cognitive resources. So, we need to make sure that we are engaging our
‘System 2’ during critical moments and during intense learning sessions.
What to do when your
willpower is depleted
Terry Crews remembers a therapy
session when he was introduced to the ‘HALT’ method. This means that when you
are: Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired; you have to be really
vigilant about where you are and what you are doing. All of those 4 states are
when you are at your weakest spot. It sounds simple, but it’s worth thinking
about, because it can change how you make important decisions for the rest of
your life.
In your moments of mental weakness,
HALT
When
you’re hungry — eat something
When
your angry — express your feeling to a friend or put in your journal
When
you’re lonely — call someone
When
you’re tired — get some rest.
As
soon as you feel any of the HALT triggers creeping up, take action to change
your state before you make any further decisions.
Dealing with
distractions
The real killer to
productivity: distractions
Declutter your workspace
Every time you have to avoid a distraction, you’re burning up valuable willpower — which you have a limited supply of.
Every time you have to avoid a distraction, you’re burning up valuable willpower — which you have a limited supply of.
A very under-utilised tactic is
de-cluttering and organising your working space. Humans are visual creatures,
we respond extremely fast to visual stimuli. It’s why we are so good at
recognising people’s emotions just from their brief facial expressions.
Multi-tasking is not a
real thing
Stop switching from task to task or
juggling multiple tasks at once. Your brain can’t actually do more than one
task at a time. What your brain actually does is rapidly switch from one task
to another. This happens so fast that it gives us an illusion of juggling
multiple tasks at once. Cal Newport, Computer Science Professor and George Town
University says that consistent task switching can have mentally damaging affects over long periods of time.
“Bouncing from task to
task deteriorates the muscle that allows us to focus for extended periods
of time”
Be weary of juggling
too many tasks at once. Set up a system that organises all your work, meetings
and tasks that you have for the day, and deeply focus on one task at a time.
This means that you shouldn’t be
checking your inbox during any given task. Checking your inbox is a task in
itself. Some people prefer to have software and app notifications turned off
during task time and periodically check their inbox, slack or Facebook during
scheduled times throughout the day.
Focusing on one task at a time
allows your brain to avoid high ‘mental residue’. This is the buffer period that
it takes for your brain to realign the resources from the previous task to the
new task in front of you.
If you are consistency switching
from one task to the next, you will have high mental residue, and this will
wear out your willpower and focus much more quickly — resulting in sub-par
and underwhelming work. It also means that you don’t enjoy the work you are
doing.
Your brain is a learning machine. A
lot of what we are told about learning is rhetorical. We need to treat our
brains well and use it how it’s designed to function. To be an effective
learner, you can’t ignore the necessary processes of proper focus and regular
rest. Without proper focus, your brain burns out and gets clumsy, without
proper rest your brain doesn’t consolidate and store all the learnings from the
day.
Selective ignorance and
the ‘flow state’
Selective ignorance takes the idea
of removing distractions to the next level.
Cal Newport likes to call it …
Deep Work: the ability to focus, without
distraction on a cognitively demanding task.
Dr Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls
it…
Flow: a mental state of complete
absorption in the current experience.
We’ve all experienced this a few
times in our life, have you ever been:
·
so engrossed in a task
that we don’t feel hungry or tired?
·
working for hours and
hours and not realise the time?
·
so focused on your task
that nothing else in the world matters at that moment?
·
working through a
challenge and found that all your ideas and experiences pour out of you in a
way that gives you the answer to the problem?
Flow and Deep Work are peak
experiences. They dissolve your ego in those moments and open the door to
feelings of transcendence and pure joy. Imagine feeling joy whilst working
through your learning challenges, how great would that be?
The one caveat is that you can’t
just snap your fingers and get into Deep Work or the Flow state. It takes hours
of drilling away at a specific task without distractions. Once you get into
these states, you need to be vigilant not to switch tasks and start pivoting to
something new — you break the peak experience and then you’ll just be
left with frustration.
Shivani
Gopal
https://blog.usejournal.com/how-to-become-a-more-productive-learner-22831f30d858
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