Ultralearning

See also Learn to Code Anything - Why Books Crush Tutorials - Universal, Timeless Knowledge.

Chapter 1. Can you get an MIT education without going to MIT?

The author was studying an MIT education without having gone to MIT. This is quite interesting as the entire learning library is free, but it takes discipline in order to be able to build this knowledge. Instead, this guy went to the University of Manitoba, which is a middle-ranked school he could afford. He felt as though a Bachelor of Commerce were the wrong major, and he wanted to be an entrepreneur instead, because he wanted to be his own boss. He went back to study business, but then realized that was more for big corporations than to start your own business. Then he thought whether going back to school again was worth it at all. This is how he started what he called the MIT Challenge, a six-month intense dive into the MIT curriculum. Since the lecture materials were scanned, he decided that he would focus on passing the final exams, and then later the programming projects. He found that these two criteria would give him all the skills without the frills. He found that through scraping through materials at high speeds he could get through a class in a week.

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My problem isn’t with the French. Just Parisians.

_{(p. 11) Benny Lewis}

The author was frustrated that after living in France for a year for an exchange program, he didn’t learn as much French as he wanted. This is when he learned of a friend who learned a language in three months, and he thought it was bullshit. His strategy was to not do formal study, but to start speaking right away. This led this friend to be fluent in Spanish, Italian, Gaelic, French, Portuguese, Esperanto, and English, and most recently Czech and German. This is when the author realized that this phenomenon of aggressive self-education with really good results wasn’t restricted to just languages.

Roger Craig, at the time, was the highest winner of Jeopardy! He had to solve the question of how to study for a test that can ask any question, which is quite challenging.

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Everybody that wants to succeed at a game is going to practice the game. You can practice haphazardly or you can practice efficiently.

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Craig decided to download tens of thousands of questions from every Jeopardy! game, and he tested himself on those. Then he used data visualization to map where he was strong and weak. He would use that visualization to figure out the areas where he needed the most work. This also let him find methods for solving different questions. After this, he employed spaced repetition software, which is designed to optimally time when you need to review material. Usually, people forget what they learn, and they need to remind themselves of it over and over. This fixes the problem by calculating the optimal time for review. So you don’t forget what you’ve learned without doing too much.

Another example is Eric Barone, who developed Stardew Valley over five years by declining computer science jobs in order to put full focus into it while working a minimum wage job instead.

The strategy for the MIT classes of the author changed over time. He went from going a single class in a few days to spending a month doing three to four. He finished the entire curriculum in less than 12 months. Afterward, he started what he called the year without English, where he went to four countries and spent three months in each, where he was not allowed to speak English from the first day. At the end of the year, he could confidently speak four languages.

Afterward, he decided to spend a month improving his ability to draw faces. He decided to overcome his biases by sketching based on pictures. He did this hundreds of times with the same rapid feedback strategies he did in MIT classes, and he got significantly better.

The author studied lots of ultra-learners, in and outside of academia. They usually worked alone for months and years without much more than a blog entry. Their interest tended toward obsession, but most of all they cared about learning.

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Ultra-learning isn’t easy. It’s hard and frustrating and requires stretching outside the limits of where you feel comfortable. However, the things you can accomplish make it worth the effort.

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Chapter 2. Why Ultra Learning Matters

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Ultra learning is a strategy for acquiring skills and knowledge that is both self-directed and intense.

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The core idea with ultra learning is that you are in the driver’s seat. It’s not meant to be fun, but it’s meant to be effective. However, when you consider how much time you spend working, it really isn’t that bad. The economist Tyler Cohen says that,

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Average is over.

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Tyler Cohen argues that with all access to information, there’s going to be a deep skill divide and polarization of skill. The economy is constantly changing. We can engineer a response to it by aggressively learning hard skills. There are three cases for ultra learning that can be super useful.

1. Accelerating the career you have.
2. Transitioning to a new career.
3. Cultivating an advantage in a competitive world. With constant new technology, the ability to learn hard things really quickly is going to be increasingly valuable.

Talent can be seen like an issue. For example, Terence Tao taught himself to read at two, and so on. He is incredibly diverse, unlike most mathematicians. The author thinks that natural talents are out there, and they influence the results we see, but strategy and method matter just as much, if not more.

It can be hard to schedule ultra learning when you have a full schedule. One way is to do it part time. You can also do it during gaps in work and school.

Chapter 3. How to become an ultra learner

One concern is that it might be easy to find people doing rare cases of ultra learning, but it might be like finding a few flecks of gold through a ton of pebbles. The author decided to create a test sample where he brought together people to try ultra learning.

One of the test cases wanted to do public speaking. After a month, he won his area competition and after less than seven months, he went to the world championships.

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I knew this project was going to be big for me when I started it, but it was definitely life-changing. I didn’t expect it to actually change my life.

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After people found out about this guy’s success, they became his clients and he started making money off of them. What differentiated him was his obsessive work ethic.

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Principles allow you to solve problems even those you may have never encountered before in a way that a recipe or a mechanical procedure cannot. If you really understand the principles of physics, for instance, you can solve a new problem simply by working backward.

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These are nine skills, or rather principles that underlie the ultra learning projects.

1. Meta learning. Draw a map of the skill you want to tackle.
2. Focus. Gain the ability to concentrate for large chunks of time.
3. Directness. Learn by doing the thing you want to be good at.
4. Drill. Don’t be afraid to constantly improve your weakest points, because those are the most important.
5. Retrieval. Test to make sure that you feel confident and push yourself to recall information rather than passively review it.
6. Feedback. Know how to use it without letting your ego get in the way.
7. Retention. Understand what you forget and why, so you don’t do it again.
8. Intuition. Develop it through play and exploration of concepts and skills, and understand how understanding works.
9. Experimentation. Explore a bit outside of your comfort zone. Maybe you’ll find a method that works better.

Beyond these principles, there’s a broader ethos. You need to take responsibility for your own learning. And that comes from deciding what to learn, how to do it, and building the plan. You’re in charge. You’re in charge.

Chapter 4. Principle 1: Meta-learning. First draw a map.

The prefix meta comes from Greek, which means beyond. It usually signifies when something is about itself or deals with a high layer of abstraction. Meta-learning basically means to learn about learning. Dan Everett uses meta-learning to not just learn a language but draw a map with theories about how the language works.

Everett’s case shows the power of using meta-learning to learn faster and more effectively. There was a study about how a third language is easier to learn after knowing a second. This isn’t surprising, but it’s scientifically backed by meta-linguistic awareness. This isn’t just about languages, though.

To draw your map, you need to do it over the short term and over the long term. You need to break down your project into the why, the what, the how. What is the knowledge and abilities you’ll need to acquire? How is the resources and methods you’ll use? Why is just your reasoning for it? This is actually the most important thing to answer. You need to make it intrinsic so you do it for your own sake. If you don’t want to do something, you won’t be able to learn it effectively.

One tactic is to interview people who are successful in what you’re trying to do. You can look on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Once you have the intrinsic motivation, you need to figure out what you’re actually going to learn. There are three categories here. Concepts, facts, and procedures. For concepts, write everything that needs to be understood. For facts, write anything that needs to be memorized. And for procedures, write anything that needs to be practiced. The amount in each column can differ quite significantly. And that’s okay. You can now use this analysis to draw your map.

Now you need to figure out how you’re going to learn. The best way to do this is to figure out how to benchmark your progress. Once you find a curriculum, you can modify it. You can emphasize parts you know you’ll weaken and exclude parts that you already have knowledge in or are not interested in.

One question you might have is when to stop doing research and just get started. It turns out that most people under-research rather than over-research. But research can also be a way of procrastinating. There will always be some uncertainty, so it’s important to find a balance. You know when you’re procrastinating, so just get the fuck started.

A good rule of thumb is to invest 10% of the expected learning time into research. Meta-learning research also isn’t a one-time activity. You can continue to do research as you learn more, and in fact, should. To answer the question of when and how to do research, compare the marginal benefits of meta-learning over regular learning. You can spend a few hours doing more research to do this, and then spend a few hours doing more learning along the chosen path. If you feel as though the meta-learning research contributed more than the actual learning, you probably need more research, and vice versa. This analysis depends on the law of diminishing returns.

We talked about short-term, but the real benefits are on the long-term. Each project you do will improve your general meta-learning. Unfortunately, it’s not something that can be boiled down to a tactic or tool, but the toolkit sort of gets acquired over time. The benefits might not be apparent right away, but they will build as you go, and you will see the benefits, and can only be achieved by putting in the work.

Chapter 5. Principle 2: Focus

An example of focus in light of adversity is Mary Somerville, who was born poor, yet expected, scratched at, yet achieved greatness in math, languages, and piano. The ability to focus quickly and deeply is ubiquitous in intellectual accomplishments.

Problem 1: Failing to Start (Procrastination)

Instead of doing what you’re supposed to do, you work on something else or slack off. Some people struggle with deadlines. Some people just hate what they’re doing. It’s so easy to find excuses. The author had no problem watching the MIT videos, but he always feared doing the problem sets. We procrastinate because we crave doing other things and have aversion for doing the task.

The first step to overcome procrastination is to recognize when you’re doing it. Try to recognize that you don’t want to do a task or have a stronger desire to do something else. This awareness is necessary. Once you can do that, you can resist the impulse. You can think in terms of crutches or mental tools that can help you get through some of the worst parts of procrastination. The first crutch is realizing the following.

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Most of what is unpleasant in a task or what is pleasant about an alternate task is an impulse that doesn’t actually last that long.

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A good first crutch is to convince yourself to get over just a few minutes of unpleasantness. Tell yourself to spend only five minutes on the task. After this, the first crutch may harm you. You may start, but then if the task is unpleasant, you may stop after the five minutes.

This frustration might not always be at the beginning, but can be predictable. For example, the author always got frustrated when he didn’t remember something from his Chinese flashcards. Eventually, you can use a calendar to block out working on the project, which only works if you actually follow it.

Problem 2: Failing to Sustain Focus

This is usually caused by distractions like phones, but the skill of sustaining focus is super important. Flow is the state of mind you associate with being in the zone, where you’re not interrupted by distractions and you become completely absorbed in the task you’re doing. However, sometimes flow can be impossible, and the self-consciousness that doesn’t exist in flow may need to be present in ultra-learning, as you constantly have to adjust your approach. Although flow might seem cool, don’t worry about it. Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s not. Don’t feel guilty.

Then consider duration. Researchers find that people retain more of what they learn when practice is broken into different studying periods. If you have several hours to study, you should cover a few topics rather than just one. This has trade-offs as it can become confusing, but what’s needed is balance.

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50 minutes to an hour is a good length of time for many learning tasks. If your schedule permits only more concentrated chunks of time, say once per week for several hours, you may want to take several minutes as a break at the end of each hour and split your time over different aspects of the subject you want to learn.

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How to sustain focus? There are three sources of distraction:

1. Your environment. Do you have your phone turned off? Are you on the internet? Are there distracting noises? Be aware of what environment you work best in. Multitasking can feel fun, but it’s not suitable.
2. Your task. Certain activities are harder to focus on than others. Reading can be harder than watching a video. If you have a choice between different tools, consider what’s easier to focus on, as long as it still allows for ultra-learning.
3. Your mind. Negative emotions, restlessness, and daydreaming can be huge obstacles. A clear mind is best for focusing on almost everything. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do about your emotions. The solution is to acknowledge the feeling and gently adjust focus to keep it passing. Recognize that by not reacting to the emotion, you’ll diminish its intensity.

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If you learn to let it arise, note it, and release it or let it go, this can diminish the behavior you’re trying to avoid.

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Problem 3: Failing to Create the Right Kind of Focus

Supposing you’ve managed to wrangle procrastination and distraction, how should you focus? There is interesting research surrounding arousal and task complexity:

• Low arousal (sleepy) — poor performance overall
• High arousal (exercising, too much coffee) — narrow, brittle focus; easy to get distracted
• Complex tasks tend to benefit from a more relaxed kind of focus

In an experiment, while sleep-deprived people did worse overall, they did better when there was a loud noise in the background. Consider optimizing your arousal levels to sustain focus.

Focus is most important when you have limited time. Recognize where you are and start small. If you can’t sit still, try sitting still. Over time, frustration may become transmuted into interest. With patience and persistence, the few minutes may become large enough to accomplish great things.

Chapter 6. Principle 3. Directness

One guy found that he wasn’t very useful in architecture, despite going to architecture school. He focused on design and theory, but the reality was building codes, costs, and software. He decided to get a job at a print shop, which helped him scrape by financially while he prepared his portfolio. The print store also gave him exposure to the blueprints that he would be working with.

This story illustrates the importantness of directness. You need to know exactly what you need to accomplish. Most routes to self-education aren’t direct. Directly learning is hard. We watch videos instead of actually doing, because doing the thing we want feels uncomfortable, boring, frustrating, etc. But directness is what differentiates ultra-learners.

The opposite of directness is what’s in classrooms, studying facts, concepts, and skills, without reasoning for how they will be applied. During the MIT challenge, the author realized the most important resource was the problem sets. Sometimes it’s impossible to be completely direct, but you try to simulate in order to be as close to the real thing as possible. In the case of the architect, he made a small project that led him to be employed. This introduces the problem of transfer.

Transfer is when you learn something in one context and are able to use it in another. Our ultimate goal in life is to use what we learn in school, in real life. And anything like this, that is less than this, you can’t really describe as learning. Unfortunately, transfer hasn’t really occurred in formal education.

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Despite the importance of transfer of learning, research findings over the past nine decades clearly show that as individuals and as educational institutions, we have failed to achieve transfer of learning on any significant level. Without exaggeration, it’s an education scandal.

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There’s often a problem that you can’t solve problems that are even slightly different to the ones you were exposed to as examples. This flawed form of teaching was formulated when we believed in a discipline method of learning, where we thought the brain was a muscle, and that training the muscle, irrespective of the content would result in improvement. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Despite these failings, transfer probably does actually exist.

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Transfer is paradoxical. When we want it, we do not get it. Yet it occurs all the time.

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So why the disconnect? The answer is directness. Number one. If you learn with a direct connection to the area in which you eventually want to apply this skill, the need for transfer is reduced. This is sort of self-evident. Number two. Directness can help transfer to new situations. Because learning something new almost never depends on just the mass of codified knowledge present, but on the details of how that knowledge interacts with reality.

If you learn in a real context, you learn all the hidden details that are more likely to transfer to real life than just what’s learned in the classroom. But how do we get good transfer? The simplest way is to learn by doing, if possible. In other cases, what you’re trying to achieve might not be a practical skill. This is where gaining a deeper knowledge of a subject makes it more flexible. The structures of our knowledge start brittle, but with more work they can become flexible. Many ultra learners who have specialized are really good at transfer. And this is due to their depth of knowledge.

Ultra learners often opt for projects rather than classes. Learning to program by creating your own game is a perfect example. In other ways, immersion to surround yourself, such as going to a country where a language you want to learn is spoken. The third tactic is called the flight simulator method. We’re trying to simulate as many of the cognitive features as possible. and precise as possible. We’ll talk again soon now as possible. And finally, there’s the overkill approach, which is to make it as hard as freaking possible. For instance, Montebello, when preparing for public speaking, went to middle schools because he found the feedback at adult clubs to be too soft. This can be intense, as if you’re not ready, but if you can start, it’s often a lot easier to continue, because you get that direct feedback and can improve faster.

Chapter 7. Principle 4. Drill

Benjamin Franklin was above all else a writer. He found success in writing. He was bad at math and more interested in practical consequences. But his prose was written very well for both uninitiated people and philosophers. And this is what made him a sensation. In politics, his writing helped him win allies. Later, the Declaration of Independence. So how did he acquire this amazing skill? As a child, his father noted that his writing lacked persuasion. He would take notes on articles in his favorite magazines and try to reconstruct the original argument from memory.

There’s this concept in chemistry that applies to ultra-learning called the rate-determining step, which is the part of the process that is the slowest and thus dominates the reaction. In learning it’s similar. There’s always a bottleneck. In math, you need to know arithmetic and algebra to be able to solve more complex things. If you suck at algebra, you’ll get the wrong answers even if you understand calculus. This is why you do drills. You want to find a rate-determining step and then speed it up. This was Franklin’s idea. In order to improve your performance in some aspect, you might have to focus on it so much that other aspects degrade in quality. Drills solve this problem by simplifying a skill so you can focus on a single aspect without degrading everything else. This might sound like a paradox compared to what we said about direct practice.

This tension between direct learning and drills can be resolved when we see them as alternating stages in a cycle. This is what’s called the direct-then-drill approach. The first step is to practice the skill. Learn programming by writing software. Then analyze and isolate components that are either rate-determining steps or skills you find difficult to improve because there are so many other things going on. Then you develop drills and practice those components until you get better. Finally, go back to direct practice and integrate what you’ve learned. The earlier you are in the process, the faster the cycle should be. Later, you can take longer detours into drills.

We need tactics to make these drills. What aspect of the skill would cause greatest improvement? Look as well to aspects that you need to juggle simultaneously, which may be harder to improve, but also super important. The key is to experiment. Make a hypothesis about what’s slowing you down. Attack it with some drills. And then you get feedback about whether you are right and actually improve. Here are a few examples. Number one, time slicing. Take a chunk of time to do a specific drill. Number two, cognitive components. Sometimes what you need to practice isn’t a time, but specific aspects. Like when learning a language, grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary occur all the time, but there are different cognitive aspects. So we want to find a way to drill only one component. Number three, copycat. It’s often hard to practice one aspect without doing the work of the others. Copy the parts of the skill you don’t want to drill, and then focus specifically on the component you want to practice. This saves both time and also burden. Number four, magnifying glass method. This lets you spend more time on one component to skill than you would otherwise. For instance, you can spend about ten times as long on research than you had previously when writing an article. Number five, prerequisite chaining. Do something that has a ton of prerequisites and then realize what you’re missing, and slowly build back.

Drills are hard, which is why we avoid them. We have to not just think about what’s being learned, but also what’s most difficult. This is exactly what makes drills useful.

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Something mentally strenuous provides a greater benefit to learning than something easy.

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