Notes on Learning

Mastering Vim

Read, learn and improve your life.

The goal of knowledge is its application.

In order to improve your life based on what you learn, you must be action oriented. You have to take action.

Only when you apply the new things you learn in real life, you really make a change. Whenever you’re learning new things, always think of ways to test your new knowledge. Look for the ways to put it in action.

Let your learning lead to action.

Build learning habits

Measure everything You cant improve things you don’t measure.

Track progress visually

The best way to learn is through experience.

There is active learning (focused) and passive learning (breaks).

Fluent Forever

The 5 principles to end forgetting:

  1. Make memories memorable (structure, sound, concept, personal combination)
  2. Maximise laziness Study a concept until you can repeat it once without looking and then stop.
  3. Don’t Review. Recall. (use spaced repetition software)
  4. Wait, don’t tell me Memory test are supposed to be challenging. The closer you are to forgetting, the more ingrained it will be when you finally remember it.
  5. Rewrite the past

How to Read a Book

Cultivate the habit of Analytical Reading

First Stage: Find out what the book is about
  1. Classify the book according to kind and subject matter
  2. State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity
  3. Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and out these parts as you have outlined the whole.
  4. Define the problem or problems the author has tried to solve.
Second Stage: Interpreting the contents
  1. Come to terms with the author by interpreting his key words
  2. Grasp the authors leading propositions by dealing with his utmost sentences.
  3. Know the author’s arguments, by finding them in, or constructing them out of, sequences of sentences.
  4. Determine, which of his problems the author has solved, and which he has not; and of the latter, decide which the author knew he failed to solve.
Third Stage: Rules for Criticizing a book as a communication of knowledge
General Maxims of Intellectual Etiquette
  1. Do not begin criticism until you have completed your outline and your interpretation of the book.
  2. Do not disagree disputatiously or contentiously
  3. Demonstrate that you recognize the difference between knowledge and mere personal opinion by representing good reasons for any critical judgement you make.
Special criteria for Points for Criticism
  1. Show wherein the author is uninformed
  2. Show wherein the author is misinformed
  3. Show wherein the author is illogical
  4. Show wherein the author’s analysis or account is incomplete
  • Of these last four, the first three are criteria for disagreement. Failing in all of these, you must agree, at least in part, although you may suspend judgement on the whole, in the light of the last point.

Deep Work

Two core abilities for thriving in the New Economy:

  • the ability to quickly master hard things
  • the ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed

Method:

  • create a habit of deep work
    • set aside a time and place
    • decide how deep (morning/evening)
  • keep track of how and what you’re working on (execute like a business)
    • use metrics for accountability and progress
  • schedule down time
    • take breaks of focus
    • do not use the Internet for entertainment
  • embrace focusing
    • quit social media
    • meditate
    • minimalism
    • choose your tools wisely (net benefit in the long run)
  • schedule every minute of your day

Personal Thoughts

There is a joy in learning. There is also a utility. To learn, is to experience the joy and eventual utility of what is learnt. Successful methods of learning, will lead to information being assimilated and transformed into knowledge and eventually wisdom. It is only through diligent practice that information can be transfigured into wisdom.

The process:

  • Analytical Reading

  • Efficient Revision
    • memory techniques: structure, sound, concept, personal combination
    • pace: revise and stop
    • method: spaced repetition
    • mindset: challenge yourself
    • belief: rewrite your memory
  • Deliberate Practice
    • metrics
    • visualisation

[Checklist]

  • what is to be practiced?
    • determine metric
  • what is to be learned to improve this metric?
    • readings
  • what is the output of the reading?
    • revision material
  • what is the method of practice?
    • training exercise
  • determine a study plan that ties to metric and allocate time to achieve target goal