This content provides a comprehensive guide to mastering the skill of "learning to learn," emphasizing principles and systems over mere tactics to achieve faster, deeper, and more efficient learning for complex skills and knowledge.
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I've been a learning coach for over 13
years. I've spent thousands of hours
learning about learning and I've taught
this skill to tens of thousands of
people. It's no exaggeration to say that
learning to learn for me has been
life-changing. I went from studying 20
hours a day desperately trying to enter
into medical school to working as a
doctor while running a business
full-time and ranking first for my
masters of education after a month of
studying. For the students and
professionals that I coach, learning to
learn has not only given them better
results and performance, but also the
confidence to progress in their career,
make more money, pass competitive
examinations while earning back valuable
time to spend on friends and family. But
learning to learn is not straightforward
for me. It took years of experimenting
and reading through complicated research
to figure it out. So, in this video, I
want to give you a single place to get
started. I'm going to teach you how I
think about learning as a learning
coach. I'll teach you some tactics, but
most importantly, I'll teach you the
principles and approaches you need to
have because tactics change depending on
what you're learning and what your goals
are, but principles remain the same. So,
I'll teach you the principles and the
process you need to follow to master
complex skills and knowledge in half the
time. And there are four parts to this
video. In the first part, I'm going to
bust some common learning myths. I'm
starting with busting myths because
they're really problematic and it's
maybe even more important than teaching
you the learning tactics themselves.
These myths are fundamental blockers to
improving. If you believe these, you
will not improve. And they are so common
that over 95% of people believe in at
least one of them. So, that's the first
part. With the myths out of the way, I'm
going to move into the second part where
I talk about how you can create a
learning system. Learning is messy and
it's complicated and it's also
invisible. It's really hard to improve
at something if you don't even know how
to think about it. So, one of the most
important first steps to become more
efficient at learning is to see learning
as a system as opposed to a cluster of
methods and techniques that you just use
every now and then. Once we see the
components of our process as part of a
learning system, we then look at which
part is holding us back and then work on
that. Just figuring out how to think
about learning as a system probably took
me 2 years. As I explain about the
learning system, I'll also be teaching
you about the science of memory and how
your memory works. And so this part can
be quite large. It'll be broken up into
multiple uh different segments depending
on each component of the learning
system. With that covered, in the third
part, I'll go through the different
orders of learning. One thing I've
realized that makes learning to learn
really difficult is that there are so
many different ways we need to use our
knowledge. When you're learning for an
exam, it's different to learning for
your job. And even at your job,
different types of decisions and
problems require different types of
learning at different levels. And so,
I'll teach you how to think about all
those different levels in a really easy
and productive way. When you know how to
think about the orders of learning, it
gives you a really clear goalpost. You
know exactly what level you need to aim
for and you know what you need to do to
be able to achieve that level. You can
assess whether your own learning is
effective or not based on how well
you're achieving that goal. And because
you can assess that yourself, you can
improve and you can iterate on your
learning ability much more quickly than
having to ask someone else for feedback
or getting an exam result back to get
feedback. And then in the fourth and the
final part, I'll go through some crucial
self-management skills. Self-management
refers to the way that you manage your
time, your priorities, your focus, and
your attention. Self-management is what
allows you to have the time and the
energy and the concentration to do
effective learning when you need to sit
down and actually do it. If your
learning skills are great and your
self-management skills are useless,
overall, you're going to be useless. And
there are a lot of misconceptions and
advice that I've seen floating around
there that I think makes self-management
harder than it needs to be. So, I'll
teach you some simple principles and
strategies that you can use that will
solve most of your biggest
self-management issues. Now, as you can
see, this is not a short video, and by
the end of this video, you're not going
to be the world's best learner. Learning
to learn takes time. And if you're not
willing to spend that time to learn this
skill, then you're not going to learn
the skill. But for those of you that are
willing to put in the work, this is your
ultimate beginner's guide. So, first,
let's start with busting some myths. The
first myth, first two myths actually,
are the time
and IQ myths. Let's say that you're
struggling with your learning volume.
You've got a lot of work. You've got a
high workload. There's lots you need to
learn. There's lots you need to keep up
on. And you've got other things that you
need to do. You need to get your job
done. You need to spend time with your
family. You need to, you know, do your
everyday household chores. And on top of
that, you're meant to get enough sleep
and and exercise regularly. There's a
lot of stuff on your plate. And on top
of that, you have all the stuff you need
to learn. And so, it can feel like
you're on this hamster wheel where
you're just constantly trying to keep up
and you never have enough time. And
while feeling that way is completely
valid and accurate, the way we interpret
that problem is a myth. Because the myth
is that we don't have enough time or
that I'm just not smart enough. I don't
have the IQ points to be able to learn
all this stuff so quickly like other
people can or my memory is just not that
good. So, it takes me a lot longer than
other people. And while that's partially
accurate, everyone's different. Everyone
has different levels of sort of baseline
intelligence. They don't need to have
the processing power of the world's
smartest scientist. They don't need to
have the memory of a of a memory
champion. Just being able to increase
your attention by 20 30%. Being able to
understand things 20 to 30% more deeply,
seeing how things fit and connect
together 20 to 30% more easily. That
translates to 20 to 30% more free time
that's available for you. That that
could be an entire evening that's now
freed up. That's an entire weekend you
don't need to spend. That's 20 to 30%
more difficult problems and more
complicated issues that you can deal
with. That could be a promotion. That
could be a salary raise. Everyone can
get 20 to 30% more effective than they
are now. And actually, if you think
about it, it's only logical because most
people are terrible with their learning.
Their learning strategies and the
methods and the systems they they're
using are not very sophisticated. And
also, it's not your fault. If you were
like me, no one taught you how to learn
properly. No one told you what the
science of learning is. No one told you
how your brain actually works. And even
for me, when I was going through and
reading through the research and
understanding this, it's complicated.
Like really complicated. And it took me
over a decade of reading the research
and applying it and experimenting and
teaching it to thousands of people that
allowed me to see how it can really
click and how your brain is actually
meant to learn. So, the two myths that I
want to come back to here is that it's
not about not having enough time. That's
not the real problem. The real problem
is that it takes you too long to cover
what you need to cover. The problem is
that the time you do have, you're
spending it on relearning the things
that you're constantly forgetting. The
issue is not a lack of time. The issue
is a waste of time. And that comes down
to your process, the way that you learn.
The issue is also not because of your IQ
or your intelligence or your memory.
Your ability to learn can be trained.
And even if everyone's genetic potential
is different, everyone can be 20 to 30%
better. And that is a significant
improvement to your life. And today in
in this day and age, learning to learn
is the most important skill that you can
learn. It is more important than
learning about AI or learning about
coding or whatever else you're learning
about. Nothing is going to make you more
competitive in the job market than being
great at learning. In fact, it is
because of AI that it is so important
because now you can't get away with just
learning the bare minimum. AI already
does the bare minimum and more. And it
does it faster, better, and a thousand
times cheaper than you. You do not have
any competitive advantage to bring to
the job market if all you can do is
learn to do things at the bare minimum.
Now what employers are increasingly
expecting of you is that you can do more
than before. You can solve harder
problems and you can solve them faster.
And whether or not you can do that
depends on how quickly and efficiently
you can learn. Now the second myth is
the learning styles myth. In other
words, the myth that refuses to die. If
you're not familiar with the learning
styles myth, it's saying that everyone
has a unique learning style. A common
way that people talk about this is
visual, auditory, read and write,
kinesesthetic. But actually any way of
categorizing it by saying I learn
through this. I'm better at learning in
this way rather than this way. This is a
myth because decades of highquality very
reliable research has shown that the
human brain is capable of learning in
multiple different ways and people
generally do not have a set style of
learning that is better for them. What
that means is that there is not a style
that is more suited for you that's
different to someone else. And so for
you, you should learn to use that style
more. That is not true. And probably one
of the reasons this myth refuses to die
and is actually still taught like I've
worked with universities uh like teacher
training organizations, you know, people
that are meant to be teaching people how
to learn and they still have learning
styles in here. You have to understand
that this is not one of those things
where there's like a one or two papers
out that say that this is not true. Like
this is to the point where people are
not really studying whether learning
styles exist anymore because the
research is so conclusive that we're
moving on to other things. People are
now researching why do people keep
believing in this myth and the reason
people probably keep believing this is
that it seems to be counterintuitive. it
goes against our own lived experience
that there are certain ways of learning
that seem to be more effective and work
better for us. So surely the research is
missing something and that is also a
totally valid feeling and the thing is
the two things are not contradictory to
each other. Here's the reality. First of
all, most people are visual learners.
This is because the human brain is
extremely efficient at processing visual
information. Compared to how quickly you
can process written information, your
visual information processing ability is
tens of thousands of times faster. And
this is true for everyone. Unless there
is a pretty significant medical
abnormality. And the easiest way to test
that, if I show you a photo of
something, how long does it take for you
to understand and process the
information from the photo versus if I
explain to you every single thing going
on in that photo and I write it out in
paragraphs. However, another aspect of
reality is that most of us grew up in a
very reading and writing dominant
education system. And so a lot of the
habits and the preferences we have for
learning are reading and writing
dominant. And this is the reason why
other than visual learning, reading and
writing tend to be considered the most
common and most effective styles of
learning. Now, you might be thinking,
well, if I feel like I'm able to learn
more effectively with visual learning
compared to listening to someone, which
most people struggle with, by the way,
uh, or I I feel like I need to sit down
and write out my notes in order for me
to to learn it. Doesn't that mean I have
a learning style? That's a good
question. And the answer is actually,
surprisingly, no. What you're talking
about are actually learning preferences.
And here's the difference. This is the
key part. Learning styles as a theory
says that each person uniquely has a
learning style that is more suited for
them and so they should lean into that
learning style. If you are a visual
learner, you should do more visual
learning and that's where you're going
to get your most efficiency from. And
your brain is probably not wired to be
good at the other styles of learning.
Now, what we know from years of very
thorough research is that we do have
learning preferences. Learning
preferences say that there are certain
ways that your brain is better at
processing information, but those things
tend to be the same for everyone.
Everyone tends to be better at visual
processing. Reading and writing tend to
be a habit that we have. So, each of us
have different habits of learning. But
the difference here is that it isn't a
good idea for you to double down on the
particular habits that you feel have
been effective for you in the past. Even
if you're more comfortable with a visual
or read and write or an auditory or
experiencing like doing stuff style of
learning, there is always an advantage
for you to learn how to learn through
these other modalities and styles. Mixed
modal learning is advantageous for
everyone. And also as a working
professional, you don't get to choose
how you learn things. Sometimes if you
really struggle with learning when
someone is explaining something to you
and every time you learn, you have to
have a diagram or you have to go away
and sit down and write copious amounts
of notes to be able to learn effectively
from that. That's going to be a pretty
big limitation in your life and that
limitation doesn't have to exist. So
yes, you can have learning preferences
and habits that you're more comfortable
with, but that's just your starting
point. But it is a myth to think that
that cannot change and evolve and it is
unwise to think that it shouldn't change
and evolve. So that's the learning
styles myth. The next and final myth is
that learning
should be easy. Learning is a big and
complicated process. It's very energy
consuming. Your brain has to do a lot of
stuff to create effective learning. It's
not like breathing or walking where your
brain can basically do it automatically
without even being aware of it. And
research that looks into the behaviors
and learning strategies of high
performers versus low performers has
found a difference in something that's
called the misinterpreted effort
hypothesis. It basically says that most
people when they use a learning strategy
that makes it feel like they have to
work harder and think harder, maybe get
a bit more confused and work through
that confusion, they perceive that that
feeling is undesirable. That if I feel
this way when I'm using this strategy,
it means that the strategy is not
effective. However, this is incorrect.
This is the misinterpretation of the
effort. Feeling and thinking that way is
actually a good thing. It actually means
that your brain is engaging at a higher
level, kicking it up a gear, and that is
going to result in better retention,
better memory, deeper understanding. But
instead, what happens and what most
people do is that they will use a
technique that is effective. They will
think it's not effective, and they will
actually go back to a technique that
they think is more effective because it
feels easier. This is sometimes referred
to as a counterproductive adjustment.
And so when I go through in this video
and I talk about the learning system and
I talk about different tactics and
principles, you're going to see this
come up over and over again, you're
going to see the trend of engaging your
brain, thinking actively, thinking
deeply. It's not going to be a walk in
the park, especially if you don't have
these habits of really active learning
and most of your habits are around rope
memorization. This is going to be
challenging for you. And when you feel
this is challenging and then you feel,
oh, this is not working. I want you to
remember this. Learning is not meant to
be easy and you don't need learning to
be easy. What you need is learning to be
effective. You need learning to be
efficient. And the cost of effective and
efficient learning is effort. And that's
mental effort, not spending more time.
I'm not saying work harder, put in more
hours. I'm saying when you do put in the
hours, think deeper. Push yourself to a
higher standard of thinking. put in the
mental effort that's required for
effective learning. If you don't do
that, you will not be better at learning
and there is no amount of tactic or
strategy or principle that is going to
help you. So, that's myths. Now, let's
think about building a learning system.
When I do workshops or seminars or even
one-on-one coaching and I ask someone,
"How do you learn? What's your learning
process look like?" Most people can't
tell me. It's very, very vague and very
superficial. It's like I'll look up
something and I'll read some books. We
don't normally think about learning and
the process of learning. It's not a
common everyday thing to think about.
And so, as a result, when we have an
issue with our learning, like it takes
too long, our memory is not good enough.
We don't understand things deeply
enough. We can't solve complex problems.
We write notes for hours and then 3
weeks later we come back to it and
realize we don't remember any of what we
wrote. When we have these problems, we
don't know how to fix them because we
don't know how to think about this. And
so while there are many ways of thinking
about this, this is one particular
perspective uh that I think is pretty
easy to understand and pretty useful for
problem solving. There are two main
components that we need to anchor into
as part of a learning system. The first
part is encoding.
The second part is retrieval. Now this
is going to be a simplification of some
really complicated research. So, it's
not 100% accurate, but it's accurate
enough for it to be useful for you.
Here's what happens. Information comes
into your brain.
Your brain does a series of processes.
It thinks about that information in all
sorts of different ways. It filters it.
It asks itself, "How is this relevant?
Why do I need to hold on to this? What
is it connected to? Where does it fit?"
And after going through that process,
the symptom, the outcome, the the
byproduct of doing that process is that
we create memory. Memory is this this
artifact, this byproduct of the process
of just thinking about information in
certain ways. And that process of
thinking about this new information,
seeing it from these different angles,
seeing how we can fit it into our
existing knowledge structures. This
process is called encoding. So when you
do encoding really well, it produces
more of these memory byproducts. So your
memory is stronger. It's stickier.
You're not going to forget it after one
or two days. You're going to forget it
after 3 or 4 weeks or 3 or 4 months
even. If it's incredibly important and
the encoding process is done, you know,
very very extensively, then you may not
forget this for years, decades even. You
know, if you find out that you're about
to have a child, you're not going to
forget that anytime soon. You don't need
to create flashcards and say, "What am I
going to have again? Is it a pet or is
it a child?" And then go through every
single evening, you know, testing
yourself. Oh, it was a child, of course.
And then, you know, repeat that on your
space repetition algorithm. Having a
child means a lot. It affects you in all
sorts of different ways. Every way that
it affects you, that is one connection
that's being formed. That's a way that
your brain is trying to see how this new
information fits in the big picture of
your life. And because it fits in so
many different ways, there's lots of
memory created from that. Whereas, if I
tell you, hey, I need you to pick this
thing up for me at this address, you
know, 419
C flat 3 on this road, you might not
remember that for even like 15 minutes
because those numbers mean nothing to
you. Whereas that exact same address,
those exact same numbers, if I said,
"Hey, I need you to pick this up from
this address." And you think, "Wow, I
used to live at that house," you're
going to remember that address because
it means something to you. This is a way
that your brain is meant to work. We
want this to happen. You don't want your
brain to be remembering every trivial,
random, irrelevant piece of information.
Things that are relevant, that have an
impact, that are worth remembering, you
want your brain to remember. and the
things that aren't and that are random
isolated bits of information, you want
it to prune out. Now, the issue is when
that random isolated piece of
information is something that you
actually need to learn for your exam or
for your job and you don't see how it's
relevant, but you do know you need to
remember it. That becomes a problem for
your brain. You're basically telling it
to do something that it's not built to
do. And effective encoding as a part of
your learning system. Having the skill
of encoding means you know how to turn
that information that feels irrelevant
into something that is relevant and
connected. You have the skill of finding
patterns, perspectives, angles,
connecting and applying that information
in such a way that it tells your brain,
hey, I know you thought this was not
relevant and you want to throw it away,
but actually if you think about it in
this way, you can see how it's really
important and worth holding on to.
That's the skill of learning, but that's
encoding, right? That's new information
coming into your brain. What do you do
with that information to turn it into
memory? Retrieval on the other hand is
when this information already exists
stored in your memory. You've already
done the encoding. And retrieval is when
you pull this memory out and you use it.
Anytime you use it as a form of
retrieval, explaining it to someone,
solving a problem, answering a question,
just randomly reciting facts. As long as
you're doing it from your memory, that
is retrieval. Now, retrieval is
important for a couple of things. First
of all, you need to retrieve the
knowledge for it to be useful. Like
unless you're just learning something
because you just have joy in knowing
things, usually the reason you're
learning it is to use that knowledge in
some way. That involves retrieval. So
you need to be good at retrieving the
knowledge in the right way. If you
learned something and you encoded it in
a way that is very isolated, very, you
know, random, far removed, just wrote
memorization, but the way you need to
use that is for complex problem solving,
you know, nuance discussion, answering
complicated questions from an expert.
The way you encoded that knowledge is
not going to be useful. Even though it
technically exists in your brain, you
don't know how to use that. It doesn't
connect in the way that it needs to
connect. So, you're going to struggle.
And that is part of being good at
retrieval is practicing retrieving the
knowledge in the way that you need to
retrieve it before you actually really
need to retrieve it. And the other
benefit is that by doing this retrieval,
it also
helps with reenccoding it. So there's
actually this cycle that happens where
every time you retrieve information, it
also helps to strengthen and consolidate
that knowledge. And this is really
important because if you are not good at
encoding, the issue is that your memory
is going to be bad. So poor encoding
leads to poor retention.
understanding. And what that translates
to is usually not being very good at
complex applications of knowledge like
solving complex problems, having deep
discussions. So if you're trying to
become an expert at this thing, you
know, you're you're a tech leading about
a new tech stack and you know that the
people that you need to answer questions
from important stakeholders that are
going to be throwing all sorts of
different perspectives at you, the level
of expertise you need to build is is
pretty high. So if your encoding quality
is low, you're going to struggle with
that. Now on the other hand, if your
retrieval is poor, so poor retrieval,
this leads to a drop in your knowledge
fluency or your ability to recall that
quickly. It also increases the risk of
there being gaps in your knowledge that
you didn't detect. Because you don't
retrieve the knowledge to test yourself,
you don't realize that there's a gap in
your knowledge or that you've understood
something incorrectly. And so one of the
purposes of doing retrieval is to find
those gaps in your knowledge before it
really matters. And sometimes you don't
need to do deliberate retrieval uh to to
mitigate this risk. Like you might be
able to learn something, produce
something, you know, apply it into your
work and you just present it. And if
there are mistakes and if there are gaps
in that, you just either figure it out
along the way or you present it and you
get feedback saying, "Hey, this is
wrong, this is wrong, and then you go
fix it." like it may not be a
significant consequence, but it's worth
understanding that retrieval is a tool
that helps to mitigate that risk because
sometimes you won't have that
flexibility. Let's say that you have to
present something at a conference and
you need to really know your stuff. You
don't want to be on stage answering a
question for the first time and
realizing, I've never thought about it
from that angle before and now I look
like a fool. You don't want to be
sitting that really important exam and
realizing for the first time, oh yeah,
I've forgotten this or I've never
thought about it this way before. I've
never tested myself in this way. But the
other issue with poor retrieval is that
it increases knowledge
knowledge decay.
decay.
And knowledge decay is basically the
fancy technical term for forgetting
something, memory fading away. And this
is something that you should have an
understanding of.
If you learn something for the first
time, your knowledge decay is going to
be at a certain rate. So in this case
this might be quite steep. So let's say
that this is after 1 day and this is
your day zero. So you learn something on
this day. So this access is time by the
way and this is the level of knowledge
that you have left in your memory. So if
you learn something on day zero after
one day on this graph maybe that's
dropped to 10% which means that you
forgot 90% after one day. Now let's say
6 hours after learning it you decide to
test yourself on this knowledge. So
that's going to happen let's say around
here. So you do a retrieval practice and
you try to recall this from memory and
then you reconsolidate this knowledge.
So what that allows you to do is it
allows you to see hey I forgotten like
50% of it already. I'm going to relearn
that 50%. And then as you consolidate it
because of the fact that retrieval
itself helps with re-encoding what's
going to happen is that that knowledge
is now going to decay a little bit more slowly.
slowly.
And so after another let's say one day
from that. So this is let's say day two.
Your knowledge is not decaying all the
way down to 10% anymore at this point.
Now it's only decaying down to let's say
40 or 50%.
And again, if you were to test yourself
again and do a retrieval session,
this is going to be even slower. And
here you have what we might call
residual long-term memory where even
after, let's say, 3 or 4 weeks later,
your knowledge might still be at 80%
retention. And this is a good place to
be in because now you're not you're not
forgetting things every single week.
That knowledge is stickier. And it's
stickier because you have repeated that
knowledge. You've reconsolidated it.
You've revised it multiple times and
that's kept your knowledge topped up.
Some people talk about this as deepening
the neural groove. Every time you repeat
it and go over it again, it deepens the
neural groove which makes that memory
stickier. And so this graph that I've
drawn here that shows knowledge decay is
famously called the ebbing house uh
forgetting curve. And this practice of
repeating things frequently enough is
called spaced retrieval. Sometimes it's
uh referred to as spaced repetition,
which is actually not technically a
correct term. Now, here's the really
interesting part about learning to learn
is that space retrieval and repeating
something over and over again and
relearning it basically is not the only
way that you can reduce your rate of
knowledge decay. You can with better
encoding also reduce the rate of
knowledge decay. And this is actually
fairly obvious. Years ago, I talked
about this concept and people were like
up in arms like as if this is like
impossible. But actually, it's very
intuitive. You know that some people
when they learn the same material are
going to forget it more slowly. You know
that even for you, some subjects, some
facts, some concepts, you will just
remember that for longer than you will
for other things. So this knowledge
decay curve is not like fixed for each
person. If you are like this person, it
doesn't mean that you are doomed for the
rest of your life to always forget
everything you learn extremely quickly.
Part of it is heavily dependent on the
way that you encode that process. Now,
the way that people encode is usually
very subconscious. Uh, and part of
learning to learn is turning that into
an actual skill you can control. But if
you do encode to a higher quality, you
spend a little bit more effort thinking
about how it connects together. you turn
it into part of a a connected schema,
then it means that even after learning
it for the first time, you could have a
knowledge decay curve that looks like
that. And now you can apply something
like space retrieval on top of that, but
instead of having to retrieve doing
flashcards or reooking at your notes
every 2 or 3 days to keep on top of your
knowledge, you can look at it every two
or 3 weeks and that's still enough
because your knowledge is fundamentally
just not decaying so rapidly. You don't
have to be so aggressive in how
frequently you do your space retrieval.
And this is kind of the best state you
want to be in. You want your attention
and your knowledge decay when you first
learn something to be as slow as
possible. Because when you resign
yourself to learning new information
through space retrieval as your primary
method of holding on to that memory,
it's incredibly time consuming and also
tedious and very monotonous. And it also
makes you hate learning. And what can
easily happen is that you get this
overwhelm. Uh and if you're using flash
cards, I call it flash card overwhelm
because it means that every single day
you have hundreds of these flash cards
to get through and you need to get
through all of them because otherwise if
you don't, that information is going to
decay. And so this is really a moving
the boulder uphill kind of situation.
Like you're constantly having to push
that boulder uphill because soon as you
let go, it's going to start rolling back
towards you. Whereas with better
encoding, what we're saying is let's
make that hill not so steep. So even
though we do need to keep pushing it
every now and again, we don't have to be
pushing it literally constantly. And so
without a doubt, when it comes to the
thing that is the most lifechanging
about learning to learn, it is encoding.
Getting good at encoding is the thing
that truly makes you feel like your your
experience of learning is changing. If I
ask you the question between encoding
and retrieval, which skill is the most
important for you to get good at first?
The answer obviously should be encoding.
And if you said that, you'll be wrong.
And this is the point that I want to
make is that in practical reality,
retrieval is actually the most important
thing for you to focus on first. The
reason is that retrieval skills can be
learned very quickly and they produce an
immediate benefit. The benefit is not as
powerful and is not as long-term as the
benefits you get from learning encoding.
Learning good encoding skills requires
you to rewire the way that your brain
habitually processes and thinks about
information. For some people, if they're
already starting from a high baseline,
they can improve their encoding and
upgrade it very quickly in a matter of
two or 3 weeks. For most people who
don't have a very high baseline level of
encoding, it's going to take you months,
sometimes even years to learn to upgrade
your encoding skills. And so what
happens is that if you get too
overzealous and focus too much on
improving your encoding skills before
your retrieval skills are at a certain
level, then you're actually going to
make things harder for yourself because
now you don't have the habits of proper
encoding. you don't know how to do it
accurately yet. It's going to take you
weeks or months to figure out how to do
it accurately. And so between now and
when you figure out how to do it
properly, you're not receiving the
benefit. And that time and attention and
effort that's sunk into trying to
improve your encoding skills is actually
taking away from your normal studying
process or spending that time with
better retrieval. So your performance is
actually going to drop in the immediate
time. Until your encoding gets good
enough, your performance is actually
going to drop. And so for most people
trying to get better at learning, the
path that needs to follow looks like this.
this.
So if this is time again on the x- axis
and this is the amount on the y- axis,
the level of encoding for most people is
fairly low. And then as you slowly learn
to do this, this will eventually get
better. Most people start with some
level of retrieval, but not much. In the
initial phase, you're going to need to
increase this up until the point where
you're able to achieve the outcomes that
you want until you can get the level of
fluency, until you can get the level of
risk mitigation, until you can get the
retention and and sort of long-term
knowledge that you need. So, until you
hit the objective, the outcome that
you're looking for, you're going to have
to do that mostly with good retrieval
practice. And so let's say that with
this level of encoding and this level of
retrieval you're getting you know let's
say uh your your results are going from
this to this. So this blue line this is
your results. This is your actual performance.
This is the encoding skills
skills
and this is your retrieval.
Now what also happens is that the amount
of time you need to spend also increases
because as you do more and more
retrieval you now need to spend more and
more time. So unfortunately what's also
going to happen is that the time you're
spending on learning is actually going
to go up. What we're prioritizing here
is locking in a certain level of
performance or results in this early
phase. Unless you're happy to delay your
performance uh improvements until later,
uh we want to start by getting to a
certain level of performance or results
that we need for our work or for a
project or for an exam that we're
sitting. And then we can work on the
efficiency. And so how that efficiency
plays out is that as your encoding skill
slowly develops, what happens is that
your memory naturally starts improving.
Your retention naturally starts
improving. So naturally what happens is
that the amount of t amount of retrieval
you need to do starts going down
naturally. You don't need to spend as
much time doing retrieval because you're
just not forgetting it that quickly
anymore. There's no point reviewing it a
few days later because we can leave it
for a few weeks and still have the same
level of retention. So your retrieval
starts going down as your encoding goes
up. At the same time the time that you
spend goes down as well.
And because most of what is timeconuming
about learning is actually doing
retrieval really well and relearning
things and testing your gaps. When
retrieval goes down, time follows it.
And your performance should stay stable
at worst or actually increase as your
encoding gets better. And so the part
that trips people up when they're first
learning to learn is that they'll try to
learn these, you know, encoding
strategies, but they won't focus on the
retrieval strategies or they'll be too
focused on making sure that the first
thing that goes down is the amount of
time that they're spending. And so what
happens is that their performance just
tanks because they're not doing any of
this. And so their performance actually
goes down and it doesn't increase until
the encoding increases. And that period
of time is like I said like months,
potentially even years. So that's
encoding and retrieval. So when you
think about learning divided broadly
into these two phases, you can think
about where the issues are and then
which part is actually holding you back
the most. So if someone has pretty good
retention, they've got solid memory,
they're they're able to understand
things fairly deeply, but the issues
that they're having are that their
fluency and their recall is a little bit
too slow or they're realizing that there
are these gaps in their knowledge that
they didn't detect before. uh or for
some some parts maybe the knowledge
decay is a little bit uh too fast then I
would say okay well that seems to be
mostly a retrieval problem so the way
that you're going to fix that is mostly
by focusing in on your retrieval now if
someone has really poor retention their
learning is really shallow they're not
able to really solve complex problems
using what they've learned they'll spend
a lot of time consuming a bunch of stuff
learning a bunch of stuff then they'll
look back on it they don't really
remember what they wrote they don't
really know what to do with this
knowledge they kind of get more and more
confused as they're learning. That's
really clearly an encoding problem. It
means that as you consume information,
you're not turning that into usable
memory, usable knowledge structures. All
you're doing is just hoarding resources
basically. And so that ultimately is
something that needs to be improved by
getting better at your encoding. And so
that's something that you should be
working on slowly working on on the
side, just getting better and better at
it gradually, letting your brain find
new ways of thinking about and
processing that information. However, in
the interim, you're going to need to
beef that up with better and higher
quality retrieval methods. So, what I'm
going to go through now is how you
should be thinking about retrieval, what
type of strategies there are in
retrieval practice and how you get good
at this. But before I get into that, I
want to let you know about something
that might help allay some of your
confusions. We've covered a lot of stuff
and this is really just still scratching
the surface. Like, not even scratching
the surface, we're just blowing gently
on the dust on the surface when it comes
to learning to learn. And so it's common
uh to be confused about what you need to
work on, what's important for you, what
your next step needs to be. And so to
help you a little bit with that, there
is a free quiz that I've made which will
have a look at the learning system that
you're currently using. And it will then
break that down and then it will tell
you, hey, this is the part that probably
is the weakest for you. You should focus
on this. It will give you some
recommendations um and some instructions
in terms of how that's going to help you
and what you need to do to get better at
it. And so if you're looking for a tool
to sort of quickly assess what your
current situation is and get a bit more
direction, then I'd recommend checking
out that uh diagnostic. It's a learning
system diagnostic quiz. I'll leave a
link in the description for you if you
would like to check it out. It's totally
free for you to do and you get that
personalized report at the end. Now,
let's dive a little bit more into how
you get really good at retrieval. Now,
when we're talking about retrieval and
getting good at retrieval, we have to
remember that retrieval is really about
using your knowledge. So, it's useful to
think about this in terms of how you're
going to need to use your knowledge for
whatever you're learning this for. And
we want to somewhat match the way we
need to use this knowledge with the
retrieval practice that we're doing.
We're basically simulating the real
world experience for ourselves. And the
two dimensions of retrieval you want to
nail down is the method of retrieval
that you're using and the frequency.
I'll talk about frequency first because
this is an easier one to understand.
We've already talked about this concept
with this forgetting curve here.
As you know and we've discussed your
knowledge is going to fade. Your memor
is going to fade. This is called
knowledge decay. You don't want to wait
so long to retrieve something again that
that knowledge is almost completely
evaporated. You want to hit that
knowledge after you've given enough time
for meaningful forgetting to have
occurred, but not so long that you've
actually forgotten all of it. And so,
this is actually just going to be a
judgment up to you. You're going to have
to try it and see what that frequency
looks like. For most people, I say that
you should try to review something new
that you've learned one day after
learning it, then one week after
learning it, and then one month after
learning it. But this is sort of just a
starting template. This isn't saying
that this is definitely right for you.
If you learn something for the first
time and then you do it after one day
and you realize, okay, your retention is
sitting at about 80%, pretty good, and
then you do it after one week and you
realize it's at 10%. Well, this gap,
this drop is too significant. It's going
to be really challenging for you to
reill like 90% of the knowledge that
you've lost on that day. And you know,
take into account that you're constantly
learning new things as well. So, it's
not like you just have this one thing to
learn and then retrieve later. If you've
forgotten 90% of this a week later, you
there's probably all sorts of other
things that have happened during that
week that you're also imminently about
to forget. So this can become very
overwhelming. So if you notice that
there is this big drop, then you would
move this timing forward. So at what
point do you get something that's maybe
like 50%. Well, ideally the same as what
it was before. So you did it after 1
day. You saw that you had an 80%
retention. So how long do I need to wait
for that to be an 80% retention? So if I
do it on one day and then I do it
immediately the next day, probably your
retention is going to be greater than
80%. It might be 90%. It might be 95%.
Because you've literally just reviewed
it the day before. And so this is going
to be overkill. And so maybe the sweet
spot is if I review it after 3 days,
then I'm back down to 80% retention. And
that's good because going from 80% to
100% you can fill that relatively
efficiently. And so you can start with
this basic timing of one day, one week,
one month, but then you actually assess
your level of retention and you move
those dates closer together if you feel
like your retention is dropping too
fast. Or you move those dates further
apart if you feel like your attention is
also still like really strong and really
good and actually this is overkill. But
the ultimate goal here is to make sure
that we are hitting a certain level of
frequency that keeps that knowledge
topped up rather than letting it decay
all the way down. And each time you top
it up, it should improve your attention
and make that knowledge decay a little
bit slower for that piece of
information. Now, this does depend on
the method of retrieval that you're
using. If you use the wrong method, you
may be testing yourself in the wrong
way. So you think your attention is
really good, but actually it's either
not or it doesn't actually matter
because that's not how you need to use
that knowledge. So a really common
example is if you need to learn
something for complex decision-m there's
lots of different things going on at
work, really complicated project, you
need to make high stakes decisions. And
the way that you learn about new stuff
to make that decision is through flash
cards and rope memorization. So you can
do your flash cards and you can do your
wrote memorization and your retention
may be 80 90 95% but at the end of the
day it's meaningless because you're not
testing yourself in the way that is
relevant for how you actually need to
retrieve it. And so when you test
yourself in that way you may realize
that actually your ability to use that
knowledge functionally is only at 50%.
And so this is why it's really important
to be clear about how we need to use
this knowledge and then that becomes our
northern star. That becomes the goal.
and the retrieval method springs back
from that. But the major aspects about
getting your method right are that first
of all it should be generative.
So what this means is that it needs to
involve you actually doing something
with that knowledge rather than just
thinking about it. If you just sit there
and you mentally review everything that
you've gone over, there is some benefit
to just doing that. But that benefit is
not going to be as strong and also just
not worth the the time and opportunity
cost of instead
generating something with that knowledge
like creating a question, creating a
problem, solving a problem, explaining
it, writing it out, actually force
yourself to do something with that
knowledge. And on top of that, you
should try to push yourself to manipulate
manipulate
that knowledge. In most situations, you
generally don't want to be in a habit
where the method of retrieval you're
using is simply just recall. That may be
okay if you are studying for a specific
exam and you know that those exams know
need you only need to just recall
information. But especially in a
professional context and especially even
just in more like slightly more complex
exams, the way that you need to use that
information is often going to be with
other pieces of information. Like it's
not enough just to know this fact. It's
like now that you know this fact, what
does that mean in terms of this or this?
or how do you apply this fact into this?
Or when you combine these two facts,
what happens? And so when you practice
your retrieval, you want to get used to
using that knowledge for something as
opposed to just like recalling it and
saying it for what it is. And finally,
you want to make sure that you're doing
this as much as possible from memory.
This is using something that's called
free recall. Free recall means that
you're recalling that information from
your memory. you don't have any cues and
you don't have any structures that kind
of make it easier for you to recall this
information. For example, if I have a
fill in the blanks, that's not free
recall because you have the context of
that entire sentence minus the blank.
That would be cued recall. Whereas, if
the question is saying, "Here's this
problem. How would you solve it based on
everything that you've learned?" There's
very little structure. there's not as
much guidance and you're needing to
recall lots of different ideas from your
memory, manipulating it, doing things
with it, generating a response. And that
is going to produce the greatest overall
benefit to your memory and your
understanding. If you struggle with
doing that, that's not a bad thing
because remember, one of the main goals
of retrieval is to find gaps. So when
you do the retrieval and you realize,
hey, I'm struggling with this. My
fluency is not very good. I've got
knowledge gaps. I'm forgetting things. I
don't know how to use the knowledge in
this way. That's not a bad thing. That's
telling you this is a gap that you need
to work on and it's a good opportunity
to work on it before you needed it for
whatever real world actual thing that
you need. As a little pro tip, as a if
you're a working professional, there's a
really uh big problem with trying to do
retrieval practice, which is that it
just adds more work onto your plate. And
that work is not necessarily directly
related to the actual work you need to
do. Like creating a retrieval strategy
for yourself to top up on your knowledge
feels like it's not really helping you
like get the job done or finish a
project or like deliver for a client or
something like that. And so it can be
difficult to fit retrieval strategies
into your schedule. And this is the
point that I want to make about this is
that retrieval doesn't always have to be
a deliberate separate session. In fact,
if you're working professional, I would
actually encourage that you have that as
your last resort. There are two
different ways that you can think about
doing retrieval. One way of doing this
is deliberate
You want to do as much of the
opportunistic as you can. Deliberate
means that you're actually setting aside
time in your schedule separately to
create a retrieval strategy for yourself
and use that strategy. Like you're doing
your flash cards, you're answering
questions, you're generating questions,
you're getting yourself quizzed using
catchy BT, you're like literally setting
aside separate time that you normally
wouldn't spend to do this retrieval
strategy. Opportunistic means that you
find ways to do retrieval in your
existing workflow. And this is better
for three reasons. First of all, it's
more time efficient. You're already
doing things. Find ways to do retrieval
doing that. And that means that at the
end of the workday, you've already done
retrieval. You don't have to spend extra
time outside of work or on the weekends.
Second of all, it's easier to make it
more relevant to what you're actually
doing at work. So, the gap between
learning something new and then making
that learning purposeful and applicable
and relevant to your context gets
shortened down by a lot. And number
three, deliberately trying to create
retrieval strategies in your existing
workflow can actually increase the value
that you're able to do at work compared
to not doing that at all. I give you a
really common example of doing this.
Let's say I learn something new and I'm
a manager or a team leader and we're
tackling this new project and I have to
learn all this new stuff to be able to
to to deliver on this project properly.
I might decide that I normally need to
brief my team in terms of how we're
going to run this project. And I'm going
to identify that that's an opportunity
that I could turn into a retrieval
strategy. And the strategy I'm going to
use there is teaching. So I'm going to
try to teach from memory what I have
learned. And I'm going to manipulate
that by packaging everything that I've
learned in a way that feels logical for
the team to understand. I'm going to
organize the knowledge. I'm going to
package it up. I'm going to teach it and
deliver it in a way that I feel is
intuitive and logical and allows the
team to have clarity and alignment and
know what they need to know to be able
to deliver on this project properly. And
that might be a 30 minute 45 minute
training session that's wrapped in as
part of a briefing meeting. Now, I might
not normally think about doing that, but
by doing that, not only am I creating
value and clarity for my team, I'm also
consolidating my own knowledge. I'm
doing good retrieval that strengthens my
own understanding, finds gaps, and I'm
doing that at a frequency, which is
probably early enough. I've learned it.
I've just learned it, and I'm going to
teach that the next day or two days
later in a briefing meeting. And so I
encourage you to think about your
existing working day and think about any
time that you need to use what you have
learned and ask yourself, is there a way
that I can do the same thing, but just
draw a little bit more on my memory,
test my memory a little bit more,
generate a little bit more, use that
information and manipulate it a little
bit more, and just turn that existing
task into a retrieval opportunity. The
only things that you need to have
deliberate retrieval sessions for are
the types of things where you're not
using that on a daily basis at work. You
might need to have a separate retrieval
session uh scheduled in just to be able
to top up on that knowledge. Okay, so
let's zoom out now and just uh do a bit
of a recap. So we've talked about how
you should think about learning as a
system and that is broken up into two
components encoding and retrieval. why
encoding is important for your memory,
but why retrieval is actually
practically usually the most important
thing to start with if you're a
beginner. We've talked about the ways
that you can do retrieval correctly and
that you need to make sure that the
method and the frequency are matched up.
And if you're a working professional,
you should find more opportunistic ways
of doing retrieval instead of deliberate
sessions. And throughout this
explanation, I've spoken a lot about
working with information in different
ways like just fact recall versus
solving complex problems. like that
theme has come up a lot and this is
actually a really important other way of
thinking about learning that translates
to not only the method of retrieval that
you use but also the way that you do
encoding correctly and this is the idea
of orders of learning. It's really
important to understand the orders of
learning because it gives you a easy way
to identify how much you need to learn
something. How deep do I need to go? How
good do I need to be at this topic? it
becomes a guideline for the types of
retrieval strategies that you should
use. If you need to be really good at a
topic, you find the right order and then
you find a retrieval strategy that's
going to hit that order. And this also
translates to the way that you do your
encoding. If you know that the way you
need to think about something and learn
something is at a certain order, you
make sure that you do that type of
thinking upfront when you first learn
that information. And so in your daily
learning experience, understanding the
orders is going to become your mental
goalpost of how you know when you are
learning something good enough. And the
easiest way to break up orders of
learning is just into higher order
versus lower order. Lower order learning
is when learning is very isolated.
This is talking about individual facts,
understanding individual concepts,
explaining things in isolation. You do a
lot of this when you're doing early
schooling and you're just asked to like
explain a concept, recite a definition,
regurgitate some facts. That's all lower
order. At a certain point, it flips in
that most of the things that are
valuable uh for learning are higher
order. And higher order is when
information is integrated. This is when
concepts aren't just meaningful to know
by themselves. Concepts are important to
know because of the influence and the
impact it has on something else. This
fact is not something that is just a fun
fact for a party trick. This fact is
important because that influences the
way that you make decisions about
something else. And so anytime you need
to do any kind of prioritization
or comparison
or complex
these are all higher order knowledge
requirements. Prioritizing something
accurately means that you understand the
implication of prioritizing one thing
versus all the other things that you
could be prioritizing. When you evaluate
how important one thing is, you're
evaluating its importance relative to
the importance of everything else. If
someone's trying to solve a complicated
problem, but they're not used to
thinking at a higher order. They don't
know how to start. They don't know how
to approach things. They understand that
there are lots of different concepts
working together. They understand that
they are related to each other, but they
don't know how to navigate those
relationships. They know it's connected,
but all it does is create overwhelm. As
opposed to someone who's good at
thinking at this higher order, and
they're used to it, and they've tested
themselves, and they've encoded the
information in this way. They can say,
"Hey, yes, all of these things influence
each other. Here is the way that they
influence this. If I change this thing,
this thing goes down. If I remove this,
I need to replace it with this." they
understand how the components connect
and so they can work with that knowledge
in a productive way. Now there's a few
interesting phenomenon uh about working
at a higher order compared to working at
a low order. First of all, working at a
higher order because it's integrated
forces information to fit into a
network. Forces information to fit into
a schema.
And this is how your memory works. Your
memory is stronger when information
belongs inside a network or a schema.
And so when you try to learn things at a
higher order and you try to apply your
knowledge at a higher order, your memory
gets stronger. One of the results of
this is that you achieve this flatter
knowledge decay curve that we were
talking about. And as I mentioned there,
if you're not used to thinking in this
way where you're constantly comparing
information, thinking about how one
thing relates to another thing, thinking
about which is more important compared
to other possible options. This is
difficult to do. These are new habits of
thinking that you need to develop. Now,
sometimes you do need to learn at a
lower order as well. Like I said,
sometimes there'll be certain
examinations that you could try to
integrate everything into a big network
and a schema, but it might take you so
long and you only need to learn like 50
different facts. It's faster just to
smash those through some flash cards.
You just have to accept that that
information because it's not connected
into a schema. So this is not in a
network, not in a schema. This
information is going to be lost very
quickly. So the knowledge decay is going
to be very fast. Again, sometimes this
is acceptable and sometimes this is
actually overall more efficient. But
especially as a professional, there's
not many instances where lower order
learning is that valuable because most
of the time you can just write it down
and you can look it up later. And the
ability to sort of just have memorized
facts and details in isolation and only
using them in isolation is is pretty
niche. So understanding the orders of
learning has a couple of different
implications. One of the implications is
it gives you that goalpost on how you
should be thinking about the information
when you first learn it, when you do the
encoding. So when this information first
comes into your brain, you want to put
on your higher order hat and say, "Cool.
So here's this isolated piece of
information that's entered my brain. How
can I connect this with something else?
How can I find a pattern here?" And
there are various strategies that you
can use for this that I talk about a lot
in in my other videos. Some of the ones
that I would recommend you starting with
is trying some kind of mind mapping.
Correct mind mapping is very effective
because it forces your brain to think in
relationships because you literally have
to draw the relationships. Now you can
also do mind mapping without doing
higher order thinking where you just
draw things, draw some arrows and
connect some things here and there. You
don't really think too deeply about it.
You don't think whether this is the best
way or this is the right way. You don't
think about other ways that you could do
it. you just connect a bunch of things
together and you call it a day, that's
not going to be very effective. But if
you're really challenging yourself to
evaluate, prioritize,
restructure ideas, and really get a
clear, organized, big picture
understanding, mind mapping is going to
help you with that. Another very simple
thing that you can do is creating analogies.
analogies.
The act of trying to create an analogy
is actually a way to activate higher
order thinking. To create an analogy,
you often have to take a group of
related concepts and facts and then
think about how they're related together
to find some other type of way to
represent that. And when you create an
analogy and you think, does this analogy
make sense? That forces you to examine
those relationships, whether you've
understood them correctly, whether
you've understood each component
correctly. And so creating analogies is
an incredibly effective, useful tool
that you should use frequently whenever
you're learning new information. You can
also apply this exact same thinking when
you decide on the retrieval method that
you want to use. So I've mentioned that
you want it to be generative. You want
to manipulate the information and you
want to do it off free recall. Well, any
form of higher order retrieval is
actually going to be manipulating and
generative by default. And one of the
most famous examples of this which is
incredibly effective is to teach
something to a 10-year-old. Famously
called the Fineman method. When you try
to teach something to a 10-year-old,
you're doing a very similar thing as
creating an analogy. You're thinking
about how all of these things relate
together. You're thinking about which
thing is more important, which is less
important, and how you can reexlain that
in simpler terms. And then when you
think about those simpler terms, you go
back and ask yourself, does this still
actually make sense? Is this still
accurate? And because you're forcing
your brain to think in networks and
think in relationships, this is higher
order. And because you are teaching
someone, you're generating it. And
because you're doing it hopefully from
memory, you're doing free recall. So
this is a example of a great retrieval
strategy. And so what that looks like
when it comes together is that you take
in some new information. You draw some
mind maps to try to see how the
relationships play out. You spend a bit
of time cleaning it up until it feels
organized and it makes sense to you. You
try to create some analogies with what
you've learned. And as you do this, you
should feel that your knowledge is not
only becoming deeper and more nuanced.
You're starting to see how uh the
complicated overwhelming parts are
starting to make a bit more sense. Your
memory is getting stronger. And then later, you can test yourself by teaching
later, you can test yourself by teaching it to a 10-year-old, an imaginary
it to a 10-year-old, an imaginary 10-year-old. You don't have to find your
10-year-old. You don't have to find your local ambient 10-year-old to teach to.
local ambient 10-year-old to teach to. And then when you do this, you then test
And then when you do this, you then test your knowledge and you find more gaps
your knowledge and you find more gaps and you top up your memory. And so this
and you top up your memory. And so this is just one example, but what I said at
is just one example, but what I said at the beginning about how what matters is
the beginning about how what matters is the approach, the principle to follow
the approach, the principle to follow more so than the tactic itself. You
more so than the tactic itself. You don't have to use mind maps. You don't
don't have to use mind maps. You don't have to use analogies. You don't have to
have to use analogies. You don't have to teach it to a 10-year-old. You can do
teach it to a 10-year-old. You can do anything you want. Any method or
anything you want. Any method or technique is going to work as long as
technique is going to work as long as you recognize the principle of trying to
you recognize the principle of trying to think in networks, think in
think in networks, think in relationships. Think about why is this
relationships. Think about why is this thing important relative to something
thing important relative to something else. Create connections and move away
else. Create connections and move away from the lower order habit of just
from the lower order habit of just trying to understand and remember
trying to understand and remember individual facts and individual
individual facts and individual concepts. The hard part about learning
concepts. The hard part about learning to learn is not doing higher order
to learn is not doing higher order learning. Most people can think in
learning. Most people can think in relationships. Most people can think in
relationships. Most people can think in terms of what is why is one thing
terms of what is why is one thing important compared to another thing. The
important compared to another thing. The hard part about learning is that most of
hard part about learning is that most of us have really strong lower order
us have really strong lower order habits. And it feels wrong and
habits. And it feels wrong and destabilizing and and highly uncertain
destabilizing and and highly uncertain to not really try to remember or
to not really try to remember or understand each individual thing that
understand each individual thing that we're consuming. It doesn't seem to make
we're consuming. It doesn't seem to make sense to us. And so the biggest
sense to us. And so the biggest challenge is actually just being okay
challenge is actually just being okay with that feeling. Is to learn something
with that feeling. Is to learn something new and say, "I don't fully understand
new and say, "I don't fully understand it. I definitely don't feel like I'm
it. I definitely don't feel like I'm going to remember it, but I understand
going to remember it, but I understand it enough to start thinking about how it
it enough to start thinking about how it could fit into the big picture, how I
could fit into the big picture, how I can group and arrange and connect this
can group and arrange and connect this information with everything else. And as
information with everything else. And as you go through that higher order process
you go through that higher order process of grouping and relating and creating
of grouping and relating and creating connections, that is what allows you to
connections, that is what allows you to develop better memory and retain it. And
develop better memory and retain it. And that's what allows you to understand it
that's what allows you to understand it more deeply. And this is the part that
more deeply. And this is the part that when we talked about the myths earlier
when we talked about the myths earlier on, the learning should not be easy.
on, the learning should not be easy. Like this is the quintessential
Like this is the quintessential example of this. When people try to just
example of this. When people try to just learn things in isolation and just
learn things in isolation and just remember a specific fact or a concept,
remember a specific fact or a concept, that's actually really easy to do. You
that's actually really easy to do. You just understand like that that's the
just understand like that that's the easiest way of going about learning.
easiest way of going about learning. When you tell someone, okay, cool. You
When you tell someone, okay, cool. You don't need to understand it. I want you
don't need to understand it. I want you to see how it fits together. I want you
to see how it fits together. I want you to map how it connects together. I want
to map how it connects together. I want you to create analogies. I want you to
you to create analogies. I want you to simplify it. I want you to group it. I
simplify it. I want you to group it. I want you to rearrange this information
want you to rearrange this information into a way that makes sense for you.
into a way that makes sense for you. That's difficult. That can be
That's difficult. That can be overwhelming. That can be confusing.
overwhelming. That can be confusing. Most people will feel that and think,
Most people will feel that and think, "Nah, this is not working for me." And
"Nah, this is not working for me." And they'll step away. And if that happens
they'll step away. And if that happens to you, you will never get better at
to you, you will never get better at learning. So far, we've talked about the
learning. So far, we've talked about the learning system. We've talked about
learning system. We've talked about encoding. We've talked about retrieval.
encoding. We've talked about retrieval. But there is still an aspect that we
But there is still an aspect that we haven't talked about yet which is the
haven't talked about yet which is the self-management aspect and this is
self-management aspect and this is something that I call the enablers.
Enablers are sort of the third part of a learning system because it's not tied to
learning system because it's not tied to your ability to learn exactly, but it's
your ability to learn exactly, but it's what gets your butt in the seat. is what
what gets your butt in the seat. is what allows you to when you have three hours
allows you to when you have three hours in your calendar blocked out for
in your calendar blocked out for learning something, you actually do
learning something, you actually do that. You sit down and then for the
that. You sit down and then for the three hours you actually get high
three hours you actually get high quality learning out of it. You're
quality learning out of it. You're focused, you're concentrating, you're
focused, you're concentrating, you're not procrastinating, and you know how to
not procrastinating, and you know how to juggle your competing priorities uh and
juggle your competing priorities uh and manage your time. So, as I mentioned, I
manage your time. So, as I mentioned, I want to show you some simple principles
want to show you some simple principles to help you solve the biggest
to help you solve the biggest self-management issues. Now, at this
self-management issues. Now, at this point, you may be feeling like we've
point, you may be feeling like we've covered a lot and it's very confusing.
covered a lot and it's very confusing. Uh, like it makes sense, but you need
Uh, like it makes sense, but you need more time, you need more examples, you
more time, you need more examples, you need me to walk through step by step,
need me to walk through step by step, you need to see the specific tactic or
you need to see the specific tactic or the specific strategy. And if you feel
the specific strategy. And if you feel that way, well, I mean, part of it that
that way, well, I mean, part of it that that's good. It means you're really
that's good. It means you're really paying attention. If you are looking for
paying attention. If you are looking for more examples, if you want some more
more examples, if you want some more walkthroughs, you want something that's
walkthroughs, you want something that's a bit more step by step and you're not
a bit more step by step and you're not trying to figure out how all of this
trying to figure out how all of this kind of fits together, you just want to
kind of fits together, you just want to be told this is what you need to do.
be told this is what you need to do. Here's why you need to do it. Here's how
Here's why you need to do it. Here's how to do it correctly, then there's a
to do it correctly, then there's a couple options for you. First of all, I
couple options for you. First of all, I have a lot of other videos on this,
have a lot of other videos on this, right? Like each of the things that I've
right? Like each of the things that I've talked about in this video, I have
talked about in this video, I have multiple videos going into them in more
multiple videos going into them in more depth. So, please browse around, watch
depth. So, please browse around, watch some more videos that will help you get
some more videos that will help you get a better sense of things. The other
a better sense of things. The other option, if you want to take a little bit
option, if you want to take a little bit of a faster approach and you want
of a faster approach and you want something that's even more guided where
something that's even more guided where you're not even having to think about
you're not even having to think about which video to watch, what's the what's
which video to watch, what's the what's the best video to learn, whatever
the best video to learn, whatever technique, what do I need to do next,
technique, what do I need to do next, the best option for you is going to be
the best option for you is going to be to join my actual program. So, I do have
to join my actual program. So, I do have a paid program that I go through step by
a paid program that I go through step by step teaching you like this is how
step teaching you like this is how learning works. This is what you need to
learning works. This is what you need to learn first. I go through the learning
learn first. I go through the learning system and all the different components
system and all the different components with examples and walkthroughs. Now,
with examples and walkthroughs. Now, like I said before, learning to learn
like I said before, learning to learn takes some time. So, this is not a
takes some time. So, this is not a program that you will be able to kind of
program that you will be able to kind of smash out in a in a single weekend. If
smash out in a in a single weekend. If you are really low on time, like you're
you are really low on time, like you're studying for an exam and that exam is
studying for an exam and that exam is like one month away, I wouldn't
like one month away, I wouldn't recommend joining um because it's just
recommend joining um because it's just you're not really going to get much of a
you're not really going to get much of a benefit in just kind of one month unless
benefit in just kind of one month unless you're doing the program like full-time
you're doing the program like full-time for a month. Um, I I would recommend
for a month. Um, I I would recommend this for people who want to improve
this for people who want to improve their learning skills, want to get a
their learning skills, want to get a really good understanding about how to
really good understanding about how to think about their learning and have
think about their learning and have those tactics that that are in play and
those tactics that that are in play and also have a bit of time to actually
also have a bit of time to actually practice this. I completely understand
practice this. I completely understand the mentality of trying to get the best
the mentality of trying to get the best possible result in the shortest period
possible result in the shortest period of time. I have the same mentality for
of time. I have the same mentality for me like it took me a super super long
me like it took me a super super long time to figure out how to learn
time to figure out how to learn effectively. I try to make that much
effectively. I try to make that much much faster for you and the people that
much faster for you and the people that are on my program, but it still takes
are on my program, but it still takes time. So, if you're in a position where
time. So, if you're in a position where you're not ready to commit sort of a few
you're not ready to commit sort of a few hours a week to actually improving the
hours a week to actually improving the skill, then I'd say try to get to that
skill, then I'd say try to get to that position first uh before joining the
position first uh before joining the program if if you want to. If I look at
program if if you want to. If I look at the data on who tends to find our
the data on who tends to find our program most effective, it tends to be
program most effective, it tends to be people who have lots of stuff to learn.
people who have lots of stuff to learn. like there's there's constantly new
like there's there's constantly new learning coming up and they're trying to
learning coming up and they're trying to fit that in into their busy schedules.
fit that in into their busy schedules. So, we're talking about a lot of
So, we're talking about a lot of software engineers, a lot of healthcare
software engineers, a lot of healthcare professionals, uh post-graduate students
professionals, uh post-graduate students and researchers as well as just your
and researchers as well as just your your your academic student, your your
your your academic student, your your university student trying to study for
university student trying to study for exams. So, anyway, if you're interested,
exams. So, anyway, if you're interested, I'll leave a link to the program in the
I'll leave a link to the program in the description. You can go on the website,
description. You can go on the website, read a little bit more about it, see if
read a little bit more about it, see if it's right for you. But for now uh let's
it's right for you. But for now uh let's go into the enablers and the
go into the enablers and the self-management skills. So there are
self-management skills. So there are three different ways that I like to
three different ways that I like to divide enablers. First of all is time
divide enablers. First of all is time management. Next is task management and
management. Next is task management and then it's focus or attention. So time
then it's focus or attention. So time management refers to things like
management refers to things like scheduling,
scheduling, time blocking. These are common
time blocking. These are common strategies that are used.
strategies that are used. Task management is really talking about
Task management is really talking about prioritization.
prioritization. When you've got a lot of things that you
When you've got a lot of things that you could be doing, how do you decide what
could be doing, how do you decide what to do? And then focus or attention
to do? And then focus or attention management. This is stuff in terms of
management. This is stuff in terms of preventing yourself from
preventing yourself from procrastinating,
procrastinating, not getting distracted,
or being able to enter into states of deep flow.
deep flow. This is what focus and attention
This is what focus and attention management is about. And the important
management is about. And the important thing is to understand that these three
thing is to understand that these three things are actually not separated. If
things are actually not separated. If you are great at prioritizing, but
you are great at prioritizing, but you're terrible with your time
you're terrible with your time management or you procrastinate all the
management or you procrastinate all the time, it doesn't matter that you know
time, it doesn't matter that you know what you should be doing, you can't
what you should be doing, you can't actually do it. Likewise, if you're
actually do it. Likewise, if you're great at time management, but then your
great at time management, but then your prioritization is terrible, it means
prioritization is terrible, it means that you schedule things and then you
that you schedule things and then you you follow your schedule, but you're
you follow your schedule, but you're spending your time doing the wrong
spending your time doing the wrong things. And so, overall, these are not
things. And so, overall, these are not techniques for the sake of it. The point
techniques for the sake of it. The point of using these techniques is to overall
of using these techniques is to overall improve our productivity and the amount
improve our productivity and the amount of control that we have over our lives.
of control that we have over our lives. We want our life to go in a certain
We want our life to go in a certain direction. We want to do certain things,
direction. We want to do certain things, learn certain things, upskill in certain
learn certain things, upskill in certain areas, spend the time that we want to
areas, spend the time that we want to spend in the way that we want to spend
spend in the way that we want to spend it. All of these aspects, time
it. All of these aspects, time management, task management, and focus
management, task management, and focus management need to work together. So, as
management need to work together. So, as I go through to explain the principles
I go through to explain the principles of doing these parts correctly, you
of doing these parts correctly, you should be thinking about which is your
should be thinking about which is your bottleneck. and then constantly evaluate
bottleneck. and then constantly evaluate and come back to where your next
and come back to where your next bottleneck is as you develop these
bottleneck is as you develop these skills. So, let's start with the first
skills. So, let's start with the first one, which is time management. Time
one, which is time management. Time management is the easiest one to get
management is the easiest one to get right. It is mind-blowing how
right. It is mind-blowing how complicated people make time management
complicated people make time management or how
or how I guess overrated time management is. To
I guess overrated time management is. To do time management effectively, all you
do time management effectively, all you need is a schedule that you maintain and
need is a schedule that you maintain and a level of time blocking. Go get
a level of time blocking. Go get yourself Google calendar,
yourself Google calendar, Apple calendar, whatever. Just get
Apple calendar, whatever. Just get yourself a calendar. On your calendar,
yourself a calendar. On your calendar, block out time for when you want to do
block out time for when you want to do things. If you want to study between
things. If you want to study between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on a Friday
5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on a Friday evening, on your calendar, go to 5:00
evening, on your calendar, go to 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., put a block there
p.m. and 8:00 p.m., put a block there and just call it study. If you want to
and just call it study. If you want to do your groceries on a Saturday morning,
do your groceries on a Saturday morning, put it into your calendar. If you want
put it into your calendar. If you want to catch up with someone, have coffee
to catch up with someone, have coffee with a friend, put it into your
with a friend, put it into your calendar.
calendar. Just create blocks of time in a schedule
Just create blocks of time in a schedule that you maintain. As long as you do
that you maintain. As long as you do that,
that, most of your time management problems
most of your time management problems will be solved. The skill requirement to
will be solved. The skill requirement to do this right is not very high. But a
do this right is not very high. But a lot of people feel that they have a time
lot of people feel that they have a time management problem and they feel that
management problem and they feel that way because they never have enough time.
way because they never have enough time. There's so much stuff that they need to
There's so much stuff that they need to do. There's not enough time to do it.
do. There's not enough time to do it. The schedules that they make don't get
The schedules that they make don't get followed at the end of the day. There's
followed at the end of the day. There's all the stuff that they were meant to do
all the stuff that they were meant to do that now has to get put back onto their
that now has to get put back onto their backlog or move on to the next day
backlog or move on to the next day constantly feeling like it's never
constantly feeling like it's never enough no matter how much they do.
enough no matter how much they do. Always busy, never productive. This is
Always busy, never productive. This is not a time management issue. There is
not a time management issue. There is one little strategy which you can do on
one little strategy which you can do on a time management front which is just to
a time management front which is just to be conservative with your blocks. Like
be conservative with your blocks. Like if you think that something's going to
if you think that something's going to take you one hour, you just got to be
take you one hour, you just got to be really honest with yourself. Is it
really honest with yourself. Is it really going to take me an hour? And
really going to take me an hour? And actually, this is super simple to fix as
actually, this is super simple to fix as well because you don't even have to be
well because you don't even have to be honest with yourself. All you have to do
honest with yourself. All you have to do is actually track your time. Set
is actually track your time. Set yourself a schedule and then actually
yourself a schedule and then actually track how long it took. How how did your
track how long it took. How how did your day actually go? When you track your
day actually go? When you track your time, you will see the real life that
time, you will see the real life that you lived in the real way that you spent
you lived in the real way that you spent your time versus the way that you
your time versus the way that you intended to. When you're first sort of
intended to. When you're first sort of new with scheduling, it's easy to get
new with scheduling, it's easy to get over ambitious and then just pack your
over ambitious and then just pack your schedule every waking minute with stuff.
schedule every waking minute with stuff. As you get more experienced and you
As you get more experienced and you start tracking your time, you realize
start tracking your time, you realize things take way longer than you expected
things take way longer than you expected them to. And so the solution to this is
them to. And so the solution to this is just to under schedule. Be really
just to under schedule. Be really conservative with your scheduling. Plan
conservative with your scheduling. Plan to do less in your day than you would
to do less in your day than you would like to. Undercheduling is vastly better
like to. Undercheduling is vastly better to overchuling. Overcheduling is when
to overchuling. Overcheduling is when you like you may call that just
you like you may call that just scheduling. That's when you plan to do
scheduling. That's when you plan to do all the stuff and you never get it done.
all the stuff and you never get it done. If that happens to you often where your
If that happens to you often where your plans and your schedules never go
plans and your schedules never go according to plan and every day there's
according to plan and every day there's always stuff that you plan to do that
always stuff that you plan to do that you're never finishing, you are
you're never finishing, you are overcheduling. You are living in a
overcheduling. You are living in a fantasy world where your own
fantasy world where your own interpretation of what you think you can
interpretation of what you think you can do in a day is not based on reality. If
do in a day is not based on reality. If the schedules you set are not reflective
the schedules you set are not reflective of reality, there is no point setting
of reality, there is no point setting the schedule. You can't improve on that.
the schedule. You can't improve on that. And so you have to start from a baseline
And so you have to start from a baseline where you understand how long things
where you understand how long things actually take you and you schedule
actually take you and you schedule things realistically. So track your time
things realistically. So track your time and see how long things actually take
and see how long things actually take you. And you may find that you don't
you. And you may find that you don't want to schedule it that way because
want to schedule it that way because that means that you're able to get even
that means that you're able to get even less done in a day. You had a hundred
less done in a day. You had a hundred things that you needed to do and you
things that you needed to do and you plan to do 20 of those today. But then
plan to do 20 of those today. But then when you track your time, you realize to
when you track your time, you realize to schedule it responsibly and accurately,
schedule it responsibly and accurately, you're only able to get five of those
you're only able to get five of those things done. Guess what? You're only
things done. Guess what? You're only getting five of those things done
getting five of those things done anyway. The only difference is whether
anyway. The only difference is whether you are aware of it and you can plan for
you are aware of it and you can plan for it or you don't plan for it and then you
it or you don't plan for it and then you just feel like crap at the end of every
just feel like crap at the end of every day because you realize that it didn't
day because you realize that it didn't go according to plan. Even if every now
go according to plan. Even if every now and again you give yourself like an
and again you give yourself like an intense packed day that's super busy and
intense packed day that's super busy and you, you know, have to be like really on
you, you know, have to be like really on the minute every minute of the day. You
the minute every minute of the day. You can do that once in a while, but that
can do that once in a while, but that should not be your norm. When you get to
should not be your norm. When you get to a point where you can schedule and you
a point where you can schedule and you see reality for what it is, now you can
see reality for what it is, now you can plan. Now you can properly plan because
plan. Now you can properly plan because the issue of having too much to do, not
the issue of having too much to do, not being able to fit it in, not having
being able to fit it in, not having enough time, that's not a time
enough time, that's not a time management issue. That is a task
management issue. That is a task management issue. So I'm going to put a
management issue. So I'm going to put a big yellow star next to task management
big yellow star next to task management because this is the part that most
because this is the part that most people under value. This is the part
people under value. This is the part that probably is going to make the
that probably is going to make the biggest difference. This is the part
biggest difference. This is the part that people are really bad at. 99 out of
that people are really bad at. 99 out of a 100 times when someone comes to me and
a 100 times when someone comes to me and they say they've got a time management
they say they've got a time management issue, they have a task management issue
issue, they have a task management issue and the issue is in the way that they
and the issue is in the way that they prioritize or don't prioritize. So, how
prioritize or don't prioritize. So, how do you properly prioritize? So, there
do you properly prioritize? So, there are a few little tactics that are going
are a few little tactics that are going to make it easier for you to prioritize.
to make it easier for you to prioritize. Number one is collecting
Number one is collecting your tasks.
your tasks. Try not to have everything that you need
Try not to have everything that you need to do just floating around in your head.
to do just floating around in your head. Write it down. You can use a to-do list
Write it down. You can use a to-do list software if you like or you can like
software if you like or you can like literally write it down in a notebook.
literally write it down in a notebook. You can write it down on your phone and
You can write it down on your phone and in your phone notes app. For me
in your phone notes app. For me personally, I used to use a lot of
personally, I used to use a lot of different apps for this. I I just use
different apps for this. I I just use the notes app on my iPhone now uh for
the notes app on my iPhone now uh for for most of this. But the point is that
for most of this. But the point is that you just want to have a single place
you just want to have a single place where when you think that there's stuff
where when you think that there's stuff that you need to do, you can just put it
that you need to do, you can just put it down. You can chuck it into a reminder.
down. You can chuck it into a reminder. It's just there. You don't have to think
It's just there. You don't have to think about it anymore. The second thing is
about it anymore. The second thing is give yourself time to prioritize.
give yourself time to prioritize. This needs to become a habit. If it
This needs to become a habit. If it becomes a habit, you don't need to have
becomes a habit, you don't need to have like too much time set aside separately
like too much time set aside separately just to prioritize. You'll learn how to
just to prioritize. You'll learn how to fit it into your just everyday life. But
fit it into your just everyday life. But if you're coming from a situation where
if you're coming from a situation where you've never really sat down and
you've never really sat down and properly prioritized your tasks, you
properly prioritized your tasks, you need to carve out like 20 30 minutes in
need to carve out like 20 30 minutes in the evening, the night before for you to
the evening, the night before for you to go through all the tasks that you need
go through all the tasks that you need to do and then start prioritizing them.
to do and then start prioritizing them. When you first start doing this, it's
When you first start doing this, it's going to take a while because you've got
going to take a while because you've got a backlist of all these different tasks
a backlist of all these different tasks that haven't been prioritized before and
that haven't been prioritized before and now you have to prioritize all of them
now you have to prioritize all of them in bulk like in one go. That can be
in bulk like in one go. That can be timeconuming. But just work through
timeconuming. But just work through this. You have to do this if you want to
this. You have to do this if you want to solve the problems about having too much
solve the problems about having too much to do and not knowing how to do them.
to do and not knowing how to do them. And so here's what you're going to do
And so here's what you're going to do when you're actually sitting down to
when you're actually sitting down to manage your tasks.
manage your tasks. You're either going to execute
You're either going to execute or you're going to categorize.
or you're going to categorize. When you see a task that needs to be
When you see a task that needs to be done, ask yourself, is it going to take
done, ask yourself, is it going to take me more than 2 minutes? If the answer is
me more than 2 minutes? If the answer is no, just do it now. It's better to have
no, just do it now. It's better to have that task off your list, off your radar,
that task off your list, off your radar, giving you the benefit of whatever
giving you the benefit of whatever benefit that task was meant to give you
benefit that task was meant to give you than thinking about how to prioritize
than thinking about how to prioritize it. So, this is called the two-minute
it. So, this is called the two-minute rule.
rule. If it's going to take you less than 2
If it's going to take you less than 2 minutes, just do it on the spot. If it's
minutes, just do it on the spot. If it's going to take you longer than 2 minutes,
going to take you longer than 2 minutes, categorize it. Now, there are lots of
categorize it. Now, there are lots of different ways of categorizing tasks uh
different ways of categorizing tasks uh and prioritizing them. I personally like
and prioritizing them. I personally like to use the Eisenhower matrix. Uh but
to use the Eisenhower matrix. Uh but there's a very specific way that I use
there's a very specific way that I use this if you're familiar with this. Uh if
this if you're familiar with this. Uh if you're not familiar with this, I'll I'll
you're not familiar with this, I'll I'll teach you how to do it. So the steps are
teach you how to do it. So the steps are pretty simple. You just divide well you
pretty simple. You just divide well you at least you mentally think about these
at least you mentally think about these four different grids. And these grids
four different grids. And these grids sit on an axis of urgency and
sit on an axis of urgency and importance.
So in this top right corner, this would be your focus corner. These are the
be your focus corner. These are the things that have a high level of
things that have a high level of importance and a high level of urgency.
importance and a high level of urgency. To the left of this quadrant, you have
To the left of this quadrant, you have things that are a low level of urgency
things that are a low level of urgency and a high level of importance. This is
and a high level of importance. This is your schedule
your schedule quadrant. Now, this is an important
quadrant. Now, this is an important point. Most people don't distinguish
point. Most people don't distinguish urgent versus important. And this is
urgent versus important. And this is because people prioritize based on
because people prioritize based on feeling. This feels important for me to
feeling. This feels important for me to do. The issue is that the human brain is
do. The issue is that the human brain is not very good at feeling intuitively the
not very good at feeling intuitively the importance of something that's
importance of something that's long-term. So most of the stuff that you
long-term. So most of the stuff that you feel is important to do. What you're
feel is important to do. What you're feeling is actually the urgency. And
feeling is actually the urgency. And there are a lot of things that are
there are a lot of things that are urgent that aren't important. And the
urgent that aren't important. And the way that you should measure the
way that you should measure the importance is based on the consequence
importance is based on the consequence if you don't do this. So let's say I
if you don't do this. So let's say I need to clean my house, right? And I
need to clean my house, right? And I haven't cleaned it for a little while.
haven't cleaned it for a little while. Starting to get a little dusty. Starting
Starting to get a little dusty. Starting to look a little bit, you know, like not
to look a little bit, you know, like not pleasant. And this is feeling more and
pleasant. And this is feeling more and more important for me to do. And so one
more important for me to do. And so one day there's a weekend that comes along.
day there's a weekend that comes along. I've got all this other stuff to do. And
I've got all this other stuff to do. And on top of that, this household chore,
on top of that, this household chore, give my house a deep clean comes up and
give my house a deep clean comes up and it feels like I've put this off for too
it feels like I've put this off for too long. This is important enough that it
long. This is important enough that it needs to be like prioritized today. So
needs to be like prioritized today. So you ask yourself, yes, we're feeling
you ask yourself, yes, we're feeling that it's urgent, but if I didn't do it,
that it's urgent, but if I didn't do it, what's the consequence? So, if I don't
what's the consequence? So, if I don't do it today, well, I'm not going to have
do it today, well, I'm not going to have enough time to do it for an entire other
enough time to do it for an entire other week, and then my house is going to get
week, and then my house is going to get even dirtier. Okay, so what? And the
even dirtier. Okay, so what? And the correct way to answer this is that you
correct way to answer this is that you balance that against the consequences of
balance that against the consequences of everything else you could be doing in
everything else you could be doing in that time. So, let's say the reason I
that time. So, let's say the reason I haven't been cleaning my house is
haven't been cleaning my house is because I've been really busy and I've
because I've been really busy and I've also been really stressed. I've been
also been really stressed. I've been stressed in my personal life. I've been
stressed in my personal life. I've been stressed at work. I've got a lot of
stressed at work. I've got a lot of stuff I need to do. I'm under the pump.
stuff I need to do. I'm under the pump. I haven't felt good. Even if I've had
I haven't felt good. Even if I've had time to clean my house, I didn't feel
time to clean my house, I didn't feel like it because I was just too burnt
like it because I was just too burnt out. And so, another thing that I think
out. And so, another thing that I think is important for me to do this work
is important for me to do this work weekend is to go for a run, do some
weekend is to go for a run, do some exercise, start getting back on my
exercise, start getting back on my exercise habit and rebuilding my
exercise habit and rebuilding my physical health. And these two may be
physical health. And these two may be competing. If I clean my house, I'm not
competing. If I clean my house, I'm not going to have time to go for my run and
going to have time to go for my run and vice versa. And that becomes how you
vice versa. And that becomes how you assess the importance of it. Because the
assess the importance of it. Because the decline of mental and physical health
decline of mental and physical health may not seem urgent, but the consequence
may not seem urgent, but the consequence of not prioritizing this is probably
of not prioritizing this is probably greater than the consequence of letting
greater than the consequence of letting your house get one week dirtier. And
your house get one week dirtier. And often the things that are the most
often the things that are the most lifechanging for us are the things that
lifechanging for us are the things that are important but not urgent. Because
are important but not urgent. Because often the things that are here are the
often the things that are here are the things that by the time it becomes
things that by the time it becomes urgent, it's too late. It becomes
urgent, it's too late. It becomes something that is now I haven't been
something that is now I haven't been exercising. I haven't been taking care
exercising. I haven't been taking care of my diet. I haven't been taking care
of my diet. I haven't been taking care of my sleep. Now I'm burnt out,
of my sleep. Now I'm burnt out, depressed as hell, and now I need to
depressed as hell, and now I need to quit my job to give myself the mental
quit my job to give myself the mental space to recover. So now it's urgent for
space to recover. So now it's urgent for me to have great mental and physical
me to have great mental and physical health. I can't do anything about it
health. I can't do anything about it anymore. That's the type of thing I wish
anymore. That's the type of thing I wish I had made that a priority 3 months ago.
I had made that a priority 3 months ago. I see a job opportunity opening up and
I see a job opportunity opening up and it requires me to learn these different
it requires me to learn these different skills. That job is not going to open up
skills. That job is not going to open up for another 6 months to a year. So if
for another 6 months to a year. So if you put that off and then 6 months
you put that off and then 6 months passes and there's an interview that
passes and there's an interview that comes up now it's urgent. You can't
comes up now it's urgent. You can't learn that skill. You don't have enough
learn that skill. You don't have enough time yet. That becomes a I wish I
time yet. That becomes a I wish I prioritized that 6 months ago. And the
prioritized that 6 months ago. And the big thing that we want to avoid with
big thing that we want to avoid with prioritization is falling into the
prioritization is falling into the urgency trap. every single day you're
urgency trap. every single day you're just doing the things that are urgent
just doing the things that are urgent but not doing enough of the things that
but not doing enough of the things that are not urgent but still important.
are not urgent but still important. Because when we stay in the urgency trap
Because when we stay in the urgency trap and we're only doing things that are
and we're only doing things that are urgent, often the things that are urgent
urgent, often the things that are urgent for us today, we can fix by doing
for us today, we can fix by doing something that's not urgent. We can
something that's not urgent. We can improve a system, learn a skill, get
improve a system, learn a skill, get better at. You can learn to learn. If
better at. You can learn to learn. If what's urgent for you right now is that
what's urgent for you right now is that you have to study all this material
you have to study all this material because you're constantly forgetting it.
because you're constantly forgetting it. Well, actually spending time learning to
Well, actually spending time learning to learn actually solves the urgent problem
learn actually solves the urgent problem that you have. Obviously, not today, but
that you have. Obviously, not today, but eventually. So, when you spend more time
eventually. So, when you spend more time in the important and not urgent
in the important and not urgent quadrant, over time, that reduces the
quadrant, over time, that reduces the amount of stuff in your urgent
amount of stuff in your urgent quadrants. And so, if you do this
quadrants. And so, if you do this activity and you realize everything is
activity and you realize everything is always urgent, you have to think about
always urgent, you have to think about it as well, what could I do to prevent
it as well, what could I do to prevent the urgent things in the first place?
the urgent things in the first place? And that solution is not going to help
And that solution is not going to help you right now. But time is going to pass
you right now. But time is going to pass no matter what. And when time passes,
no matter what. And when time passes, you want to be in a position where at
you want to be in a position where at least one day you've got less stuff to
least one day you've got less stuff to worry about. And that's the reason why
worry about. And that's the reason why this quadrant is called schedule.
this quadrant is called schedule. Because it means that if there's
Because it means that if there's something that's important but not
something that's important but not urgent, you start by putting this in
urgent, you start by putting this in your schedule and you protect that time.
your schedule and you protect that time. You say 1 hour a week, 30 minutes every
You say 1 hour a week, 30 minutes every evening, 10 minutes every evening. I'm
evening, 10 minutes every evening. I'm gonna schedule and protect this time to
gonna schedule and protect this time to work on this thing that's not urgent but
work on this thing that's not urgent but could be life-changing. And you actually
could be life-changing. And you actually start with that. This is
start with that. This is counterintuitive. You start with
counterintuitive. You start with scheduling the thing that is not urgent.
scheduling the thing that is not urgent. and the remaining time after you've
and the remaining time after you've protected the other things your sleep
protected the other things your sleep you know your your sleep routine
you know your your sleep routine whatever the other non urgent important
whatever the other non urgent important things are once you've protected that
things are once you've protected that time the remaining time is what you have
time the remaining time is what you have available to work on the first quadrant
available to work on the first quadrant which is the focus stuff so this is the
which is the focus stuff so this is the stuff that's both important and urgent
stuff that's both important and urgent now if you go down from here you have
now if you go down from here you have the stuff that is low importance but
the stuff that is low importance but high urgency this quadrant is called
high urgency this quadrant is called batch
batch Because this is the type of stuff that
Because this is the type of stuff that you want to be able to get done very
you want to be able to get done very quickly in a single go. This could be
quickly in a single go. This could be responding to the email. It could be
responding to the email. It could be doing like various house chores. But
doing like various house chores. But because it's not important, you don't
because it's not important, you don't have to do it to a high quality. You
have to do it to a high quality. You just need to get it done. Even if you
just need to get it done. Even if you don't get it done, because it's not
don't get it done, because it's not important, the consequence is not that
important, the consequence is not that severe. And when you think about the
severe. And when you think about the consequence, don't think about it in
consequence, don't think about it in terms of is there a consequence or not.
terms of is there a consequence or not. Think about it as can I handle the
Think about it as can I handle the consequence or not? Can I recover from
consequence or not? Can I recover from the consequence? When I talk to a lot of
the consequence? When I talk to a lot of students, uh, you know, one of the one
students, uh, you know, one of the one of the big urgent things that they have
of the big urgent things that they have to do every single day is homework.
to do every single day is homework. But then in this type of situation,
But then in this type of situation, they're also learning from me how to
they're also learning from me how to learn effectively. And so I'm saying,
learn effectively. And so I'm saying, hey, you should study in this way. And
hey, you should study in this way. And now they have to make a choice. Do they
now they have to make a choice. Do they do their homework or do they spend their
do their homework or do they spend their time studying using a different method
time studying using a different method which I've recommended to them which is
which I've recommended to them which is probably much more effective than
probably much more effective than homework? And when they try to
homework? And when they try to prioritize it, sometimes they'll
prioritize it, sometimes they'll prioritize homework because it's like if
prioritize homework because it's like if I don't do it, I'm going to get in
I don't do it, I'm going to get in trouble. So it's like, cool. So what
trouble. So it's like, cool. So what what's what's the actual consequence?
what's what's the actual consequence? You're going to feel bad. Can you deal
You're going to feel bad. Can you deal with that? Because if the answer is yes,
with that? Because if the answer is yes, that's not a very big consequence. Oh,
that's not a very big consequence. Oh, if I don't do my homework, my teacher is
if I don't do my homework, my teacher is going to give me a stern talking to.
going to give me a stern talking to. Okay. And then what? And so again, we
Okay. And then what? And so again, we want to be very clear about assessing
want to be very clear about assessing importance. Not just using our feeling,
importance. Not just using our feeling, but being explicit about what is the
but being explicit about what is the consequence. Can we handle that? Can we
consequence. Can we handle that? Can we recover from that or not? And sometimes
recover from that or not? And sometimes we can change a task into a simpler,
we can change a task into a simpler, faster version of the task that
faster version of the task that mitigates the consequence that we're
mitigates the consequence that we're afraid of without having to commit to
afraid of without having to commit to the original full version of the task.
the original full version of the task. Like if it's about doing my homework,
Like if it's about doing my homework, then the alternative is that well, can
then the alternative is that well, can you just do your homework as quickly as
you just do your homework as quickly as humanly possible just to the point where
humanly possible just to the point where you're not going to get told off because
you're not going to get told off because that might only take you 15 minutes
that might only take you 15 minutes compared to 2 hours if you were to do it
compared to 2 hours if you were to do it like to the best of your ability. Of
like to the best of your ability. Of course, many of you are not doing
course, many of you are not doing homework if you're a working
homework if you're a working professional, but you know, you get the
professional, but you know, you get the idea. And then we've got this final
idea. And then we've got this final quadrant here, which is uh stuff that is
quadrant here, which is uh stuff that is both not urgent and not important. And
both not urgent and not important. And this falls into a quadrant which is
this falls into a quadrant which is called delete or sometimes uh delegate
called delete or sometimes uh delegate if it's possible for you in your
if it's possible for you in your position. This basically means that it's
position. This basically means that it's not urgent and there's no consequence.
not urgent and there's no consequence. It's not a needle mover in your life.
It's not a needle mover in your life. Just don't do it at all. And here's a
Just don't do it at all. And here's a hot tip is try to put as many things
hot tip is try to put as many things into this quadrant as possible. Raise
into this quadrant as possible. Raise your threshold of importance until
your threshold of importance until you're only doing the stuff that really
you're only doing the stuff that really matters and get used to deleting things
matters and get used to deleting things off of your task list. If it's important
off of your task list. If it's important enough, it'll make its way back onto
enough, it'll make its way back onto your list and then you'll be able to rep
your list and then you'll be able to rep prioritize it later. Don't hold on to
prioritize it later. Don't hold on to old priorities that you're just kind of
old priorities that you're just kind of like clinging to because you just don't
like clinging to because you just don't really really want to delete them. Just
really really want to delete them. Just delete it. Unless you have the the the
delete it. Unless you have the the the freedom of endless time, there's always
freedom of endless time, there's always something else you could be doing. And
something else you could be doing. And that something else might just be relax.
that something else might just be relax. Do nothing at all. Have some me time.
Do nothing at all. Have some me time. Just chill out. If I can choose between
Just chill out. If I can choose between sitting on the couch, relaxing, watching
sitting on the couch, relaxing, watching a TV show that I like in an evening so I
a TV show that I like in an evening so I can just unwind from the day versus
can just unwind from the day versus doing something on my delete quadrant
doing something on my delete quadrant that is not important or consequential
that is not important or consequential for my life or urgent. There is no
for my life or urgent. There is no chance I'm going to be doing that. I'm
chance I'm going to be doing that. I'm sitting on the couch 10 out of 10 times.
sitting on the couch 10 out of 10 times. It is better to do nothing at all than
It is better to do nothing at all than to do the things that are in this
to do the things that are in this quadrant. And the two biggest mistakes I
quadrant. And the two biggest mistakes I see is the first one where I talked
see is the first one where I talked about is urgency trapping where every
about is urgency trapping where every day you're just doing only the urgent
day you're just doing only the urgent things and you're not doing the things
things and you're not doing the things that are not urgent but still important
that are not urgent but still important to you. The second one is that people do
to you. The second one is that people do not put enough into this delete
not put enough into this delete quadrant. They are too afraid of
quadrant. They are too afraid of consequences that do not matter that
consequences that do not matter that they can just deal with. And when people
they can just deal with. And when people feel really busy all the time, but
feel really busy all the time, but they're not moving in their life in the
they're not moving in their life in the way that they want to, usually it's a
way that they want to, usually it's a combination of those two issues that's
combination of those two issues that's causing that. You're not going to be
causing that. You're not going to be able to solve those issues unless you
able to solve those issues unless you exit those two traps. So that's the eyes
exit those two traps. So that's the eyes now matrix. And if you can use this and
now matrix. And if you can use this and you can use it in the way that I've
you can use it in the way that I've explained as as ruthlessly prioritizing
explained as as ruthlessly prioritizing as I've explained, then most of your
as I've explained, then most of your other time and task management issues
other time and task management issues will start fixing themselves. And until
will start fixing themselves. And until you do this, I wouldn't hold out much
you do this, I wouldn't hold out much hope that anything's going to change or
hope that anything's going to change or get better. This is ground zero for
get better. This is ground zero for improvement. This is where improvement
improvement. This is where improvement starts. So now let's talk about focus
starts. So now let's talk about focus and attention management. So as a
and attention management. So as a reminder, this is about being able to
reminder, this is about being able to focus, concentrate, get into deep flow,
focus, concentrate, get into deep flow, and not procrastinate. And while this
and not procrastinate. And while this can be a complicated topic and the
can be a complicated topic and the psychology behind this is very complex
psychology behind this is very complex and there are lots of different tactics
and there are lots of different tactics and strategies that you can use, the
and strategies that you can use, the simplest way I think you should think
simplest way I think you should think about this is that there are short-term
about this is that there are short-term and there are long-term strategies to
and there are long-term strategies to address this. the short-term strategies
address this. the short-term strategies for each of these issues, uh, like
for each of these issues, uh, like procrastination, solutions for
procrastination, solutions for procrastination, building habits, you
procrastination, building habits, you know, developing concentration, not
know, developing concentration, not getting distracted, the short-term
getting distracted, the short-term strategies, these things tend to be very
strategies, these things tend to be very easy to apply. They tend to be pretty
easy to apply. They tend to be pretty effective,
effective, but they're also often not sustainable.
but they're also often not sustainable. uh either because it's literally too
uh either because it's literally too hard to sustain as in it just takes too
hard to sustain as in it just takes too much effort to keep using that every
much effort to keep using that every single day every time you need to get
single day every time you need to get some work done or the effect of it
some work done or the effect of it starts diminishing and it's just you
starts diminishing and it's just you sort of get used to it. On the other
sort of get used to it. On the other hand, long-term strategies, these ones
hand, long-term strategies, these ones tend to address the underlying
tend to address the underlying root cause.
root cause. As a result, the effect is much more
As a result, the effect is much more long-term and more permanent.
But there's a very long time to value which means that from the
time to value which means that from the moment you start working on the
moment you start working on the long-term solution to the point it
long-term solution to the point it actually starts really solving the
actually starts really solving the problem can be weeks, months, sometimes
problem can be weeks, months, sometimes even years. And so the overarching
even years. And so the overarching approach is that you can use whatever
approach is that you can use whatever short-term strategy is effective. By all
short-term strategy is effective. By all means use them. You change them around.
means use them. You change them around. And when one of them stops working, you
And when one of them stops working, you can switch to another one. Do whatever
can switch to another one. Do whatever needs to be done, but do it with the
needs to be done, but do it with the understanding that it is a shortterm
understanding that it is a shortterm solution and that long-term you will
solution and that long-term you will need a long-term solution. The issue
need a long-term solution. The issue comes from when we don't understand this
comes from when we don't understand this clearly and we use a short-term solution
clearly and we use a short-term solution assuming that this is now the true
assuming that this is now the true solution to the problem. Let's talk
solution to the problem. Let's talk about procrastination as one common
about procrastination as one common example. Procrastination is largely an
example. Procrastination is largely an emotional coping mechanism. It's less to
emotional coping mechanism. It's less to do with the fact that you love social
do with the fact that you love social media or you know addicted to gaming or
media or you know addicted to gaming or whatever it is and it's more to do with
whatever it is and it's more to do with the fact that there's a task that has a
the fact that there's a task that has a lot of work that you anticipate and that
lot of work that you anticipate and that makes you feel uncomfortable potentially
makes you feel uncomfortable potentially overwhelmed and you get the sense that
overwhelmed and you get the sense that there's going to be a high amount of
there's going to be a high amount of effort you need to put in to complete
effort you need to put in to complete this task. And so to avoid that feeling
this task. And so to avoid that feeling of discomfort and overwhelm, we pick the
of discomfort and overwhelm, we pick the easier path which is not like solving
easier path which is not like solving the issue like getting the task done and
the issue like getting the task done and now you're not feeling overwhelmed uh
now you're not feeling overwhelmed uh because there's nothing to do anymore.
because there's nothing to do anymore. The easier part is just to avoid that
The easier part is just to avoid that and trigger a happy feeling by getting
and trigger a happy feeling by getting distracted. And so it's a it's a
distracted. And so it's a it's a cognitive emotional shortcut. And so you
cognitive emotional shortcut. And so you can use short-term solutions like app
can use short-term solutions like app blockers to remove these distractions.
blockers to remove these distractions. And you certainly should do that because
And you certainly should do that because it makes life easier for you. However,
it makes life easier for you. However, even when you do all of that, if the
even when you do all of that, if the underlying issue is still there and
underlying issue is still there and every time you encounter a big piece of
every time you encounter a big piece of work, the only strategy you know is
work, the only strategy you know is either suffer through it and just do it
either suffer through it and just do it or find an easier alternative not to
or find an easier alternative not to feel that way anymore. Even when
feel that way anymore. Even when everything is blocked, you will find
everything is blocked, you will find something else to do. You'll start
something else to do. You'll start picking up distractions you never would
picking up distractions you never would have even touched before. I remember one
have even touched before. I remember one time when I was in like a really bad
time when I was in like a really bad procrastination rut a couple of years
procrastination rut a couple of years ago. I I had like blocked off all the
ago. I I had like blocked off all the normal distractions and for me a big one
normal distractions and for me a big one used to be Instagram. So I I blocked off
used to be Instagram. So I I blocked off Instagram and I was, you know, in a
Instagram and I was, you know, in a pretty busy period with work and I
pretty busy period with work and I remember sitting there huge project that
remember sitting there huge project that I needed to start on and instead of
I needed to start on and instead of starting on it, I I actually went on to
starting on it, I I actually went on to the app store to look for new mobile
the app store to look for new mobile games to download and play and like I
games to download and play and like I don't even I don't normally do that. I
don't even I don't normally do that. I created like a whole new behavior just
created like a whole new behavior just to look for an easier alternative rather
to look for an easier alternative rather than facing that work. So that's a
than facing that work. So that's a that's a psycho emotional thing. Nothing
that's a psycho emotional thing. Nothing to do with the distractions themselves.
to do with the distractions themselves. So the problem isn't me. And if I don't
So the problem isn't me. And if I don't recognize that, then I might use a
recognize that, then I might use a solution like an app blocker, find that
solution like an app blocker, find that it's working fantastic, which is great,
it's working fantastic, which is great, and then expect that that is going to be
and then expect that that is going to be the problem solved for the rest of my
the problem solved for the rest of my life. And that's not true. The problem
life. And that's not true. The problem will come back because the underlying
will come back because the underlying reason is still there. And so what I'm
reason is still there. And so what I'm going to focus on are some key trends
going to focus on are some key trends that I've observed in terms of long-term
that I've observed in terms of long-term solutions that do actually work. And in
solutions that do actually work. And in terms of the short-term solutions, I
terms of the short-term solutions, I think, you know, I've talked about some
think, you know, I've talked about some of the short-term strategies and tactics
of the short-term strategies and tactics in other videos before. Just use
in other videos before. Just use whatever works. I'll give you a couple
whatever works. I'll give you a couple that I would recommend that you can
that I would recommend that you can start with because they tend to be very
start with because they tend to be very powerful short-term solutions. Um, but
powerful short-term solutions. Um, but understanding that whatever short-term
understanding that whatever short-term solution you're using, that just gives
solution you're using, that just gives you a bridge and some space to start
you a bridge and some space to start building and working on these long-term
building and working on these long-term solutions because once those short-term
solutions because once those short-term solutions come to an end and you're
solutions come to an end and you're getting diminishing returns and they're
getting diminishing returns and they're not effective for you anymore, you need
not effective for you anymore, you need that long-term solution there. If if
that long-term solution there. If if those short-term solutions you you
those short-term solutions you you exhaust all of them and you don't have
exhaust all of them and you don't have the long-term solution left, now you're
the long-term solution left, now you're in a worse place than when you started
in a worse place than when you started because you still have the problem.
because you still have the problem. You're still procrastinating, you still
You're still procrastinating, you still can't focus, and you still can't
can't focus, and you still can't concentrate. and now you don't have good
concentrate. and now you don't have good high yield short-term solutions to use
high yield short-term solutions to use anymore. We'll start with the short-term
anymore. We'll start with the short-term ones. Uh the the the two that I would
ones. Uh the the the two that I would recommend that you can start with are
recommend that you can start with are blockers
blockers and accountability.
and accountability. So blockers are types of solutions that
So blockers are types of solutions that eliminate a distraction or a problem. So
eliminate a distraction or a problem. So app blockers, website blockers are
app blockers, website blockers are examples of this where the thing that
examples of this where the thing that you would normally get distracted on,
you would normally get distracted on, it's just you can't access it anymore.
it's just you can't access it anymore. And the most important requirement for a
And the most important requirement for a blocker to be effective is that it
blocker to be effective is that it genuinely
genuinely feels
feels hard to bypass.
hard to bypass. If you've got a blocker and all you need
If you've got a blocker and all you need to do is like within 5 seconds like
to do is like within 5 seconds like click it and turn your blocker off,
click it and turn your blocker off, that's not going to be an effective
that's not going to be an effective blocker. Use blockers that take so long
blocker. Use blockers that take so long for you to bypass and take so much
for you to bypass and take so much effort that you just cannot be bothered.
effort that you just cannot be bothered. In this situation, what we're doing is
In this situation, what we're doing is we're fighting fire with fire. There's
we're fighting fire with fire. There's something that you need to do. it's
something that you need to do. it's going to take a lot of effort and then
going to take a lot of effort and then there's a distraction you want to
there's a distraction you want to access. But in front of that distraction
access. But in front of that distraction is another wall of high effort. So now
is another wall of high effort. So now your two options are either spend high
your two options are either spend high effort doing something that is
effort doing something that is productive versus spend high effort
productive versus spend high effort accessing a distraction. When it's
accessing a distraction. When it's effort versus effort, it's a lot easier
effort versus effort, it's a lot easier to take the path that it's at least good
to take the path that it's at least good for you. The second type of solution is
for you. The second type of solution is something that creates accountability.
something that creates accountability. This could be an accountability partner
This could be an accountability partner or an accountability group.
or an accountability group. Accountability is much stronger than
Accountability is much stronger than reward and consequence. And so I know
reward and consequence. And so I know that there are a lot of reward and
that there are a lot of reward and consequence uh psychology based apps and
consequence uh psychology based apps and solutions out there and
solutions out there and yes they're they're nice uh and they can
yes they're they're nice uh and they can be a nice little addition to creating
be a nice little addition to creating consistency like every time you you know
consistency like every time you you know like resist a distraction or do
like resist a distraction or do something you know have a concentrated
something you know have a concentrated work session you grow a tree or like
work session you grow a tree or like your little your little jelly bean gets
your little your little jelly bean gets a little bit happier or something like
a little bit happier or something like that. Like it feels nice. It's good. It
that. Like it feels nice. It's good. It gives you a little bit of a dopamine um
gives you a little bit of a dopamine um a dopamine hit for doing something that
a dopamine hit for doing something that normally doesn't give you a dopamine
normally doesn't give you a dopamine hit. Like engaging in a long-term
hit. Like engaging in a long-term productive activity like studying or
productive activity like studying or learning something which doesn't have
learning something which doesn't have dopamine traditionally associated with
dopamine traditionally associated with it, you've now given yourself a way to
it, you've now given yourself a way to create that dopamine. Or if you give
create that dopamine. Or if you give yourself like a consequence that you're
yourself like a consequence that you're afraid of, then you're giving yourself a
afraid of, then you're giving yourself a very primitive way to motivate yourself
very primitive way to motivate yourself towards doing that productive thing.
towards doing that productive thing. These types of solutions don't tend to
These types of solutions don't tend to work long term because one of it is that
work long term because one of it is that you start getting desensitized and so
you start getting desensitized and so you need more and more dopamine to do
you need more and more dopamine to do that and the other thing is that it
that and the other thing is that it actually just feeds into the underlying
actually just feeds into the underlying issue which is the need for dopamine.
issue which is the need for dopamine. Dopamine is one of those chemicals in
Dopamine is one of those chemicals in the brain that
the brain that we experience in the modern day at much
we experience in the modern day at much higher levels and much more frequently
higher levels and much more frequently than the brain is sort of naturally
than the brain is sort of naturally evolved to be able to tolerate. Like
evolved to be able to tolerate. Like that's a very artificial type of
that's a very artificial type of situation. And so when the brain gets
situation. And so when the brain gets lots of frequent dopamine, it kind of
lots of frequent dopamine, it kind of reduces its ability to concentrate. And
reduces its ability to concentrate. And so in a way makes the problem worse. And
so in a way makes the problem worse. And so the reason accountability solutions
so the reason accountability solutions work so well is that it replaces that
work so well is that it replaces that dopamine based mechanism with a social
dopamine based mechanism with a social mechanism. So instead of being motivated
mechanism. So instead of being motivated by sort of a shortterm fluctuating
by sort of a shortterm fluctuating feeling, it's trying to resonate more
feeling, it's trying to resonate more with a deeper sense of identity. So uh
with a deeper sense of identity. So uh if you say to your accountability
if you say to your accountability partner, hey, I'm going to do this
partner, hey, I'm going to do this thing. This is my goal. Then the
thing. This is my goal. Then the motivation becomes your sense of
motivation becomes your sense of identity as being I'm a person that
identity as being I'm a person that keeps my word. I'm a person that does
keeps my word. I'm a person that does something and is going to follow through
something and is going to follow through on it. And identitybased
on it. And identitybased motivation is much more durable and
motivation is much more durable and consistent than dopamine-based
consistent than dopamine-based motivation. Humans also very social
motivation. Humans also very social creatures uh biologically and so that
creatures uh biologically and so that social mechanism is very strong. So
social mechanism is very strong. So finding one, two, three people that are
finding one, two, three people that are like-minded that you want to keep each
like-minded that you want to keep each other accountable with that's a great
other accountable with that's a great way of using an accountability based
way of using an accountability based mechanism. Even though I say that this
mechanism. Even though I say that this is short term, you can use
is short term, you can use accountability group for actually a very
accountability group for actually a very long time. Uh partly because of the fact
long time. Uh partly because of the fact that the group dynamics just make it
that the group dynamics just make it more interesting and more sustainable,
more interesting and more sustainable, but also because of the fact that as the
but also because of the fact that as the group changes and the group dynamics
group changes and the group dynamics change, it also I guess in a way keeps
change, it also I guess in a way keeps things fresh, stops that mechanism from
things fresh, stops that mechanism from being saturated and also the identity
being saturated and also the identity based mechanism, it's just more
based mechanism, it's just more resilient to saturation. So although
resilient to saturation. So although this is technically still a short-term
this is technically still a short-term solution uh and you don't want to have
solution uh and you don't want to have an accountability buddy for absolutely
an accountability buddy for absolutely everything that you need to do for the
everything that you need to do for the rest of your life, this is something
rest of your life, this is something that can last you pretty happily for
that can last you pretty happily for months, even years. And so it's a great
months, even years. And so it's a great mechanism to bridge you into developing
mechanism to bridge you into developing these long-term really sustainable
these long-term really sustainable solutions. So what are some of these
solutions. So what are some of these long-term really sustainable solutions?
long-term really sustainable solutions? I found that there are three things that
I found that there are three things that you should aim to get good at. And if
you should aim to get good at. And if you can get good at these three things,
you can get good at these three things, everything to do with focus,
everything to do with focus, concentration, procrastination, entering
concentration, procrastination, entering into flow becomes much much easier. In a
into flow becomes much much easier. In a way, these are the three biggest
way, these are the three biggest barriers for most people. You want to
barriers for most people. You want to get good at number one being bored,
get good at number one being bored, number two doing
number two doing hard things,
hard things, and number three
and number three refocusing.
refocusing. These are three mental skills, as in
These are three mental skills, as in they are things that you can train
they are things that you can train yourself to be better at, and they have
yourself to be better at, and they have an outsiz return on investment. The time
an outsiz return on investment. The time that you spend on getting good at these
that you spend on getting good at these things will return to you reward several
things will return to you reward several fold beyond that. So the first one is
fold beyond that. So the first one is about being good at being bored. If you
about being good at being bored. If you are not okay with feeling bored, you're
are not okay with feeling bored, you're going to have a very
going to have a very difficult experience of life. Boredom is
difficult experience of life. Boredom is a very healthy and natural state for
a very healthy and natural state for your mind to be in. is a very unhealthy
your mind to be in. is a very unhealthy very artificial state especially just
very artificial state especially just due to social media where you feel the
due to social media where you feel the need to be entertained constantly. This
need to be entertained constantly. This is that dopamine addiction. So there are
is that dopamine addiction. So there are two aspects of this. On one side
two aspects of this. On one side constantly seeking an escape from
constantly seeking an escape from boredom increases procrastinating
behavior, increases distractability. Being good at being bored means that
Being good at being bored means that you're not looking for ways to distract
you're not looking for ways to distract yourself. And so that trains your brain
yourself. And so that trains your brain indirectly to just have better
indirectly to just have better concentration, lower distractability,
concentration, lower distractability, more focus. But on top of that, being
more focus. But on top of that, being bored also has an advantage of its own.
bored also has an advantage of its own. When your brain enters into a state of
When your brain enters into a state of boredom, neurally what happens with your
boredom, neurally what happens with your brain activity is that goes into
brain activity is that goes into something called the default mode
something called the default mode network. The default mode network is
network. The default mode network is it's called the default mode network
it's called the default mode network because when scientists first discovered
because when scientists first discovered they discovered that it's the default
they discovered that it's the default brain activity of people when they're
brain activity of people when they're just at rest not really thinking about
just at rest not really thinking about anything basically when they're bored.
anything basically when they're bored. And what happens during this time is
And what happens during this time is that you get this very wandering sort of
that you get this very wandering sort of omnidirectional
omnidirectional seemingly sort of random thought
seemingly sort of random thought pattern. And what's actually happening
pattern. And what's actually happening is that your brain is using this
is that your brain is using this opportunity of rest to consolidate and
opportunity of rest to consolidate and integrate the things that it's learned
integrate the things that it's learned and ideas and problems it's solving.
and ideas and problems it's solving. This is the reason why there's such a
This is the reason why there's such a thing as like shower thoughts. Like
thing as like shower thoughts. Like you're just having a shower and you just
you're just having a shower and you just have interesting ideas and thoughts
have interesting ideas and thoughts about things. This is the reason why
about things. This is the reason why sometimes you're having great ideas when
sometimes you're having great ideas when you're just trying to get to sleep
you're just trying to get to sleep because your brain is given the time and
because your brain is given the time and space to do this wandering and
space to do this wandering and integration. So, if you're trying to
integration. So, if you're trying to make a difficult decision or you're
make a difficult decision or you're thinking about a problem or you've been
thinking about a problem or you've been doing lots of learning and thinking or
doing lots of learning and thinking or self-reflection and you want to
self-reflection and you want to internalize that and you instead of it
internalize that and you instead of it just being like fresh new thoughts, you
just being like fresh new thoughts, you want to really own that and make that
want to really own that and make that part of you and you want to have more
part of you and you want to have more interesting ideas and progress with your
interesting ideas and progress with your thinking. It's really important to give
thinking. It's really important to give yourself that space to let your brain
yourself that space to let your brain consolidate everything. And part of that
consolidate everything. And part of that is putting yourself in a situation where
is putting yourself in a situation where it can just be bored. So, how do you do
it can just be bored. So, how do you do this? How do you get better at being
this? How do you get better at being bored? It's very easy. I guess very
bored? It's very easy. I guess very easy, but hard if you hate being bored.
easy, but hard if you hate being bored. Just sit in a room and do nothing. Just
Just sit in a room and do nothing. Just literally just sit there and just do
literally just sit there and just do nothing. And at certain point, probably
nothing. And at certain point, probably like one or two minutes in, you're going
like one or two minutes in, you're going to start feeling bored and you're going
to start feeling bored and you're going to start feeling restless like you don't
to start feeling restless like you don't want to do this anymore. What's the
want to do this anymore. What's the point? You know, I I'd rather be doing
point? You know, I I'd rather be doing something else. How long do I have to do
something else. How long do I have to do this for? When is this going to end? How
this for? When is this going to end? How much is enough? Just let those thoughts
much is enough? Just let those thoughts and those feelings come and just sit
and those feelings come and just sit through it. Just keep doing that until
through it. Just keep doing that until you are okay with just not doing
you are okay with just not doing anything. And recognize that when those
anything. And recognize that when those thoughts come and make you feel
thoughts come and make you feel restless, that's basically the same
restless, that's basically the same things that on a day-to-day basis would
things that on a day-to-day basis would be making you distracted, lose
be making you distracted, lose concentration, and unable to enter into
concentration, and unable to enter into deep flow. So that's the first one. Get
deep flow. So that's the first one. Get good at being bored. The second one is
good at being bored. The second one is get good at doing hard things. Your life
get good at doing hard things. Your life is going to be full of doing hard things
is going to be full of doing hard things that take effort to resolve. And if
that take effort to resolve. And if every time you encounter something that
every time you encounter something that takes effort, your response is to avoid
takes effort, your response is to avoid it, that's also going to make life very
it, that's also going to make life very hard for you. So you have to train your
hard for you. So you have to train your brain to recognize that effort does not
brain to recognize that effort does not mean bad. You want your brain to be able
mean bad. You want your brain to be able to understand something's going to take
to understand something's going to take effort, but you just do it anyway. And
effort, but you just do it anyway. And this is really difficult. This is the
this is really difficult. This is the reason why some people recommend that
reason why some people recommend that you take cold showers in the morning.
you take cold showers in the morning. Maybe I just need to get better at doing
Maybe I just need to get better at doing hard things. I hate taking coach
hard things. I hate taking coach showers. So, uh I haven't found that to
showers. So, uh I haven't found that to be particularly successful for me
be particularly successful for me personally. Now, I'm not saying it
personally. Now, I'm not saying it doesn't work, but for me, it hasn't
doesn't work, but for me, it hasn't worked so well. What has worked well for
worked so well. What has worked well for me is just really leaning into the zygic
me is just really leaning into the zygic effect.
effect. So, the zygic effect
So, the zygic effect is that your brain likes to finish
is that your brain likes to finish something that has already started. A
something that has already started. A lot of the mental anguish involved in
lot of the mental anguish involved in doing something that's really difficult
doing something that's really difficult is the process of just starting. And
is the process of just starting. And once you've started, it's easier to just
once you've started, it's easier to just continue going or to finish it off. Once
continue going or to finish it off. Once you've started, you can put it down. You
you've started, you can put it down. You can come back to it the next day. And
can come back to it the next day. And it's much easier to just keep going
it's much easier to just keep going because you've already started. And even
because you've already started. And even if it's 1 or 2% through the task, just
if it's 1 or 2% through the task, just the fact that you've started makes it
the fact that you've started makes it mentally so much easier to just do it.
mentally so much easier to just do it. And so the way that I try to combat this
And so the way that I try to combat this is that anytime I feel that sense of
is that anytime I feel that sense of resistance and I notice, ooh, this is
resistance and I notice, ooh, this is going to be a lot of work and I feel
going to be a lot of work and I feel that urge to procrastinate and put it
that urge to procrastinate and put it aside, I just give myself the goal to
aside, I just give myself the goal to leave it incomplete. So my goal is
leave it incomplete. So my goal is actually not to eat, not to finish it at
actually not to eat, not to finish it at all. I'm not even concerned about
all. I'm not even concerned about finishing it in my mind. I'm not even
finishing it in my mind. I'm not even starting it. All I'm doing is I'm just
starting it. All I'm doing is I'm just setting myself up for when I do start
setting myself up for when I do start it. So, I'll just open up the tabs that
it. So, I'll just open up the tabs that I need to. I'll collect the resources.
I need to. I'll collect the resources. Maybe I'll just read very quickly to
Maybe I'll just read very quickly to familiarize myself and get a layer of
familiarize myself and get a layer of the land. I'll set up my notes. And as
the land. I'll set up my notes. And as part of doing that, naturally, I get a
part of doing that, naturally, I get a certain type of flow and I think, okay,
certain type of flow and I think, okay, maybe I'll just I'll just prep a few of
maybe I'll just I'll just prep a few of the main ideas. I'll get started on a
the main ideas. I'll get started on a few different structures and a few
few different structures and a few scaffolds and a few questions. I just
scaffolds and a few questions. I just make it easier for myself later when I
make it easier for myself later when I am properly starting. And half the time
am properly starting. And half the time I feel good enough about just doing that
I feel good enough about just doing that that I'll just keep going and it's easy
that I'll just keep going and it's easy enough for me to push through another
enough for me to push through another like 30 minutes, one hour and do a
like 30 minutes, one hour and do a decent amount of work. In the worst case
decent amount of work. In the worst case scenario, I don't feel like doing that.
scenario, I don't feel like doing that. But I have genuinely made it easier for
But I have genuinely made it easier for myself to start the next time. And over
myself to start the next time. And over years of applying this and doing this,
years of applying this and doing this, what's happened is that every time I
what's happened is that every time I feel that impulse that this is going to
feel that impulse that this is going to be a lot of work, I still feel that
be a lot of work, I still feel that tendency to want to avoid that work. I
tendency to want to avoid that work. I think that's very biologically
think that's very biologically ingrained. But I no longer feel the need
ingrained. But I no longer feel the need to put it off. There's almost this
to put it off. There's almost this primitive version of my brain that is
primitive version of my brain that is trying to avoid the work. And then
trying to avoid the work. And then there's like another version of me that
there's like another version of me that knows that I'm tricking that primitive
knows that I'm tricking that primitive part of my brain and it still gets
part of my brain and it still gets tricked. Like the zygic effect is just
tricked. Like the zygic effect is just really powerful. And so even though I
really powerful. And so even though I still feel the same feeling of not
still feel the same feeling of not wanting to do the work, I'm better at
wanting to do the work, I'm better at just doing it. So that's what it means
just doing it. So that's what it means to just get good at doing hard things.
to just get good at doing hard things. And the third thing is getting better at
And the third thing is getting better at refocusing. So refocusing means that
refocusing. So refocusing means that when your mind is drifted, get better at
when your mind is drifted, get better at bringing yourself back to attention. And
bringing yourself back to attention. And that point of attention could be
that point of attention could be anything. It could be some studying,
anything. It could be some studying, could be a meeting, could be listening
could be a meeting, could be listening to someone speaking, could be uh just on
to someone speaking, could be uh just on nothing, planning, thinking, whatever it
nothing, planning, thinking, whatever it is. But it's the act of recognizing when
is. But it's the act of recognizing when your mind is drifting away and being
your mind is drifting away and being able to bring it back to a point of
able to bring it back to a point of attention. And this allows you to have
attention. And this allows you to have deeper focus. When you are locked in,
deeper focus. When you are locked in, you've got deep flow, you're less likely
you've got deep flow, you're less likely to break out of it. When you feel
to break out of it. When you feel yourself being distracted, it becomes
yourself being distracted, it becomes easier to not distract yourself. You
easier to not distract yourself. You gain more control over your mind as
gain more control over your mind as opposed to your mind sort of just doing
opposed to your mind sort of just doing its own thing and you're sort of just a
its own thing and you're sort of just a passenger seeing where it goes. And so,
passenger seeing where it goes. And so, the way that you can get better at
the way that you can get better at refocusing uh ties in very strongly with
refocusing uh ties in very strongly with the way that you can get it get better
the way that you can get it get better at being bored. Because for both of
at being bored. Because for both of these things, you can use principles of
these things, you can use principles of mindfulness
mindfulness meditation.
And mindfulness meditation does not involve you having to shave your head
involve you having to shave your head and sell all your material possessions
and sell all your material possessions and um you know forge for herbs in the
and um you know forge for herbs in the mountain as you sit on a shakti mat
mountain as you sit on a shakti mat every night. uh all you need to do is
every night. uh all you need to do is just focus on one thing and just just
just focus on one thing and just just keep focusing on that one thing and then
keep focusing on that one thing and then every time you re realize that your mind
every time you re realize that your mind is wandering away from it, you just come
is wandering away from it, you just come back to focusing on. So you can do
back to focusing on. So you can do mindful dishwashing just just be really
mindful dishwashing just just be really conscious of the way that you're washing
conscious of the way that you're washing the dishes and like feel the bowl and
the dishes and like feel the bowl and the water and you know everything that
the water and you know everything that you're doing and just be just be very
you're doing and just be just be very very attentive to everything that you're
very attentive to everything that you're doing and then when you notice that your
doing and then when you notice that your mind is wandering just bring yourself
mind is wandering just bring yourself back to it. You can be like mindful
back to it. You can be like mindful painting. You can be mindful walking
painting. You can be mindful walking where you're just aware of every step
where you're just aware of every step that you're taking and how it feels
that you're taking and how it feels under your foot. Or the most
under your foot. Or the most conventional one which is mindful
conventional one which is mindful breathing where you just sit there and
breathing where you just sit there and all you do is focus on breathing and you
all you do is focus on breathing and you just bring yourself back to breathing.
just bring yourself back to breathing. And every time you notice that your mind
And every time you notice that your mind is wandering, you just come back to
is wandering, you just come back to breathing. The breathing one is
breathing. The breathing one is especially good because it increases the
especially good because it increases the risk of you getting bored because it's
risk of you getting bored because it's just breathing. Like it's not it's not
just breathing. Like it's not it's not an exciting thing to do. But as a
an exciting thing to do. But as a result, it becomes a better training
result, it becomes a better training tool in a way because you're so at risk
tool in a way because you're so at risk of being bored that your mind is going
of being bored that your mind is going to wander rapidly and very aggressively.
to wander rapidly and very aggressively. So it gives yourself lots of opportunity
So it gives yourself lots of opportunity to practice just coming back to your
to practice just coming back to your breathing. Coming back to your breathing
breathing. Coming back to your breathing and it gives you lots of opportunity to
and it gives you lots of opportunity to practice just being okay with being
practice just being okay with being bored. And so a lot of people will do
bored. And so a lot of people will do this and they'll say, "Oh, this is not
this and they'll say, "Oh, this is not effective for me because I feel bored."
effective for me because I feel bored." That's the wrong way of thinking about
That's the wrong way of thinking about it. That's the point. Like you want to
it. That's the point. Like you want to feel that way. And then your ability to
feel that way. And then your ability to bring yourself back and be okay with
bring yourself back and be okay with that feeling is the practice. When you
that feeling is the practice. When you get good at that, that translates
get good at that, that translates outside of that meditation to when you
outside of that meditation to when you feel those same feelings in your workday
feel those same feelings in your workday when you're learning, when you're
when you're learning, when you're studying to be able to control your mind
studying to be able to control your mind and bring yourself back on focus. So
and bring yourself back on focus. So those are the principles for effective
those are the principles for effective long-term solutions. These are the types
long-term solutions. These are the types of things that you want to get good at
of things that you want to get good at and practice getting good at for months.
and practice getting good at for months. You want to put aside a little bit of
You want to put aside a little bit of time, multiple times a week, just
time, multiple times a week, just getting good at this across the next
getting good at this across the next months, years, however long it takes,
months, years, however long it takes, however much you want to practice this.
however much you want to practice this. And then in the meantime, use whatever
And then in the meantime, use whatever short-term solutions are going to be
short-term solutions are going to be effective for you to just sit down,
effective for you to just sit down, concentrate, do the job, but understand
concentrate, do the job, but understand that they are short-term. One day they
that they are short-term. One day they will stop working for you. And so when
will stop working for you. And so when you do this alongside some basic task
you do this alongside some basic task prioritization and a minimum level of
prioritization and a minimum level of time management, you should have a
time management, you should have a baseline of productivity and you combine
baseline of productivity and you combine that with a learning system of decent
that with a learning system of decent encoding and retrieval, operating at the
encoding and retrieval, operating at the higher orders, doing retrieval with the
higher orders, doing retrieval with the right method with the right amount of
right method with the right amount of frequency. When you combine all of those
frequency. When you combine all of those things together, not only do you have
things together, not only do you have good self-management, but also you have
good self-management, but also you have better memory, you have deeper
better memory, you have deeper understanding, you have greater ability
understanding, you have greater ability to apply your knowledge to solve
to apply your knowledge to solve complicated problems, which translates
complicated problems, which translates to better results and performance both
to better results and performance both for exams and for your job. Now, even
for exams and for your job. Now, even though we've talked about a lot of
though we've talked about a lot of stuff, I would still consider this the
stuff, I would still consider this the basics, even though I think that this is
basics, even though I think that this is going to help a lot of people get very
going to help a lot of people get very far in their learning journey. And this
far in their learning journey. And this stuff took me years to to really figure
stuff took me years to to really figure out. Um, if you are again looking for
out. Um, if you are again looking for something that's a little bit more
something that's a little bit more step-by-step and a bit more guided, then
step-by-step and a bit more guided, then you might want to check out my program.
you might want to check out my program. Uh, again, I'll leave a link to that in
Uh, again, I'll leave a link to that in the description below. Otherwise,
the description below. Otherwise, remember you can also check out my other
remember you can also check out my other videos where I talk about some of these
videos where I talk about some of these parts in more depth and give more
parts in more depth and give more examples and more details and different
examples and more details and different types of tactics. You'll see the common
types of tactics. You'll see the common trends appearing as you watch more and
trends appearing as you watch more and more of my videos. I hope that helps.
more of my videos. I hope that helps. Thank you so much for watching and I'll
Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.
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