Key takeaways in one sentence: This section talks about the science of how our brains work and some approaches we can adopt for efficient learning (expand into more details in the technique section).

  • Focus mode VS Diffuse mode [Barbara Oakley source 1]

    • Focus mode: All your energy, brain power and attention is completely on one task during a dedicated time. It activates the pre-front cortex of your brain.
    • Diffuse mode: It is opposite to focus mode. It is when our minds wander and think different things during a walk, even sleep, etc. It activates many areas of the brain.
    • How well you learn depends on going back and forth between focus and diffuse mode.
      • Cramming too many things into your brain at once is not a very efficient way for learning. Instead, try to schedule your time properly for learning different topics everyday.
      • The idea formed in focus mode will start to associate with different topics in your past experience or learning and form connections to the same principles to deepen your understanding of what you are learning on diffuse mode.
    • Doing multi-tasks during learning means you try to focus on more than one thing at a time, possibly causing such dual-task interference that you may learn nothing well. - [David Rock source 2]

  • The science of sleep

  • Brain Training

    • Brain neurones are connected by synapses. Long-term learning will create more connections (synapses), and like memory, by repetitively practicing a new thing we learn, these new connections will become increasingly stronger. Otherwise, the connections will disappear like fading memory.
    • Brain is like muscles: “use it or lose it”. In hippocampus of brain, new neurones will be created everyday and kept active by effortful learning or thought processes and otherwise die. We need repetitive use of our brain in both focus and diffuse modes. [article 5] [article 4] [article 6]
    • Physical exercise like jogging and walking helps brain growth as well. [article 7]

  • The science of feedback

    • Negative feedback may be more needed that positive feedback for learning.
    • Learning needs feedback or immediate feedback. Often times, criticism feedbacks are more actionable for an efficient learner to improve especially at more advanced level, although positive might be good at beginning phase. [source 8] [source 9]
    • “You cannot figure out what you need to improve on or how close you are to achieving your goals”. - Anders Ericsson

  • Procrastination

    • Negative/painful feeling may arise when we learn something new or doing something challenging. As such, procrastination comes in because it is an issue of emotions regulation. It is caused by us always wanting to feel better (by watching Youtube, playing games, etc) when we feel bad. [source 10]
    • How to tackle procrastination:
      • Understand delayed gratification: sacrifice short term things that can make you feel good to get long term goals accomplished.
      • Stay a positive status: less negative emotions allows you to start a task earlier because you feel good already.
      • 3 tricks for defeat procrastination [article link]:
        1. “Screw it, let’s do it”.
          • Take the initiative and start doing the task right away even if you feel bad. As such, you will feel better soon. [source 11]
        2. Start sloppy - reduce the pressure coming from your giant goals, you can start deliberately badly as long as you start doing it.
        3. Start small

  • Short and long term memory

    • Long-term memory : form by practice and repeat - knowledge + learning - fundamental concepts and principles
    • Short-term/working memory (using front part of our brain): They are capable of holding 4 chucks of information normally; lose it fast. [source 12] [source 13]
      • Short-term memory and working memory are not completely the same. [source 14]
    • Put things from short-term to long-term memory: space repetition: repeat something over several days instead of one day.
      • The process: things stored in short-term memory → recall knowledge from long-term memory to solve problems → consolidate the things in short-term memory with concepts and knowledge in long-term memory → store new things in long-term memory.
      • Changing the curve of forgetting by reviewing repetitively often can help retain more what you learned. [source 15]

  • Active VS Passive Learning

    • Often times you learn more by active engagement(take notes, practice, solve problems, doing projects etc.) rather than passively receiving information that is easy and feels good (listen to lectures, watch youtube tutorials, etc.) [source 16]
    • Passive learning may lead to illusion of competence that describes a mental situation where you think you have mastered something but you really have not.
    • Retrieving knowledge from long-term memory improves one’s ability to retrieving it again in the future, which helps long-term learning. [source 17]

  • The science of motivation

    • Intrinsic motivation: it is the drive within oneself to do or learn something especially for long term.
      • 3 intrinsic motivation
        • Autonomy: the self-control that helps you direct your life
        • Mastery: the willingness to improve your skills
        • Purpose: the meaningful motivation to do something
    • External motivation: it is rewards such as prizes and money that drive you to do something. It is good for you to do something at the beginning stage but may decrease your intrinsic motivation in long term due to possible over justification effect on psychology. [source 18]

  • Goals

    • Goals are the roadmap of our life but we should know how to set proper goals.
    • Big goals sound great but when we feel scared or uncertain about big goals, some part of our brain will trigger the protect system that makes us seek out comfort, which may become obstacles for us to achieve them.
      • Instead of setting very big goals, we may better set small and specific goals by “SMART” principle (short video explanation) with constant evaluation and revision. This way you are more likely to achieve these small goals and develop atomic habits, in turn gradually moving towards your more ambitious goals.
    • An article “Not all practice makes perfect” talks about naive practice versus purposeful practice, proving that specific goals can lead to purposeful practice.
      • Naive practice:
        • we practice a skill with a general idea of what we want to do and receive some basic instruction along the way, until we reach an acceptable level, and then let it become automatic. The automaticity may deteriorate our improvement on the skill to a more advanced level.
      • Purposeful/deliberate practice (more effective)
        • has well-defined, specific goals.
        • is focused.
        • involves feedback.
        • requires getting out of one’s comfort zone and do something you could not do before. However, when you still get stuck in something after many attempts, generally the solution is not “try harder” but rather “try differently.”

  • It Pays To Not Be Busy

    • Being too busy is not a good trait especially for either efficient learning or time management because you may lack relaxation or exercise time for the neurones generated from hippocampus keeping alive. [source 19]
    • Deliberate practice with time to relax is a better way to be more productive .[source 20]

  • Chunking

    • Bottoming up learning is breaking down things or knowledge into different chunks that we learn. This allows us to solve complex problems or gain knowledge in various fields.
    • Top down learning is creating a bigger picture by connecting these different chunks together such as mind maps. This allows us to see how each chunk relates to one another, further forming a pattern stored in our long-term memory as tools to solve problems.
      • As such, trunk-based knowledge is important because it is the foundations that can connect different leafs to one another.
    • Combining bottom-up learning and top-down learning is a great way to long-term learning.

  • How to Solve Problems

    • One way is deliberately solving them in focus mode.
    • Another way is solving them using intuition and creative ideas and solutions in diffuse mode.
    • Switching back and forth between them is part of being a good problem solver.

  • Deliberate Practice

    • The term was coined by Anders Ericsson
    • It goes hand in hand active and passive learning
    • 4 elements in deliberate learning
      • Specific goals
      • Intense focus without interruption
      • Immediate feedback
      • Frequent discomfort by being at the edge of our abilities (our limit)
    • Innate talent could be a factor that affect performance, but deliberate learning can maximise what each of us born with.
    • A good article talks about the philosophy of kendo that emphasises on mind training for focus and consistence by deliberate practice.

  • Spaced Repetition

    • Learning a few chunks of different topics everyday, and revisiting and practicing what you learn spacing in a period of time can solidify your acquisition for long-term learning, instead of cramming a lot of things in your brain one day. [source 20]
    • An interactive exercise tells you about the forgetting curve and the use spaced repetition.

  • Habits As Energy Saver

    • Habits can save your brain energy, so that you will be more likely to do and accomplish things of which you have a habit. [source 21]
    • For example, writing down goals the night before the next day will increase the possibility of achieving them because you do not need to think about what goals should I do next day’s morning. Putting gym clothes next to bed will increase the possibility of doing exercise in the morning because you can grab an go. As such, forming a good habit of learning, such as spaced learning, also allows you to gain more from long-term learning.

  • Be Adventurous

    Exploring new things or learning new things from time to time will strengthen the connections (synapses of our brain) between neurones. As such, we would better avoid monotony. [source 22] [source 23]

  • Have An Endpoint

    Setting a finishing time when doing demanding tasks/learning can let our brain take a break and re-gain energy, which can be more productive than doing them non-stop. As such, we better plan our working time within our most productive time and set a endpoint time everyday.

  • Be Bored

    • Boredom time can be a good time for our brain to relax, come up with creative ideas and make goals, instead of always keeping our brain busy to try to get away boredom by receiving endless information from social apps and online videos at the information explosion age. [source 24]
    • Experiment: try to not do anything for 1 hour. No screens, no internet, no talking. Just be bored.