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# Compressing How to Learn

Category: [[learning|Learning]]

[Read the original document](https://docs.google.com/document/d/154kd5BSUSipuTx34Kv_CZseih-5foAC2dS4efX5CX3Q/edit&sa=D&ust=1596495076353000&usg=AOvVaw0UXxFogwpEh5ny8uF7nqIC)

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There are two major categories of relevant information.[a][b][c][d]

One are techniques - particular techniques or behaviors that improve the quality and speed of learning.[e][f][g][h]
The other is models - a sense for how and why a learning system works.

For example, long-term memory, episodic memory and working memory system are models. Spaced repetition is an object/technique. Reinforcement (reward / punish) learned behavior is a model. Creating a reward or a success scoreboard is a technique.

I’m going to start this by just listing out important models and techniques, as well as unimportant models and techniques (if there’s content I think isn’t worth focusing on - a continuous list with weights on importance would be perfect, but I’ll settle for a two-tiered system for now).

Major Techniques:
1. Spaced Repetition
   1. Memorable items must be repeated over several days
   2. Add visual memory. Have a conceptual and a visual answer to each card.
2. Alternate the level of abstraction you process information at, from high level context to low level details and back
3. Material as important as method. Ensure that the content being processed is sufficiently incremental and has the best 80/20 cut of the important information.
4. Modify environment
   1. Eliminate distractions in the environment
5. After reading material, look away from the material and recall it. Repeat for great effect.
6. Deliberate Practice
   1. Focus on the parts of content that are difficult
   2. Increase intensity of practice / focus
7. Structure behavior, at least on a weekly and daily basis
8. Tutoring [Bloom’s Two Sigma]
9. Get into a space with experts in what you’re looking to learn
10. Pomodoro - small step towards goal, process oriented
   1. Set timer to 25 minutes, cut interruptions, focus hard for 25m, give reward
11. Create abstractions / chunks by combining sets of ideas or concepts for working memory
12. Test yourself regularly on content you’re looking to learn
13. Metaphor / Analogy, Transferring mental models between fields
14. Teach someone else the content, forcing you to frame information from different perspective [Feynman Technique]
15. If procrastination, focus on process instead of outcome
16. Get into a social environment that reinforces the right beliefs and values

Major Models:[i][j][k]
1. Levels of abstraction - high level / low level representation of information (context vs content, bottom up learning vs. top down learning, Holistic vs. Sequential reasoning, Conceptual vs. Concrete)
2. Long-term memory and working memory systems
   1. Working memory limited in scope
   2. Long term memory requires revisits to get content established
3. Habits as the source of most behavior[l][m]
   1. Cue + routine + reward + belief
4. Learning by doing as more effective than learning in abstract - learning as active or passive
   1. Able to Recreate vs. Recall ability vs. Illusion of Competence
5. Outcome oriented vs. Process oriented
6. System 1 / System 2
7. Focused vs. Default Mode Thinking

Minor Techniques:
1. Let yourself fall into the diffuse mode while thinking about a problem (falling asleep, for example). Then wake up with an alarm or falling object and apply focused to the diffuse content.
2. Alternate the way you process information, going from focused thinking to diffuse and back to focused
3. Establish the smallest step towards working on a problem (pomodoro in general)
4. Intentionally look to dream about what you’re studying
5. Exercise regularly[n]
6. Concept Mapping
7. Learn in different environments to avoid overfitting learning to environment
8. Promise a reward after a work session
9. Create a library of chunks / latticework of mental models
10. Overlearning (Putting in a ton of work in batch)
11. Interleaving content together to increase flexibility of understanding
12. Analyze the cue of damaging habits and avoid / change them.
13. Have a trigger-action plan when you catch yourself in the routine of a habit
14. Create an emotional reward for new habitual behavior
15. Plan quitting time on daily goals.
   1. Strongly isolate work from leisure
16. Work on hard / disliked tasks as soon as you wake up, when you have willpower[o][p]
17. Mnemonics
18. Memory Palace Technique (Link visual / spatial thinking with concepts)
19. Metaphor / analogize the concepts being learned
20. Meditation / Deep Breathing
21. Thoroughly understand the basics of content, the building blocks
22. Breaks to avoid drop in attention span over time
23. Visualization
24. Focus Tracking
25. Urge Propagation
26. 80/20 / Triage
27. Growth Mindset
28. Nutrition
29. Define study schedule
30. Goal Factor learning
31. Zone Reading: Read the text of a book and listen to its audio at 2x, simultaneously.
32. Incremental Writing
33. Incremental Reading
34. Learn in Public

Minor Models:
1. Understanding each step in a process vs. understanding the connection between steps
2. Learning occurs during Sleep
3. When you think of something you’d rather not do, your brain experiences pain that subsides once you actually start working on it. This leads to procrastination.
4. Practice makes permanent
5. While mind is relaxing in the background, progress is made on problems
6. Attention Switching Costs / Impact of multitasking
7. Hyperbolic Discounting, default focus on short term
8. Memory has a visual / auditory component[q][r][s]
9. Memories are not fixed, but reconsolidated every time they’re recalled
10. Memory techniques as skills in themselves requiring practice
11. Energy level / Energy management[t]

Metalearning Curriculum:

Metacognition - John Dunlosky
Relatively dry but appropriately extensive and clear overview of the findings of the Metacognition literature. By the same author, this well cited and concise overview paper is excellent.

Your Brain at Work - David Rock
Extremely concrete body of experiments for improving cognition. I’ve summarized the suggested experiments here.

Deep Work - Cal Newport
A run through execution & focus techniques from the detailed to the level of life structure. My document for applying its lessons is here.

Art of Learning - Josh Waitzskin[u]
This book was personally incredibly inspiring to me, describing the author’s path to mastery (world champion level) in both chess and tai chi push-hands.
The principles described (Internalizing Fundamentals, Beginner’s Mind, Building Your Trigger, and more) are advanced and refreshing.

Carl Shan’s Notes on Tim Ferriss’ Metalearning Podcast
These notes describe a process for learning at a fairly high level. 
The DISSS framework (Deconstruction, Selection, Sequencing, Stakes)
The CaFE framework (Compression (80/20), Frequency, Encoding)
 
Samford Video Series:
https://www.samford.edu/departments/academic-success-center/how-to-study

[a]What's possibly missing:

1. Choosing which concepts to learn. Cultivating your information environment.
[b]2. Minor technique. Framing the thing you're about to learn in many ways:
- "i'm going to learn this so i can do x"
- "i'm going to learn this to practice my [a learning technique]"
[c]Motivational? Separate from goal factoring?
[d]3. Minor technique. When I was reading TB paper, for each chapter (which was titled a question) I asked "I would need to answer this question when..." (and outlined several scenarios). Specific twist on GF? Motivational as well as connecting to applications.
[e]+abliu06@gmail.com FYI came across this Coursera course on learning how to learn! https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn/
[f]_Marked as resolved_
[g]_Re-opened_
[h]Welcome Michael! A few models from that course made it in - 'Focused and Diffused Thinking' was the only unique contribution from that course, but it has good coverage (spaced repetition, procrastination, habits, working / long term memory, etc.) which informs the execution of a number of the techniques and my understanding of the models here.
[i]This list reminds me somewhat of Peter Bevelin's Seeking Wisdom: https://www.amazon.com/Seeking-Wisdom-Darwin-Munger-3rd/dp/1578644283

Have you seen this?
[j]Hahaha I just realized that the first Amazon review of this book was by Nassim Taleb:

"A wonderful book on wisdom and decision-making written by a wise decision-maker. This is the kind of book you read first, then leave by your bedside and re-read a bit every day, so you can slowly soak up the wisdom. It is sort of Montaigne but applied to business, with a great investigation of the psychological dimension of decision-making.
I like the book for many reasons --the main one is that it was written by a practitioner who knows what he wants, not by an academic.
Enjoy it,

Nassim Nicholas Taleb"
[k]As a high school teacher, I'm actually really interested in formalizing these models or techniques in a way that I can teach to my students.
[l]Reminds me of Michael Puett's work on rituals in Chinese philosophy.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/philosophy-bites/id257042117?mt=2&i=1000389106775
[m]Funnily enough, he was my professor Junior year - that said, this wasn't strongly influenced by him.
[n]Plus morning sunlight.

I think keto diets also help a lot with focus.
[o]Connected to the ego-depletion major technique above?
[p]Exactly, the idea behind this model/techniques structure to the information is that models for the system imply techniques that will work and techniques imply models that can be used to generate more, higher quality solutions.
[q]I noticed you didn't mention smell / taste. I've heard that the olfactory senses have much more to do with memory than we often give it credit for (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-babble/201501/smells-ring-bells-how-smell-triggers-memories-and-emotions). The mechanism behind this is hypothesized to be that the olfactory bulb is strongly connected to the amygdala and hippocampus, which visual/auditory/tactile doesn't tap as much into.
[r]Completely agree - it's absence is mostly due to my inability to connect it with viable techniques for learning. Have any in mind?
[s]I dunno haha. I guess it depends on whether the topic you're learning has strong connections to smells or places that smell. An obvious one that I'm somewhat interested in learning is cooking (e.g., recognizing ingredients through smell, or that certain smells map to certain outcomes like good food or rotten food).
[t]For most people, it's 2-3 hours upon waking up for a period of 3 hours. And then again around 4pm. But super useful to know so you can plan hard tasks accordingly.
[u]My notes on the book if useful: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vsuS8c9rwZGijKklf_dNv_4QzTnH2Ow4U6WNSgLuQoU/edit?usp=sharing

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*Source: [Original Google Doc](https://docs.google.com/document/d/154kd5BSUSipuTx34Kv_CZseih-5foAC2dS4efX5CX3Q/edit&sa=D&ust=1596495076353000&usg=AOvVaw0UXxFogwpEh5ny8uF7nqIC)*