Daniel's working notes

Ultralearning

Author: Scott H. Young

Notes

When acquiring knowledge, make sure to practice it and aplicable on your daily work. This because when you’re practicing knowledge, it’ll become experience and after a while you can do it almost instantly. One oversimplified example is when you learn to drive a car. At first, you need to remember every step from unlocking door until you step the accelerator.

And if you think about it, actually, It never gets easier, you just go faster

At first you’ll try to remember what steps you need to do but when you’ve gained a lot experience and practice in driving car, you can do it almost instantly the next time without trying to remember step by step.

When you don’t practice your knowledge, you won’t be able to measure if you really undrestand or master the skill.

Acquiring hard skill will give you advantages

  • Accelerating your carrer
  • Give bigger opportunity to change your carrer carrer (This is what I’ve done. In short, I change my carrer from health sector into tech.)

In today’s everchanging trend, we should always learn and update our knowledge.

There’s term called metalearning, where you learn how to learn something. You need to do research about something you want to learn. Or create something more like curriculum or a map. [[ Metalearning helps you identify learning purpose ]] This will help you to find areas of study that align with goal you want to achieved.

“The simplest way to be direct is to learn by doing”

The most common example of learning by doing is by creating project or project based learning. We could easily see this on MOOC platform such as Udemy, Lynda, etc

Another way to learn hard skill is using immersion. A perfect example is learning a language. You could learn language faster by plugging yourself in an environment where you’re forced to use and practice it in daily basis.

Directness expose you to a little detail that you can’t get from theory and sometimes it’s usually well remembered than reading over theory or documentations

– Still work in progress –

Highlights

The phrases learning something new and practicing something new may seem similar, but these two methods can produce profoundly different results.

pg. 4, loc. 56-57

Passive learning creates knowledge. Active practice creates skill.

pg. 4, loc. 57-58

You can know every fact about an industry and still lack real-world expertise because you haven’t practiced the craft.

pg. 4, loc. 62-63

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is.”

pg. 5, loc. 65-66

Learning something valuable and doing it fast doesn’t have to be confined to some narrow set of geniuses. It’s a process anyone can embrace. It’s just that most people never do it because they never had a playbook to show them how.

pg. 6, loc. 88-89

The simple truth is most people will never intensely study your area of interest. Doing so—even if it’s just for a few months—will help you stand out.

pg. 7, loc. 93-94

In his book of the same title, Cowen argues that because of increased computerization, automation, outsourcing, and regionalization, we are increasingly living in a world in which the top performers do a lot better than the rest.

pg. 29, loc. 436-437

The accelerating demand for high-skilled work has increased the demand for college education.

pg. 30, loc. 460-460

Rapidly changing fields also mean that professionals need to constantly learn new skills and abilities to stay relevant.

pg. 31, loc. 468-469

However, technology offers an incredible opportunity for innovation.

pg. 32, loc. 488-489

I believe there are three main cases in which this strategy for quickly acquiring hard skills can apply: accelerating the career you have, transitioning to a new career, and cultivating a hidden advantage in a competitive world.

pg. 33, loc. 493-494

There are nine universal principles that underlie the ultralearning projects described so far.

pg. 45, loc. 683-683

Start by learning how to learn the subject or skill you want to tackle.

pg. 45, loc. 685-686

Cultivate the ability to concentrate.

pg. 45, loc. 687-688

make it easy to just do it.

pg. 45, loc. 688-688

Learn by doing the thing you want to become good at.

pg. 45, loc. 689-689

Be ruthless in improving your weakest points. Break down complex skills into small parts;

pg. 46, loc. 691-691

Test yourself before you feel confident, and push yourself to actively recall information rather than passively review it.

pg. 46, loc. 693-694

Feedback is harsh and uncomfortable. Know how to use it without letting your ego get in the way.

pg. 46, loc. 694-695

Understand what you forget and why.

pg. 46, loc. 696-697

Learn to remember things not just for now but forever.

pg. 46, loc. 697-697

Understand how understanding works, and don’t recourse to cheap tricks of memorization to avoid deeply knowing things.

pg. 46, loc. 698-699

All of these principles are only starting points.

pg. 46, loc. 700-700

prefix meta comes from the Greek term μετά, meaning “beyond.” It typically signifies when something is “about” itself or deals with a higher layer of abstraction.

pg. 49, loc. 740-741

metalearning means learning about learning.

pg. 49, loc. 741-742

Learning this property of Chinese characters is metalearning—not learning about the object of your inquiry itself, in this case words and phrases, but learning about how knowledge is structured and acquired within this subject; in other words, learning how to learn it.

pg. 49, loc. 744-746

Metalearning research avoids this problem and helps you seek out points where you might even be able to get a significant advantage over the status quo.

pg. 52, loc. 788-789

understanding your motivation to learn.

pg. 53, loc. 800-800

the knowledge and abilities you’ll need to acquire in order to be successful.

pg. 53, loc. 801-802

resources, environment, and methods you’ll use when learning.

pg. 53, loc. 803-803

Instrumental learning projects are those you’re learning with the purpose of achieving a different, nonlearning result.

pg. 53, loc. 807-808

The main way you can do research of this kind is to talk to people who have already achieved what you want to achieve.

pg. 54, loc. 822-823

Many other skills are mostly procedural, while others may have a procedural component yet still have facts to memorize and concepts to understand.

pg. 57, loc. 863-864

following two methods to answer how you’ll learn something: Benchmarking and the Emphasize/Exclude Method.

pg. 58, loc. 882-882

start any learning project is by finding the common ways in which people learn the skill or subject help you design a default strategy as a starting point.

pg. 58, loc. 884-884

one thing I’ll do is look at the curricula used in schools to teach that subject.

pg. 58, loc. 885-886

Even if you’re eager to start learning right away, investing a few hours now can save you dozens or hundreds later on.

pg. 59, loc. 894-895

involves first finding areas of study that align with the goals you identified in the first part of your research.

pg. 59, loc. 899-900

the state of mind you associate with being “in the zone.” You stop being interrupted by distracting thoughts, and your mind becomes completely absorbed in the task at hand.

pg. 69, loc. 1056-1057

Don’t worry about flow. In some learning tasks, you’ll achieve it easily.

pg. 70, loc. 1070-1071

don’t feel guilty if flow doesn’t come automatically. Your goal is to enhance your learning, and this often involves pushing through some sessions that are more frustrating than what could be considered ideal for flow.

pg. 70, loc. 1072-1073

Negative emotions, restlessness, and daydreaming can be some of the biggest obstacles to focus.

pg. 73, loc. 1111-1111

A mind filled with angers, anxieties, frustrations, or sadness will be harder to study with.

pg. 73, loc. 1112-1113

The easiest way to learn directly is to simply spend a lot of time doing the thing you want to become good at.

pg. 82, loc. 1244-1245

By learning in a real context, one also learns many of the hidden details and skills that are far more likely to transfer to a new real-life situation than from the artificial environment of a classroom.

pg. 86, loc. 1312-1314

The programmer who learns about an algorithm from a class may have trouble recognizing when to use it in her code.

pg. 87, loc. 1319-1320

The simplest way to be direct is to learn by doing

pg. 87, loc. 1329-1329

Whenever possible, if you can spend a good portion of your learning time just doing the thing you want to get better at,

pg. 87, loc. 1329-1330

If this isn’t possible, you may need to create an artificial project or environment to test your skills.

pg. 87, loc. 1330-1331

Many ultralearners opt for projects rather than classes to learn the skills they need.

pg. 89, loc. 1360-1361

learning around producing something, you’re guaranteed to at least learn how to produce that thing.

pg. 89, loc. 1361-1362

Learning to program by creating your own computer game is a perfect example of project-based learning.

pg. 89, loc. 1363-1363

Immersion is the process of surrounding yourself with the target environment in which the skill is practiced.

pg. 90, loc. 1369-1369

Learning a language is the canonical example of where immersion works.

pg. 90, loc. 1371-1371

Joining communities of people who are actively engaged in learning can have a similar impact, since it encourages constant exposure to new ideas and challenges. For example, novice programmers might join open-source projects to expose themselves to new coding challenges.

pg. 90, loc. 1374-1376

The last method I’ve found for enhancing directness is to increase the challenge, so that the skill level required is wholly contained within the goal that is set.

pg. 91, loc. 1389-1390

The overkill approach is to put yourself into an environment where the demands are going to be extremely high, so you’re unlikely to miss any important lessons or feedback.

pg. 91, loc. 1394-1395

Learning directly is one of the hallmarks of many of the successful ultralearning projects I’ve encountered, particularly because of how different it can be from the style of education most of us are used to.

pg. 92, loc. 1406-1407

This is the strategy behind doing drills. By identifying a rate-determining step in your learning reaction, you can isolate it and work on it specifically.

pg. 96, loc. 1468-1469

That was Franklin’s insight that allowed him to rapidly improve his writing: by identifying components of the overall skill of writing, figuring out which mattered in his situation, and then coming up with clever ways to emphasize them in his practice, he could get better more quickly than if he had just spent a lot of time writing.

pg. 96, loc. 1470-1473

Rate-determining steps in learning—where one component of a complex skill determines your overall level of performance—are a powerful reason to apply drills.

pg. 97, loc. 1474-1475

::The first step is to try to practice the skill directly.::

pg. 98, loc. 1491-1491

This means figuring out where and how the skill will be used and then trying to match that situation as close as is feasible when practicing.

pg. 98, loc. 1491-1492

The next step is to analyze the direct skill and try to isolate components that are either rate-determining steps in your performance or subskills you find difficult to improve because there are too many other things going on for you to focus on them.

pg. 98, loc. 1494-1496

Cycling between direct practice and drills, even within the same learning session, is a good idea when you’re just starting out.

pg. 98, loc. 1503-1503

You should focus on what aspects of the skill might be the rate-determining steps in your performance.

pg. 99, loc. 1508-1509

You should focus on what aspects of the skill might be the rate-determining steps in your performance. Which aspect of the skill, if you improved it, would cause the greatest improvement to your abilities overall for the least amount of effort?

pg. 99, loc. 1508-1510

Finally, doing drills is hard and often uncomfortable.

pg. 100, loc. 1520-1521

The easiest way to create a drill is to isolate a slice in time of a longer sequence of actions.

pg. 100, loc. 1523-1524

Look for parts of the skill you’re learning that can be decomposed into specific moments of time that have heightened difficulty or importance.

pg. 100, loc. 1528-1528

A difficulty with drills in many creative skills is that it is often impossible to practice one aspect without also doing the work of the others.

pg. 101, loc. 1535-1536

To solve this problem in your own learning, you can take a page from Franklin: by copying the parts of the skill you don’t want to drill (either from someone else or your past work), you can focus exclusively on the component you want to practice.

pg. 101, loc. 1537-1539

The Magnifying Glass Method is to spend more time on one component of the skill than you would otherwise.

pg. 101, loc. 1545-1546

This practice of starting too hard and learning prerequisites as they are needed can be frustrating, but it saves a lot of time learning subskills that don’t actually drive performance much.

pg. 102, loc. 1552-1554

Drilling problems without context is mind-numbing.

pg. 102, loc. 1559-1559

Drills require the learner not only to think deeply about what is being learned but also figure out what is most difficult and attack

pg. 103, loc. 1565-1566

Testing yourself—trying to retrieve information without looking at the text—clearly outperformed all other conditions.

pg. 106, loc. 1616-1617

Since tests usually come with feedback, that might explain why students who practiced self-testing beat the concept mappers or passive reviewers.

pg. 106, loc. 1626-1627

Human beings don’t have the ability to know with certainty how well they’ve learned something.

pg. 107, loc. 1636-1637

If the learning task feels easy and smooth, we are more likely to believe we’ve learned it. If

pg. 107, loc. 1638-1639

If the learning task feels easy and smooth, we are more likely to believe we’ve learned it. If the task feels like a struggle, we’ll feel we haven’t learned it yet.

pg. 107, loc. 1638-1639

More difficult retrieval leads to better learning, provided the act of retrieval is itself successful.

pg. 108, loc. 1652-1653

The idea, therefore, is to find the right midpoint: far enough away to make whatever is retrieved remembered deeply, not so far away that you’ve forgotten everything.

pg. 109, loc. 1666-1667

An interesting observation from retrieval research, known as the forward-testing effect, shows that retrieval not only helps enhance what you’ve learned previously but can even help prepare you to learn better.

pg. 110, loc. 1673-1674

By confronting a problem you don’t yet know how to answer, your mind automatically adjusts its attentional resources to spot information that looks like a solution when you learn it later.

pg. 110, loc. 1681-1682

The problem with relying on direct practice exclusively is that knowledge that isn’t in your head can’t be used to help you solve problems.

pg. 111, loc. 1698-1699

But since simply reading is much less effective than repeated retrieval practice, chances are that she’ll forget about it when it comes time to apply the technique.

pg. 112, loc. 1709-1710

How to Practice Retrieval: Flash Cards

pg. 112, loc. 1713-1714

Flash cards are an amazingly simple, yet effective, way to learn paired associations between questions and answers.

pg. 113, loc. 1718-1719

The major drawback of flash cards is that they work really well for a specific type of retrieval—when there’s a pairing between a specific cue and a particular response.

pg. 113, loc. 1721-1722

How to Practice Retrieval: Free Recall

pg. 113, loc. 1726-1726

A simple tactic for applying retrieval is, after reading a section from a book or sitting through a lecture, to try to write down everything you can remember on a blank piece of paper.

pg. 113, loc. 1727-1728

By forcing yourself to recall the main points and arguments, you’ll be able to remember them better later.

pg. 113, loc. 1729-1730

However, another strategy for taking notes is to rephrase what you’ve recorded as questions to be answered later.

pg. 114, loc. 1734-1734

Instead of writing that the Magna Carta was signed in 1215, you could instead write the question “When was the Magna Carta signed?”

pg. 114, loc. 1734-1735

What’s harder and more useful is to restate the big idea of a chapter or section as a question.

pg. 114, loc. 1740-1740

How to Practice Retrieval: Self-Generated Challenges

pg. 114, loc. 1743-1743

How to Practice Retrieval: Closed-Book Learning

pg. 115, loc. 1749-1749

This brings us to the next principle of ultralearning: feedback.

pg. 116, loc. 1767-1768

::Feedback is one of the most consistent aspects of the strategy ultralearners use.::

pg. 117, loc. 1790-1791

No feedback, and the result is often stagnation—long periods of time when you continue to use a skill but don’t get any better at it.

pg. 118, loc. 1800-1801

Feedback works well when it provides useful information that can guide future learning.

pg. 119, loc. 1813-1814

Ultralearners must balance both concerns, pushing for the right level of feedback for their current stage of learning.

pg. 120, loc. 1828-1829

Feedback is uncomfortable.

pg. 120, loc. 1832-1832

Sometimes the best action is just to dive straight into the hardest environment, since even if the feedback is very negative initially, it can reduce your fears of getting started on a project and allow you to adjust later if it proves too harsh to be helpful.

pg. 120, loc. 1837-1838

outcome feedback, informational feedback, and corrective feedback.

pg. 121, loc. 1848-1849

Corrective feedback is the toughest to find but

pg. 121, loc. 1851-1851

Corrective feedback is the toughest to find but when employed well can accelerate learning the most.

pg. 121, loc. 1851-1851

This tells you something about how well you’re doing overall but offers no ideas as to what you’re doing better or worse.

pg. 121, loc. 1853-1854

When you are progressing rapidly, you can stick to those learning methods and approaches.

pg. 122, loc. 1868-1869

This feedback tells you what you’re doing wrong, but it doesn’t necessarily tell you how to fix it.

pg. 123, loc. 1872-1873

The best kind of feedback to get is corrective feedback.

pg. 123, loc. 1885-1886

This is the feedback that shows you not only what you’re doing wrong but how to fix it.

pg. 123, loc. 1886-1886

Similarly, flash cards and other forms of active recall provide corrective feedback by showing you the answer to a question after you make your guess.

pg. 124, loc. 1889-1890

The educators Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo and Susan M. Brookhart argue, “The best feedback is informative and usable by the student(s) who receive it.

pg. 124, loc. 1890-1891

Feedback too soon may turn your retrieval practice effectively into passive review, which we already know is less effective for learning.

pg. 127, loc. 1933-1934

metafeedback. This kind of feedback isn’t about your performance but about evaluating the overall success of the strategy you’re using to learn.

pg. 128, loc. 1962-1963

Being able to understand how something works or how to perform a particular technique is useless if you cannot recall it.

pg. 135, loc. 2067-2067

How can you retain all of the things you learn? How can you defend against forgetting hard-won facts and skills? How can you store the knowledge you’ve acquired so that it can be easily retrieved exactly when you need it? In order to understand learning, you need to understand how and why you forget.

pg. 136, loc. 2071-2073

Losing access to previously learned knowledge has been a perennial problem for educators, students, and psychologists. Fading knowledge impacts the work you do as well. One study reported that doctors give worse medical care the longer they have worked, as their stored knowledge from medical school is gradually forgotten, despite their working in the profession full-time.

pg. 136, loc. 2073-2075

Hermann Ebbinghaus, in one of the first psychological experiments in history, spent years memorizing nonsense syllables, much in the same way Richards memorizes Scrabble words, and carefully tracking his ability to recall them later.

pg. 136, loc. 2079-2081

Ebbinghaus discovered the forgetting curve. This curve shows that we tend to forget things incredibly quickly after learning them, there being an exponential decay in knowledge, which is steepest right after learning.

pg. 136, loc. 2081-2083

at least three dominant theories to help explain why our brains forget much of what we initially learn: decay, interference, and forgotten cues.

pg. 136, loc. 2085-2086

The first theory of forgetting is that memories simply decay with time.

pg. 137, loc. 2089-2089

By this understanding, forgetting is simply an inevitable erosion by time.

pg. 137, loc. 2091-2091

Interference suggests a different idea: that our memories, unlike the files of a computer, overlap one another in how they are stored in the brain.

pg. 137, loc. 2097-2098

Proactive interference occurs when previously learned information makes acquiring new knowledge harder.

pg. 138, loc. 2102-2103

Proactive interference occurs when previously learned information makes acquiring new knowledge harder. Think of this as if the “space” where that information wants to be stored is already occupied, so forming the new memory becomes harder.

pg. 138, loc. 2102-2104

The third theory of forgetting says that many memories we have aren’t actually forgotten but simply inaccessible.

pg. 138, loc. 2111-2111

Many memory researchers now believe that the act of remembering is not a passive process.

pg. 139, loc. 2121-2121

In recalling facts, events, or knowledge, we’re engaging in a creative process of reconstruction.

pg. 139, loc. 2121-2122

You need to pick a mnemonic system, which will both accomplish your goals and be simple enough to stick to.

pg. 140, loc. 2137-2137

One of the pieces of studying advice that is best supported by research is that if you care about long-term retention, don’t cram.

pg. 140, loc. 2145-2146

This has led many ultralearners to apply what are known as spaced-repetition systems (SRS) as a tool for trying to retain the most knowledge with the least effort.

pg. 141, loc. 2154-2155

Another strategy for applying spacing, which can work better for more elaborate skills that are harder to integrate into your daily habits, is to semiregularly do refresher projects.

pg. 142, loc. 2173-2174

Scheduling this kind of maintenance in advance can also be helpful, as it will remind you that learning isn’t something done once and then ignored but a process that continues for your entire life.

pg. 142, loc. 2177-2178

Procedural skills, such as the ever-remembered bicycling, are much less susceptible to being forgotten than knowledge that requires explicit recall to retrieve.

pg. 143, loc. 2183-2184

This finding can actually be used to our advantage. One dominant theory of learning suggests that most skills proceed through stages—starting declarative but ending up procedural as you practice more.

pg. 143, loc. 2185-2186

Overlearning is a well-studied psychological phenomenon that’s fairly easy to understand: additional practice, beyond what is required

pg. 145, loc. 2217-2218

The first is core practice, continually practicing and refining the core elements of a skill.

pg. 146, loc. 2238-2239

The final tool common to many ultralearners I encountered was mnemonics.

pg. 147, loc. 2250-2250

they tend to be hyperspecific—that is, they are designed to remember very specific patterns of information.

pg. 147, loc. 2251-2252

Why, then, are they not front and center in this chapter, instead of at the end? I believe that mnemonics, like SRS, are incredibly powerful tools.

pg. 148, loc. 2268-2269

The second disadvantage is that recalling from mnemonics is often not as automatic as directly remembering something.

pg. 150, loc. 2289-2289

Simply spending a lot of time studying something isn’t enough to create a deep intuition.

pg. 157, loc. 2398-2399

Feynman was a master at pushing farther on problems than others expected of him, and this itself might have been the source of many of his unorthodox ideas.

pg. 158, loc. 2413-2414

you can introduce this into your own efforts is to give yourself a “struggle timer” as you work on problems.

pg. 158, loc. 2414-2415

Feynman didn’t master things by following along with other people’s results.

pg. 159, loc. 2426-2426

Instead, it was by the process of mentally trying to re-create those results that he became so good at physics.

pg. 159, loc. 2426-2427

The challenge of thinking you understand something you don’t is unfortunately a common one. Researcher Rebecca Lawson calls this the “illusion of explanatory depth.”

pg. 159, loc. 2435-2436

It is true that the more you learn about a subject, the more questions arise.

pg. 162, loc. 2477-2477

Explaining things clearly and asking “dumb” questions can keep you from fooling yourself into thinking you know something you don’t.

pg. 163, loc. 2487-2488

A second way to apply this is for solving a difficult problem or mastering a technique.

pg. 165, loc. 2521-2521

He worked hard on understanding things, and he put incredible amounts of his spare time into mastering the methods that made his intuition work.

pg. 166, loc. 2544-2545

The first place to experiment is with the methods, materials, and resources you use to learn.

pg. 174, loc. 2653-2654

This kind of experimentation is useful in helping you discover the guides and resources that work best for you.

pg. 174, loc. 2656-2656

The experimental mindset doesn’t just assume that growth is possible but creates an active strategy for exploring all the possible ways to reach it.

pg. 176, loc. 2696-2697

introducing new constraints that make the old methods impossible to use.

pg. 178, loc. 2729-2730

What this means is that the more complicated a domain of skill is (i.e., the more dimensions it contains), the more space will be taken up by applications of that skill that are extreme across at least one of those dimensions.

pg. 180, loc. 2754-2755

Learning is a process of experimenting in two ways.

pg. 181, loc. 2761-2761

the act of learning itself is a kind of trial and error.

pg. 181, loc. 2761-2761

Learning, in whatever forms it takes, is something that’s important to you.

pg. 183, loc. 2794-2794

any project is to do the metalearning research required to give you a good starting point.

pg. 183, loc. 2801-2801

WHAT TOPIC YOU’RE GOING TO LEARN AND ITS APPROXIMATE SCOPE.

pg. 183, loc. 2805-2806

learning what you need to learn is important and will suggest how wide and deep you need to go.

pg. 184, loc. 2808-2809

THE PRIMARY RESOURCES YOU’RE GOING TO USE.

pg. 184, loc. 2811-2811

A BENCHMARK FOR HOW OTHERS HAVE SUCCESSFULLY LEARNED THIS SKILL OR SUBJECT.

pg. 184, loc. 2816-2816

DIRECT PRACTICE ACTIVITIES.

pg. 184, loc. 2820-2820

Thinking about how you might use the skill can enable you to start finding opportunities to practice it as early as possible.

pg. 184, loc. 2821-2822

ultralearning project doesn’t need to be an intensive, full-time endeavor to succeed.

pg. 185, loc. 2827-2827

If you don’t set aside time to learn, it will be a lot harder to summon up the motivation to do so.

pg. 185, loc. 2831-2832

Shorter, spaced time chunks are better for memory than crammed chunks

pg. 186, loc. 2839-2840

If you’re unwilling to put time into your calendar, you’re almost certainly unwilling to put in time to study.

pg. 187, loc. 2853-2854

doing a pilot week of your schedule.

pg. 187, loc. 2856-2856

test your schedule for one week before you commit to it.

pg. 187, loc. 2856-2856

with, now is the time to do it. No

pg. 187, loc. 2860-2860

some questions to ask yourself to determine whether you’re slipping from the ideal:

pg. 187, loc. 2865-2866

METALEARNING.

pg. 187, loc. 2867-2867

FOCUS.

pg. 188, loc. 2869-2869

DIRECTNESS.

pg. 188, loc. 2872-2872

DRILL.

pg. 188, loc. 2874-2874

RETRIEVAL.

pg. 188, loc. 2877-2877

FEEDBACK.

pg. 188, loc. 2880-2880

RETENTION.

pg. 188, loc. 2882-2882

INTUITION.

pg. 189, loc. 2884-2884

EXPERIMENTATION.

pg. 189, loc. 2886-2886

What went right? What went wrong? What should you do next time to avoid making those same mistakes?

pg. 189, loc. 2893-2894

Maintenance

pg. 190, loc. 2912-2912

The first option is to invest enough practice to sustain the skill but without any concrete goal of getting it to a new level.

pg. 190, loc. 2912-2913

::try to integrate the skill into your life.::

pg. 191, loc. 2917-2918

That means that memories that are retained for longer are less and less likely to be forgotten

pg. 191, loc. 2922-2922

That means that memories that are retained for longer are less and less likely to be forgotten when you follow up at a later date.

pg. 191, loc. 2922-2923

Relearning

pg. 191, loc. 2926-2926

the costs of relearning the skill later are smaller than the costs of keeping it continuously sharp.

pg. 191, loc. 2926-2927

Mastery is a long road that extends far beyond a single project.

pg. 192, loc. 2942-2943

Being an ultralearner doesn’t imply that everything one learns has to be done in the most aggressive and dramatic fashion possible.

pg. 193, loc. 2956-2957

If you’ve mastered the basics of a subject so that you can read denser books about it, reading books on the topic is mostly a matter of putting in time, not developing ingenious learning strategies.

pg. 194, loc. 2963-2964

Their strategy was to begin the girls’ educations early, at age three, and move on to specialization in one domain no later than six.

pg. 199, loc. 3047-3048

The first step is to start early.

pg. 204, loc. 3122-3123

The first is that it took advantage of any hypothetical flexibility that younger children possess to learn new subjects easily.

pg. 204, loc. 3128-3129

The second is that by specializing in one subject, the children could reach proficiency at a much younger age.

pg. 205, loc. 3129-3130

Keeping the game fun and light, especially when the children were young, was a key stepping-stone to developing the drive and self-confidence that would support more serious efforts later.

pg. 205, loc. 3135-3136

“one of the most important educational tasks is to teach self-education.”

pg. 206, loc. 3152-3153

The more one learns, the greater the craving to learn more.

pg. 216, loc. 3311-3312

Linked Notes: