Learn to Learn in 4hrs 54mins - Full Course

I've been a learning coach for the past 14 years. I've spent thousands of hours

14 years. I've spent thousands of hours understanding and synthesizing the research on how to be a better and faster learner. In this 4-hour guide,

faster learner. In this 4-hour guide, I've put together some of my most important videos on learning. It's

designed for you to watch from start to finish in order, and I've divided it into four chapters. Chapter one,

retrieval, chapter two, encoding, chapter three, mind mapping, and chapter four skill acquisition. The first two chapters cover two of the most foundational learning skills that you

need to master. Doing these well means that you're able to remember more of what you learn, understand complex concepts more deeply, and recall and apply what you've learned in whatever way you need to, whether that's for

exams or for work. The third chapter covers how you can then leverage these core skills to do more effective note takingaking and how you can do note-taking to make your learning even

faster and easier. The final chapter then extends on these skills to not only just learning new knowledge but also for learning new skills. Especially for

those of you who are professionals trying to learn uh new complex skills for work, that final chapter will be especially valuable for you. So I

recommend that you take notes as you go.

Make sure to apply what you learn and we'll get started with chapter one, retrieval.

It's surprisingly easy to become good at studying as long as you build the three learning pillars. I've noticed that once

learning pillars. I've noticed that once students are able to master all three learning pillars, they're able to study much more to a much higher quality in a shorter amount of time, which ultimately

means getting better results. Now, the

issue is that most people don't know about these pillars or they focus on the wrong ones, which means even though it can be easy to get good at studying, most people will keep struggling their

whole lives. So, in this video, I'm

whole lives. So, in this video, I'm going to teach you what the three pillars are and what you need to do to master them to become a top learner. But

let's make something very clear. Getting

better at learning is not the same thing as making learning faster and easier.

Effective learning takes effort. It

often feels uncomfortable. High quality

learning involves thinking really hard.

Most people think that you can get better at learning without doing the hard thinking. And so they actually

hard thinking. And so they actually avoid that effort, which means that they avoid getting better. So instead, most people think about how they can just cover content faster. But covering

content fast doesn't mean anything unless you can retain what you've learned and then use it the way you need to. Even if you can retain and remember

to. Even if you can retain and remember and spit out a 100 facts, it doesn't matter if what you needed it for was to solve problems. So getting better at learning is about knowing what type of

thinking is effective and getting better at doing that and then over time you do get faster at doing that and it becomes more comfortable. But the way you get

more comfortable. But the way you get more comfortable is like how long distance running gets more comfortable for a marathon runner. It's not that it's become objectively easy, it's that you get used to the difficulty. Getting

better at learning is also not the same thing as finding the best app or finding the best technique. It's perfectly

possible to have the best app and use the best techniques and still do terribly with your learning if you're not thinking in the right way. Getting

better at learning means that you understand the right way to think so that you don't even need the best app or the best technique. You can do well even without it because you know how to use

your brain and think in the right way.

So with that out of the way, here are the three pillars and how you need to think about getting better at learning.

Learning is ultimately about getting information and then putting it inside our memory. And the process of putting

our memory. And the process of putting information inside our memory is something that we call encoding. And

then when we use that information from our memory, we call this process retrieval. Retrieval helps us find gaps

retrieval. Retrieval helps us find gaps in our memory. And it also strengthens and consolidates our long-term memory.

Which means when you practice retrieving your knowledge, your knowledge gets stronger. On the other hand, encoding is

stronger. On the other hand, encoding is what determines how many gaps you have in the first place. If your encoding is not very good, it means that your memory is very poor. It's very superficial, and

so you have lots of gaps to find in your retrieval. And sometimes it's

retrieval. And sometimes it's overwhelming to try to fill all of those gaps. This is the typical situation of

gaps. This is the typical situation of the Anki grind or the flashc card grind where almost all of the learning is just done through retrieval and testing yourself through flash cards and the

encoding is not being done at a high quality which means that you're constantly forgetting almost everything and overwhelming yourself with the need to endlessly relearn the things that

you're forgetting. And so these are the

you're forgetting. And so these are the first two pillars to be a great learner.

You have to have good enough encoding so your memory isn't full of holes. And you

have to have good enough retrieval so that you're finding those gaps and you're deepening your knowledge. The

third pillar is because learning doesn't happen in isolation. It doesn't matter if you have the best encoding and best retrieval technique. If for example you

retrieval technique. If for example you procrastinate so much that you never sit down to study or you're so easily distracted that you can't focus for more than 20 minutes. These are things that I call enablers. Enabler skills are not

call enablers. Enabler skills are not your direct learning skills. They're the

skills that allow you to show up and do the work you need to do consistently.

And so when we think about great, really, really effective learners, then one of their biggest characteristics is that they have phenomenal encoding skills. Their encoding ability is so

skills. Their encoding ability is so strong and their retention is so good that they barely forget anything. They

don't have many gaps to find. They're

able to achieve a really deep level of understanding and mastery in a very short period of time. People with

phenomenal encoding skills, they often don't need to spend a lot of time studying. They don't need to spend a lot

studying. They don't need to spend a lot of time relearning things. And so, you can argue that encoding is actually the most important skill for you to develop

to become a good learner, not just learning how to do more flashcards or writing pretty notes. But it is actually the last thing that you should learn how

to get good at. And so here is how you get good at each of these three pillars and the order that you should get good at them in. The first one you should try

to develop is actually your enablers.

And you can divide enabler skills into two different types. The first type is self-management. This includes things

self-management. This includes things like your ability to stop procrastinating, your time management, how you prioritize your tasks, and how you can manage your focus and

concentration. The other category is

concentration. The other category is growth skills. And this is one that most

growth skills. And this is one that most people don't think about. Growth skills

are actually the skills that allow you to improve with time because not everyone gets better and develops skills at the same pace. And so if you want to get better at I mean basically anything,

but especially something as complex as learning, you need to have really good growth skills. Otherwise, you're going

growth skills. Otherwise, you're going to give up before you get good. And the

two biggest growth skills are experimentation and critical reflection.

If you imagine one person who learns a new learning technique and then they never use it, they're afraid of trying it. They're afraid of making a mistake.

it. They're afraid of making a mistake.

And then when they do use it, they don't know how to think about how well it went. Versus someone who learns a new

went. Versus someone who learns a new technique is able to use it immediately and then once they use it and have that experience, they're able to reflect on it, see what went well, see what went wrong, what they could improve, and then

create the next experiment immediately.

You can imagine which person is going to improve more quickly. And I see this very clearly in the students in my program where some students are learning

skills literally 20 times faster than other students. And 99 out of 100 times

other students. And 99 out of 100 times when we look at the students that are improving very slowly and feeling frustrated and demotivated at the experience of learning to learn, it's because they are holding back on

experimentation or they're not doing critical reflection often. And so this is why we need to work on the enablers first because either self-management or growth skills are going to be rate limiters for you. Which means it doesn't

matter how good your encoding is. It

doesn't matter how good your retrieval is. It doesn't matter what apps you use,

is. It doesn't matter what apps you use, how you write your notes. None of that matters if your self-management and your growth skills aren't good enough. And so

the easy part to this is that if you know that you have an issue with your procrastination or with your time management or with your experimentation and your growth skills, then you know that you can work on that and you should

just work on that first and you will see great results in a short period of time.

But most people starting this learning skills journey will ignore this stuff.

They'll say, "This isn't important for me. I just need to learn something else.

me. I just need to learn something else.

I need just a new technique that's going to fix my problem." And then they're going to struggle. And they're going to find learning to learn very, very hard.

and they're probably going to give up before they get good. So, if you want learning to learn to be easier, focus on your enablers first. And you don't need to become like a machine, a a paragon of

focus. You just have to be good enough.

focus. You just have to be good enough.

And once you are good enough with your enablers, you're ready to move on to the second. The second part is retrieval.

second. The second part is retrieval.

So, if we go back to this diagram here, you remember that retrieval is whenever we use information from our memory.

We've already encoded it. It's in our memory and now we're calling upon that and testing ourselves. So for example, when we do a quiz or answer some practice questions that's retrieval and there are many many ways of doing

retrieval depending on how you need to use your knowledge. If you need detailed factory recall, we've got techniques like doing flashcards or if you need to apply multiple concepts together, you

can solve complex problems. You can use and apply a knowledge to build something like develop an app, teaching someone, answering questions, making your own questions, answering questions and then making your own answer sheet, quizzing

your friends, brain dumps, mindm brain dumps, writing practice essays, using AI to generate your own practice test. And

it's not that one strategy is better than the other. Each has their own purposes. It's about figuring out how

purposes. It's about figuring out how you need to use your knowledge and then aligning it with the retrieval strategies you use. And when you have a retrieval strategy that is consistent

and regular and it's aligned to your knowledge needs, it enhances your retention. It enhances your fluency and

retention. It enhances your fluency and recall speed and helps you to find gaps in your knowledge in advance so that you can fill them. And so hopefully you can see why you need to start working on your enablers before you work on your

retrieval skills because it's very hard to have consistent regular highquality retrieval sessions if you struggle with your time management. if you can't prioritize your tasks. But by locking in

really good retrieval, you've created a safety net to your learning. Even if you didn't understand it the first time, even if it was a complex topic, even if you're feeling nervous about the exam, your retrieval strategy is there to

catch any gaps and help you prepare and become confident before the exams. And speaking of safety nets, what happens if you're watching a video like this and you're finding it helpful and you're finding this advice useful and you want

to make sure you apply it in your life, but you're worried that once you click off of this video, you're going to forget about it. Nothing's going to change. What if there was a way that

change. What if there was a way that every single week you could get a reminder about what you need to focus on delivered straight to your inbox, written by me for free in the form of a

newsletter. Well, what a great idea. I

newsletter. Well, what a great idea. I

already thought of that. I have a free newsletter which I send out every single week which has tips like this. It's a

distillation of the study techniques that I wish I knew 14 years ago when I first started this covering what I think are some of the most important principles to help you become a more confident learner. The emails take a few

confident learner. The emails take a few minutes to read but can potentially save you hours a week through efficiency. So

if you're interested again it's completely free. There's a link to sign

completely free. There's a link to sign up to the newsletter in the description.

Now the third pillar it's no mystery is going to be encoding. I said encoding is arguably the most important change that you can make to become a better learner.

This is the hallmark of a genius. So why

is it the last thing for you to work on?

Well, it's because encoding the third pillar takes a long time. Becoming good

at encoding is not about learning how to do some mind maps. Even though that is a great technique that can help you be better at encoding. It's not about reading a certain way. It's not about

writing your notes a certain way. It is

about how you think. Encoding is

basically a word to encapsulate all of your current habits of how you interpret and process new information. These are

habits that you've built up over years, decades even. Some of those habits are

decades even. Some of those habits are working for you and some of those habits are outdated or hindering you. And so it takes time to gain awareness of your current learning habits and it takes

time to unlearn those habits. sometimes

a very long time. And it takes time to replace those with new habits and learn techniques like mind mapping and certain reading techniques that help you think in new ways and build those new neural

pathways. For some really experienced

pathways. For some really experienced already top achieving learners, this process might only take a few weeks. For

students who have never experienced high quality encoding before, developing these habits can take several years.

Even with guidance and feedback like in an intensive program like mine, it can take months. And unless you have just

take months. And unless you have just months of free time that you can be struggling and not getting better at learning, encoding is not the thing that is going to make a difference for you in

the short term. The reason we work on our enablers and our retrieval skills first is because once we have these locked down, it gives us the runway, the

time, the safety to slowly start working on our encoding skills. And yes, once you do improve your encoding skills, it is legitimately life-changing. The

amount and the efficiency that I can learn at now compared to when I was 17 years old is shockingly better. But if I had just tried to work on only my encoding skills that entire time, I

probably just would have failed medical school in the meantime. By the way, in terms of the specific process of what encoding actually looks like, I go through that in more detail in some other videos. But here's the thing is

other videos. But here's the thing is that even though if you follow these steps and you learn it in this order where you start with your enablers and then your retrieval and then you slowly work on your encoding skills, this is

the easy way to get better at learning.

Once you have all of these things, you have a great very solid memory and then you have a great ability to find your gaps. You will walk into every exam for

gaps. You will walk into every exam for the rest of your life feeling confident.

You will be focused and effective and in control of your learning process not just for uni but also in professional life.

Okay. So that was a highlevel overview of the three pillars of learning.

Self-management and enablers, retrieval and encoding. Now, we will talk about

and encoding. Now, we will talk about encoding more in chapter 2, but before that, we need to look more deeply at our retrieval skills. And the first step is

retrieval skills. And the first step is to realize that active recall and space retrieval or space repetition does not work. At least not in the way that most

work. At least not in the way that most people think it does in the way that most people use it. It is just not a long-term winning strategy. And until

you realize that, you're not really going to be able to improve and become more efficient as a learner. So, in this next video, we'll start by addressing that problem. So, this video is going to

that problem. So, this video is going to be a little bit controversial. Not

because I want it to be controversial, but it just is. If you're really into active recall and space repetition, and if those are the techniques that you

think work the best, then you're probably wrong. Let me explain why. For those of

wrong. Let me explain why. For those of you that don't know, I'm Dr. Justin Sun.

I'm a medical doctor, but I'm also more importantly a learning coach. It's what

I do full-time. I work with students uh teaching them evidence-based studying and time management skills.

Before I tell you why active recall and space repetition doesn't really work, uh let me tell you a really quick story about how I came to discover this.

Okay, so rewind like 10 years ago and I'm trying to enter into medical school.

I'm still in high school right now and I'm doing relatively okay. I'm getting a high grade band. I'm getting some scholarships. I'm doing reasonably well.

scholarships. I'm doing reasonably well.

You know, people used to look at me as a smart kid. I go into university. During

smart kid. I go into university. During

this year, I just studied and studied and studied like non-stop. That's all I did. And in this first year of uni, this

did. And in this first year of uni, this is where I really started getting into active recall and space repetition. It

was all the hype. Well, still is all the hype. And I had thousands of flashc

hype. And I had thousands of flashc cards and I would study literally every day all day. When I say all day, I

was only getting like 2 or 3 hours of sleep every night. Um it was very very bad. And I did that every single day

bad. And I did that every single day every single weekend uh for about 9 to 10 consecutive months. It was pretty brutal. Um I was incredibly sleepd

brutal. Um I was incredibly sleepd deprived obviously. I was hallucinating.

deprived obviously. I was hallucinating.

Even I remember one time where I had been awake for like I think I was awake for like 77 hours and I was probably studying like 70 of those hours. I would

study when I was eating. I would study while I was brushing my teeth. I would

study in the shower. My entire day was just filled with studying. Uh obviously

I was a little bit obsessed and I did end up getting very very good grades. Um

and I ended up getting into medical school. So what happened when I entered

school. So what happened when I entered into medical school? Well, the thing is the thing is that when you enter into medical school, right? So before getting in, I was studying about this much.

Okay, that year I essentially memorized this whole textbook and probably a little bit more for the other subjects as well. But when I got into medical

as well. But when I got into medical school, I realized that there was a lot more that I needed to learn. And in

fact, the content was about double. I

needed to study about double. So, for

those of you that are pretty good at maths, you'll know that um you can't study more than like if if you're studying 20 hours a day, you can't study 40 hours a day, no matter how lingling you are. And that was obviously a

you are. And that was obviously a problem because I just entered into medical school and I didn't want to fail. So, I had to figure out a better

fail. So, I had to figure out a better way to study. So, that's when I started looking into effective study techniques.

And what really got me was that I was spending a lot of time doing my flash cards and space repetition and active recall, all of that sort of stuff. and

it wasn't really getting the type of results that I wanted. There were guys in my class who I like never saw studying and they would consistently outperform me in the in my test and

exams and it was pretty frustrating. So

I looked into the research and I started experimenting with different ways that I could study and I did this like a a crazy person like my life depended on it because my livelihood did. I didn't want to spend my whole life just sitting in a

library wasting away and everything I learned I taught to other students. By

the time I'd finished my third year of uni, I'd already gotten a a teaching certificate. So, I'd learned a lot more

certificate. So, I'd learned a lot more about the theory behind learning and how that works. And that allowed me to learn

that works. And that allowed me to learn even more deeply. Okay, fast forward a few years. I'd actually built an entire

few years. I'd actually built an entire business around uh teaching students.

And one of the things I learned while I was teaching other students was that there are some techniques that will work as long as you're already pretty good at studying. If you're not someone that is

studying. If you're not someone that is like very uh good at what's called deep processing, um you know, essentially someone that can just pick up a new concept and learn it really really

quickly to begin with, then a lot of the techniques don't actually work or it's not enough. And so for for me as

not enough. And so for for me as essentially a learning professional, teaching others and getting paid to help them learn to learn, I had to figure out a way to help students to do well even

if they weren't already, you know, like a genius. And this is kind of where the

a genius. And this is kind of where the story begins because it's been 10 years and I've learned a lot. So, hear me out on this. So, the first thing that I want

on this. So, the first thing that I want to say is that I know that what I'm going to say today goes in the face of maybe everything that you've heard from your friends or your teachers or your parents or other people on YouTube. I

know and I get it. When I teach you uh what I've learned, it's going to make sense to you as well. Okay? But there is a lot to cover. There's a lot of stuff I'm going to go through that you've

probably never heard before. So, uh,

before we understand why active recall and space repetition doesn't work as well as people hype it up to, we first need to understand a little bit about how learning actually works in the first

place. Because without knowing that,

place. Because without knowing that, we're not going to understand where it works and then where it fails. And

that's going to be really important for you to look at your own studying system and actually start tweaking it. If you

don't know why it works in the first place, every time you have an issue, you're not going to know how to problem solve it. And I think that's very

solve it. And I think that's very important to know. So the first thing I want to point out is that studying is not the same thing as learning and this may be something that is really obvious

to you uh but I found that a lot of students have not ever thought about this is the fact that studying is actually this process that we are doing physically

right it could be the writing of notes when we're um you know in class or revising material it could be us watching a video about something right

now you might be studying this video as you're listening. This is the stuff we

you're listening. This is the stuff we do out in the physical world. Uh and the purpose of doing this is so that we can get learning occurring. So the purpose

of studying is to produce learning and learning is actually the cognitive process that occurs and this is essentially when information is

connected into our brain and we can say that we have learned successfully if that knowledge is retained and preferably we are actually able to use

it and apply this knowledge. So learning

and studying are two separate things. So

if you were to take a textbook and then you were to smash your face into the textbook, you would not say that that is either studying or learning. But if you were to smash your face into the textbook enough times, you will at the

very least have learned the name of the title of the textbook as it comes into your face repeatedly.

That's not the best wording that I could have used for that. As it impacts your face repeatedly. And so in this example,

face repeatedly. And so in this example, we have actually learned something. So,

if your friend were to say, "Hey, how are you going to study for that test?"

And you say, "Oh, you know, just the usual, slamming the textbook into my face." Then that would be your studying

face." Then that would be your studying technique, I guess. Now, that's an extreme example. Well, what about if you

extreme example. Well, what about if you were to open up the textbook and then you were to touch the pages? What if you were to flick the pages? What if you were to look at the pages while you were flicking them? What if you were to read

flicking them? What if you were to read the words on the pages? What if you were to read slowly? What if you were to then read it and then write something? Do you

see how changing different things about the activity changes the amount of learning that it engages? So it shows that the learning process is something that is activated by the studying

process and not all studying processes activate the same amount of learning. So

that means that you can potentially spend 10 hours studying using one technique and then get only 1 hour of learning if your technique is only let's say 10% efficient. Now in reality it's

really hard to put these exact percentage numbers on it because it's just really hard to measure but you get the gist. Some techniques are really

the gist. Some techniques are really efficient. you can get a lot of learning

efficient. you can get a lot of learning in your brain done using them. Some

techniques are less efficient and broadly speaking we call the techniques that are more effective at learning active learning techniques. And there is

a huge range of active learning techniques that we can use while we're studying. So what is it that is actually

studying. So what is it that is actually happening in our brain when we say that this learning thing is encoding? Okay,

so let me give you a very quick dive into how our memory actually works.

There's this one model for our memory that is called the multi-store model of memory.

And this can get pretty complicated, but long story short, it says that there are different places in our memory where the information goes. Number one, when we

information goes. Number one, when we take in information, it comes in a sensory information. So this is the type

sensory information. So this is the type of stuff that we might be seeing with our eyes or listening with our ears.

Right? Now you are receiving sensory information and this goes into a part of our brain which is called the sensory memory. So that's relatively

memory. So that's relatively straightforward. Now information from

straightforward. Now information from your sensory memory is forgotten very very quickly because if you imagine holding on to every piece of information

that you are bombarded with on a daily basis and remembering all of that your brain would just explode. Imagine

remembering every single sensation that is on your skin, every license plate you see as you're walking. That would be incredibly overwhelming. But more

incredibly overwhelming. But more importantly, it's very energy inefficient. If we don't need that

inefficient. If we don't need that information, it's not going to keep it.

In fact, it's a life ordeath situation from your body's point of view. Your

brain consumes already at rest around 20% of your resting energy caloric intake per day. So what that means is that if it's unnecessarily being super active, holding on to irrelevant

information, you will literally die.

So the point is that your brain is really really efficient at forgetting anything that is not relevant and not necessary. What happens after this is

necessary. What happens after this is that if you intend to keep this information, if you want to remember it for longer, then it shunts this information into something that is

called the working memory. Now, this is also sometimes called the short-term memory, but I like calling it the working memory because it also talks about one of its other functions, which is that when you have information that's

in your long-term memory and you want to use it again, it has to go through the work working memory first. So, here's

how this works. Some of this information that initially came in through sensory pathways goes into our working memory and then from our working memory goes into our longterm

memory here. And this is a process that

memory here. And this is a process that we call encoding.

Now when we want to use this information, we have to retrieve it from our long-term memory. And this is a process that's called retrieval. So that

means that every time you are answering a test question or an exam paper or someone asks you a question about anything, what we're trying to do is we're trying to collect it from our

long-term memory, call it forth into our working memory, and that's where we can actually answer or manipulate the information or do something with it. So

I like thinking about the working memory almost like a hotel lobby. You can stay there for a short period of time, but you're going to get kicked out if you don't have a room in the hotel. But to

get in and out of this building, you need to pass through the lobby no matter what. So the working memory is where

what. So the working memory is where you're going to be spending a lot of your time when you're manipulating the information, but it's not a good place to hold on to it because the working memory will also forget information

relatively quickly in the span of sort of seconds to minutes. Now, your

long-term memory is a little bit different. Your long-term memory will

different. Your long-term memory will forget things as well, but it will forget things much more slowly. it will

forget things in the span of hours to even months and it depends on how strongly it was encoded in this process here and that is very very complicated.

I'm not going to be able to get into it and we also don't fully know exactly all the things that that involves but we do know a few things due to extensive research in this field and one of those

things is that encoding and retrieval are both very very important. You can't

just encode because then your brain doesn't know how to retrieve it properly to actually answer the questions. But

also, you can't retrieve what you don't encode. You can't pour from an empty

encode. You can't pour from an empty bucket. If you don't fill it in the

bucket. If you don't fill it in the first place, or if your bucket has holes, then when you need to pour stuff out of it, nothing's going to come out.

So, they're two sides of the same coin.

And students often don't think much about the encoding process. And that's

because of another thing that we know about encoding which is the fact that encoding uses a lot of what we call

cognitive load. And cognitive load is in

cognitive load. And cognitive load is in short the brain power necessary to do the encoding process. Encoding does not

happen without sufficient cognitive load. Now cognitive load is also

load. Now cognitive load is also something that is actually pretty complicated and a lot of places teach it wrong. I've even advised at schools

wrong. I've even advised at schools where their own school curriculum taught cognitive load incorrectly. But again,

the long story short here is that your brain has a certain amount of load that it can kind of tolerate. And this is something that can actually be trained.

So if you aren't able to tolerate a lot of this brain power and a lot of this load, then you can actually train that, which I will talk about in other videos.

But essentially what happens is that when the load increases your learning actually increases as well up to a certain point. So what happens is if

certain point. So what happens is if this red line is talking about the amount of cognitive load that you've got on your brain and then this green line is talking about the amount of learning that's occurring aka the amount of

encoding that is incurring. Then what we see is that the amount of learning is really low at low levels of cognitive load and it goes up as the load goes up to a certain extent. Once it reaches

that threshold, it actually starts to plateau and go down. So if we've got too much load, then we're overwhelmed and we're not learning effectively. But if

we don't have enough, we're actually just fundamentally not encoding it at all. and all of the techniques that

all. and all of the techniques that result in very low cognitive load and therefore very low encoding and therefore very low learning and therefore making you forget the same

thing that you studied 20 times very very quickly. These are all called

very quickly. These are all called passive learning. And the thing is that

passive learning. And the thing is that this is something that happens in your brain. You can use the same technique

brain. You can use the same technique such as reading a book but if you're thinking about it differently you could get a lot of learning out of it or you might be completely passive. So you it's

hard to tell based on just looking at someone studying or seeing what technique they're using how much cognitive load is actually going on inside their brain. And research is strongly supportive that the

relationship between cognitive load and encoding and how good your memory and retention is is very strongly associated with the amount of load. So the more

load the better to a certain point. So

what does this cognitive load actually feel like when you're studying?

Cognitive load feels confusing. It feels

like you're already trying to figure this out. You might have a little bit of

this out. You might have a little bit of cognitive load right now thinking, "What is he talking about? Where is this going? How does that fit in? How do I

going? How does that fit in? How do I apply that to my life? How does that how is that similar or different to what else I know?" These questions, this confusion, this is cognitive load. And

this is a sign that your brain is engaging high efficiency learning pathways. Which means that if you're

pathways. Which means that if you're studying and this isn't happening in your brain, you're not getting that cognitive load. And another thing that

cognitive load. And another thing that we know is that when this is happening in your brain, it's directly opposed to feeling bored or or drowsy. So if you've ever been studying and you just find it

so boring and tedious and you're getting sleepy and every time you start studying, you fall asleep. That's what

used to happen to me all the time. In

fact, I probably got more sleep while I just took naps while I was studying than I did in my bed. Well, if that's happening, then that is a sign that your

studying technique is actually not very efficient because it means that you're not using the right types of pathways in your brain because if you were, you actually wouldn't feel that. And there

is studies that's done on the electrical activity of the brain that shows the different waves. And so right here, this

different waves. And so right here, this is one of the main reasons why techniques about encoding and this stuff is not really talked about and you may

have never heard of this before is because of the fact that learning correct encoding is difficult. It's not

just difficult in that there are a lot of steps and there's a very specific pathway to allow you to do correct encoding. In my course where I work with

encoding. In my course where I work with students intimately, it takes months to build up someone's encoding to a very

very significant degree. But it is in essence forcing yourself to become smarter. When your encoding goes up, you

smarter. When your encoding goes up, you are faster at studying. You can just understand concepts faster. You can just hold on to the information for longer.

You don't need to revise it all the time. your confidence goes up and you

time. your confidence goes up and you just start enjoying the studying process a lot more. But that takes a lot of effort and you have to be very willing

and ready to accept the discomfort that comes with this encoding process. And in

fact, this whole idea that it's difficult and it's uncomfortable, this is actually called desirable difficulty.

And not many students are willing to go through that discomfort in order to learn the skills. Much like how if you were to go to the gym, you're only getting an effective workout if your

muscles are feeling pretty tired. Same

thing here is that your brain is only really being used effectively if it has that level of discomfort and cognitive load. So on the flip side, that actually

load. So on the flip side, that actually means that retrieval techniques are easier to learn. And this is where active recall and space repetition come

in. They're very easy techniques to

in. They're very easy techniques to learn. Pretty much anyone can pick it

learn. Pretty much anyone can pick it up. It doesn't have any real learning

up. It doesn't have any real learning curve. You can hear about it and then 10

curve. You can hear about it and then 10 15 minutes later pretty much just do it straight away. And there is going to be

straight away. And there is going to be a benefit. So we're getting there. We're

a benefit. So we're getting there. We're

going to understand now why it doesn't really work beyond a certain point.

Because the reason active recall and space repetition works in the first place is by adjusting and working on this forgetting curve. Now the

forgetting curve is a very popular wellknown concept and it basically says that the first time that you learn something if this is time on the x-axis here and this is the amount of knowledge

that you have in your head stored able to be recalled on the y-axis. The first

time you learn something, you will actually forget this information relatively quickly. Now, if you were to

relatively quickly. Now, if you were to then revise this information again, let's say a few hours later, then you would then forget it a little bit more slowly. And so, every time you repeat

slowly. And so, every time you repeat this information, you're going to forget it slower and slower and slower until this curve starts plateauing. So you can

see that the slope of this here is you know pretty steep whereas over here it's not so steep which indicates that we are forgetting information a lot slower over here than over here where we're

forgetting a lot of information very quickly. Now research will say that

quickly. Now research will say that after one week of learning a fact with your without doing any other type of retrieval in between you can actually

forget around 60% of this information 50 to 60% of it. So that effectively means that half of all the studying that you did completely just went to waste after

just one week. And to be honest, a lot of students are not revising stuff at the end of every week to begin with either. So it's actually in reality

either. So it's actually in reality going to be a lot more of an issue than this because you essentially just study everything throughout the year and then before your exams it's like you're just studying it from fresh. You've forgotten

everything and I'm sure some of you can relate to that. So what active recall and space repetition is doing is it's actually moving you along this forgetting curve. So instead of being on

forgetting curve. So instead of being on this line where the rate of decay and that is the technical word for this the rate of decay is uh very very quick

we're getting to this slope here. So we

are moving and progressing along each slope so that our rate of knowledge decay is a lot slower which is obviously a good thing and this is why it works.

This is why space repetition will work for you if you're not doing it at all.

If you're already not doing any type of retrieval, if you're not doing any type of repetition and revision, then it will

help you. It will work. But the thing is

help you. It will work. But the thing is it has diminishing returns. In fact,

very rapidly diminishing returns. So,

for those of you that aren't familiar, the idea of diminishing returns is that something can be really good at the beginning, but then it's not so good

later on. So, let's say, for example,

later on. So, let's say, for example, you need to organize your room because it's a mess and you can't find anything anywhere and every time you're trying to find a sock, it takes you 30 minutes.

Then, it might take you an hour to clean up and organize your room a little bit.

And after an hour, sure, it's not completely organized and it's not the best it could possibly be, but now you can find your sock in just 30 seconds or less. So, there's been a huge

less. So, there's been a huge improvement. But now, if you were to go

improvement. But now, if you were to go and try to organize it even more if you were to try to get it perfect, maybe right now it's 80% 90% there. But to go

that extra 10%, maybe now what you're going to have to do is organize all your books in alphabetical order and then organize all your socks by different colors and fabrics. And that might take

you another 3 or 4 hours. And at the end of the day, it might only help you find your sock faster by like five more seconds. So that's what diminishing

seconds. So that's what diminishing returns would be. In that first hour of organizing, we get huge and rapid gains, but then it's slower and the gains that we're getting for the amount of effort

that we're putting in is just not quite there. So, the reason that active recall

there. So, the reason that active recall and space repetition are so evidence-based is that the research strongly shows that students that don't use active recall and space repetition

do worse than the students that do use it. And that is completely true. You're

it. And that is completely true. You're

going from a situation that is bad to better. But from better, there's a very

better. But from better, there's a very big difference between better and really good or best. So, if you're a student that's not aiming to go from failing to

just passing or doing relatively well, but you're actually a student that's already doing relatively good, but you want to be excellent, then you're going to find that using active recall and

space repetition, if you're not using it already, will help you, but it's going to be very difficult to get to those very top marks. And so again, when you look at the research, there isn't really

strong evidence to say that for people that are already achieving pretty well, that doing more active recall and space repetition helps them. In fact, some research says it's the opposite. It

actually makes it worse. And that's

because of the fact that active recall and space repetition is inherently very repetitive. In fact, that's kind of the

repetitive. In fact, that's kind of the whole reason it works is that it's repetitive and you're always fighting the forgetting curve. Your brain is constantly trying to forget this

information and you are forcibly putting it back in there saying don't forget it.

Don't forget it. Don't forget it. But

you have to do that for everything that you're learning. And that will stack up

you're learning. And that will stack up when you look at all the different subjects that you're taking, all the different facts and all the different concepts. You're going to have to repeat

concepts. You're going to have to repeat the same thing three, four, five times to keep it in your brain. Which means

that you have to do three, four, five times the amount of studying and revision to keep it in your brain. If

you imagine that the first time you learn something, you could encode it 100% highest quality and you just don't forget it for like six months, then you would probably find that it's really easy to study for your exams because you

don't ever need to revise the information. Now, that isn't possible,

information. Now, that isn't possible, but we can get a lot closer to that than most students realize. In fact, more than even most teachers will realize.

And so this experience of just repeating information and maybe doing your flash cards over and over again and constantly trying to use space repetition and study things but then still not getting the results that you want. This is probably a very familiar experience to people and

actually a lot of the students that are using space repetition active recall based systems will find that it's not actually working as well as it seems like it should be working. It's not

giving them the results that they've kind of been promised that they expected to get. It can be extremely monotonous

to get. It can be extremely monotonous and incredibly tedious, very very time consuming and in fact actually pretty demoralizing if you're not getting the results. So in fact what some of the

results. So in fact what some of the research will show is that if you were to look at all the different people that are using a technique that involves space repetition or active recall like active recall based space repetition

algorithm Anki flash cards, you actually find that the majority of the people that use that technique don't do well.

So what that means is that it's actually a really common technique that a lot of people are using and only some people are going to do well and those people that will do well using that te

technique probably already have a pretty good inherent ability to encode. Now, if

you're not one of those people that already came into things with a high level of encoding, then you're going to find that active recall and space repetition might actually make your life harder because you're having to spend so

much of your time just repeating and relearning the same stuff that you forgot. And that's not necessary. Like I

forgot. And that's not necessary. Like I

said before, you can actually train this process. You can train your brain to

process. You can train your brain to become smarter. You can train your brain

become smarter. You can train your brain to encode information more efficiently the first time you learn it. And this is because of something called neuroplasticity, which essentially says that your brain

is the ability to remode and adapt and become better and learn new things. So

if you're not someone that is previously really like books smart and academic and you're not someone that's usually really good at picking up concepts really quickly, you can actually train that.

And you can not just train it a little bit, but you can completely just like absolutely massively shift to the point where some of my students in the past

have actually had interviews with their teachers because the teachers didn't understand how they were suddenly doing so well. Just think about that for a

so well. Just think about that for a second. I do this day in day out for

second. I do this day in day out for thousands of students all across the world. So, it's very, very consistent. I

world. So, it's very, very consistent. I

haven't really ever encountered a single student that couldn't be trained to do this. Literally ever over the last

this. Literally ever over the last almost 10 years of me teaching this.

Okay, but the purpose of this video is not to pitch my course. So, if you're interested and you want to just have like that proof that hey, this actually works. It's not just like some random

works. It's not just like some random theory that this dude on YouTube is talking out of like just random thin air. This is stuff that's like real life

air. This is stuff that's like real life cemented and actual practice. I've got

real students, real data that shows this stuff. In fact, I'm gearing up to

stuff. In fact, I'm gearing up to publish it in journals. Uh then you can learn more about that. But anyway, to summarize what we have said right now is

that your brain tends to forget stuff very efficiently if it's not encoded into your long-term memory. Encoding

takes cognitive load. That's confusing.

That's uncomfortable. But if you learn the techniques to navigate that, then what happens is that your forgetting curve uh actually just starts becoming a lot flatter to begin with, which means

that you just don't need to revise it so often. You can cancel out some of those

often. You can cancel out some of those revisions. And that means that because

revisions. And that means that because you're just fundamentally forgetting stuff a lot slower, you just don't need to revise as much. And it's just a huge time savea. So at this point, you may be

time savea. So at this point, you may be thinking two things. number one. Well,

Justin, then how do you do all of this amazing encoding magical super silver bullet technique? Well, I will have

bullet technique? Well, I will have other videos talking about that because this video is already getting pretty long and it's necessary to explain why

the whole active recall space repetition like cult is not as hyped up as it really is in real life. But because

again, the encoding techniques are not easy. It's not something I can just

easy. It's not something I can just smash out through like a one minute Tik Tok. There's really a lot of explanation

Tok. There's really a lot of explanation that goes into it. So, I will be having a lot of other videos talking about encoding techniques and going through demonstrations and examples and

workroughs and all of that sort of stuff to just prove to you that it does actually work. It's not just, you know,

actually work. It's not just, you know, me making stuff up. But the other thing that you may be thinking or doubting is well Justin if this is as good as you

say it is and this is like the third eye of studying waking up then why have I not heard of this before? Why does everyone else on

before? Why does everyone else on YouTube say that active recall and space repetition are god level tech I've actually I literally saw a study guru say active recall and space repetition was a godlevel technique. I almost

vomited in my mouth. Why is everyone else saying that? There's a few reasons and there's actually even some studies done around why people believe studying related myths. And one of those things

related myths. And one of those things is because of something called the Dunning Kruger effect. And it looks a little bit like this. This is the Dunning Krueger graph. And what you can

see here is that there is knowledge on the X-axis and confidence on the Yaxis.

So when you don't know anything, your confidence is really low. Well, zero cuz you know you know nothing. But when you learn a little bit about something

compared to nothing, that's a lot more.

So your confidence grows much much higher. You become much more confident

higher. You become much more confident in this thing. And then when you learn more and more and more, you realize actually, man, there's more to this than I thought. Uh and then as you just

I thought. Uh and then as you just commit your life towards learning this 10, 20 years later, you truly become an expert and your confidence grows again because you legitimately know a lot. So

there's only two points in which the confidence is really high and that is after you've spent decades learning about this or you've only learned a

little bit and you just don't know what you don't know. And this is the case just objectively like it's just the fact I I don't want this to be insulting leg

really don't like I don't want this video to have as much backlash as I suspect it will have but a lot of the

study YouTubers out there don't know a lot about how learning actually works or what goes on in the brain. It's a lot of

it is just they have watched other YouTube videos and they have tried a few things and they I don't know got into medical school or law school or something and they sort of said hey it

works let me make a YouTube video about it and so learning is actually really really complicated cuz I did all of that. I did well and then I used

that. I did well and then I used techniques and then I got good grades and I got into medical school and I graduated. I became a doctor. I even did

graduated. I became a doctor. I even did this whole business thing on the side while I was doing that. all that that stuff. And I realized the more I

stuff. And I realized the more I learned, the less I knew. Really, I had overestimated how much I knew 10 years

ago. Learning is legitimately, really,

ago. Learning is legitimately, really, really complicated to the point where just one of those concepts that I've talked about today, I've actually done

whole like 5hour workshops on just one of those concepts. And that it's it's still just barely scratching the surface for a lot of students. active recall and space repetition of some of the first techniques that they learn about

studying. Before that, it's like turn

studying. Before that, it's like turn your phone off. Don't listen to your favorite song while you're studying.

Don't study inside your bed covers, you know, stuff like that. Just simple tips and tricks of just straight up don't do that. That's a terrible idea type of

that. That's a terrible idea type of advice. And active recon space

advice. And active recon space repetition are often some of the first actual techniques that someone will learn. And it's a good first technique

learn. And it's a good first technique to learn because it's easy to use and it does again produce benefit if you're not doing it already. But again,

statistically speaking, there's more people that use that technique and don't do well than people that use that technique and do well. And this leads me

to the second reason why you don't hear about it so much, which is success bias.

Now, the story behind success bias says that there were these planes in World War II or something that came back after their raids and they found that the wings had the most amount of bullet

holes in them. So, the military said, "Okay, well, we should put less armor around the cockpit area because obviously that place is not getting shot

as much." And then a military

as much." And then a military statistician said, "No, that would be a terrible idea. The only reason that our

terrible idea. The only reason that our planes that we're seeing have more bullet holes on the wings is because all the planes that got shot in the middle

never returned. They all died.

never returned. They all died.

So, when's the last time you saw a YouTube video from someone talking about how they failed? And that's the thing is that when you don't do well, you're not super keen on telling the world about

it. you're a lot less likely to make a

it. you're a lot less likely to make a big YouTube video or grow a channel about failing to use a technique. So,

you don't hear a lot of the stories of people using these techniques and not doing well. I, on the other hand, as

doing well. I, on the other hand, as someone that is actually employed as a coach to help students that tried to use techniques and didn't work, I get to see how many times people are following this

advice and it's not producing those results. The number of times that

results. The number of times that students will use techniques like active recall and space repetition and not do well is overwhelmingly more common than the students that will

use it and then do well. And even for the students that do well, they usually come back one or two years later when they're later in uni or the content is more difficult or there's just more to know and they're saying it's no longer

sustainable because they're just spending way too much time uh or there's just too much content and they're just not able to keep on top of it. They're

falling behind and they're not able to finish all of their flash cards or however else they're using it. So

because we're only seeing the success stories, we are led to believe that it's more useful and more effective than it actually is. Which leads me to the third

actually is. Which leads me to the third bias, which is something called availability bias. And what this says is

availability bias. And what this says is that we will judge how legit something is based on how commonly we encounter it. So if we encounter a bunch of

it. So if we encounter a bunch of different people say, "Hey, vaccines are dangerous," we will believe that vaccines are dangerous. The same can be said of climate change. The same can be said about flatearthers and the same can

be said about active recall and space repetition because so many videos and so many people are talking about it because of the fact that it's easy because of the fact it's popular because of the

fact of success bias. Uh because of the fact that this encoding related stuff is just not as easy to explain in a very short YouTube video as you can see from this unnecessarily long YouTube video.

Probably you were led to believe that it's more legit and it's not your fault.

It's just the way that our brain is wired. It's just the biological tendency

wired. It's just the biological tendency of the human brain is that when something is more available, we think it is more legitimate. And this has been studied across all different fields, including, you know, politics and

science belief and all of this stuff. If

we see it more, we think it's more legit. And it creates this spiral. We

legit. And it creates this spiral. We

get people that are learning this from these common and popular videos. They

think it's legit. They try it. The ones

that are successful feel really confident. They make a YouTube video

confident. They make a YouTube video about it. and that becomes even more

about it. and that becomes even more common. So it produces this sort of

common. So it produces this sort of spiral of really confident people learning something from common knowledge then just kind of making it more and

more and more and more common and now it just seems like that's kind of the only way to do things. But that's actually very demoralizing because if that truly is the best study technique there is and you have tried it and you're not getting

the result that you want, then does that mean you're not able to achieve your academic goals? Does that mean you're

academic goals? Does that mean you're too dumb? Does it mean that you're just

too dumb? Does it mean that you're just not going to be able to do it? But

that's not the case. That's not the case. So again, I'm not saying that

case. So again, I'm not saying that active recall and space repetition are bad. It's a good part of your studying

bad. It's a good part of your studying system. But if that is the only thing

system. But if that is the only thing that you're relying on and you're not actually building good encoding techniques, then you're essentially just trying to refill a bucket with a hole in

it. Obviously, the best step is to patch

it. Obviously, the best step is to patch that hole to begin with. Now, most

students really underestimate their potential. If you're already good at

potential. If you're already good at encoding, the chances are that you can actually improve that even more, usually significantly. Some of the students that

significantly. Some of the students that are coming into my course are already getting, let's say, 90% or in a test or an exam or more. They're increasing

their study efficiency by two to three times. they're studying only 50 30% or

times. they're studying only 50 30% or 50% of how much they used to study beforehand and getting the same grades.

I've got students that are going from getting like failing their papers C's and D's to getting the top marks in their entire cohort. And yes, it's not easy. No, it's not just hey, plug in

easy. No, it's not just hey, plug in this technique and you can just solve all your problems. It evaporates and you know, you become, you know, like a Yoda of studying. It's not like that. they

of studying. It's not like that. they

are working hard and they're developing these skills just like you'd have to work hard and develop the skills to play a musical instrument or to play a sport really well. Same thing is that when you

really well. Same thing is that when you really train yourself to use certain studying techniques, you can actually kind of unlock your brain's potential, which is a super cliche thing to say and

it makes me cringe a little bit to say it, but it's kind of true. So, I would say for those of you that are feeling super confident about your study skills right now because you feel like you already know all the techniques and you

know how to use them, approach things with an open mind. Um, you never know, maybe if you were to study this field for another 20 years, you might realize that there's more to it than you realize. It's possible. It's just it's

realize. It's possible. It's just it's possible. I'm not saying that's the

possible. I'm not saying that's the case. You could be a absolute just

case. You could be a absolute just genius, but it's possible, right? It's

just it's possible. like it's worth having an open mind about, right? That's

all I'm saying. Or if you're someone that is in the situation where you've tried a lot of study techniques and it hasn't worked for you and you're feeling

demoral demor demotiv no de demoralized and you're feeling like it's hopeless and you don't know whether you can do it or you don't think a career is right for

you because you think you're too dumb or it's it's not within your capacity and other study techniques. you've tried it and tried it and tried it and none of it has worked before, then this video is

really for you. And I'm here to say that you can do it. You can train yourself to be better. And you will have to work

be better. And you will have to work hard, but you're probably willing to work hard if you know it's going to get you the results. So for you, I'd say actually have some hope. It may be that

you've just tried really hard at the wrong thing. If you want to learn more

wrong thing. If you want to learn more about this, then consider subscribing.

Anyway, okay. So, now we understand the problems

okay. So, now we understand the problems with active recall and space repetition when they're used in the wrong way. But

it doesn't mean that those strategies are completely useless. In fact, flash cards are actually one of the best strategies to use when all you're trying to do is learn volumes of very specific

lower order simple information. And if

the way you need to use that information is for just discrete fact recall. And

unfortunately, if you are a student and you're studying for exams, often you do have some things that you need to rotele learn. But the effectiveness of

learn. But the effectiveness of flashcards for rote learning also largely depends on the way that you use the flash cards. So in this next section, I'm going to give you a master class on how you can use Anki, which is

probably the most popular flashcard app out there, in the most effective way possible to level up your retrieval skills.

Did you know that there is a more advanced way of using flashcard apps like Anki? I'm willing to bet you didn't

like Anki? I'm willing to bet you didn't because it took me years of using flashcards and reading through research to figure this out. In this video, I'm going to tell you what flash cards are great for and what they are terrible

for, even though a lot of people still use them this way. And at the end of this video, I'm going to tell you my strategy for how you can make flash cards less overwhelming, more memorable, and you can triple their effectiveness.

I've taught this strategy very successfully to hundreds of students over the years and whether you're using Anki or any other flashcard app, there are things that you can do to make them dramatically more effective. If you're

new to this channel, welcome. I'm Dr.

Justin Sun. I'm a learning coach and researcher and the head of learning at I can study. I'm also a former medical

can study. I'm also a former medical doctor. For the last decade, I've taught

doctor. For the last decade, I've taught tens of thousands of students around the world to learn more efficiently. Now, a

couple years ago, one of the videos that really blew up on my channel was the problems with space repetition and active recall. And if your system of

active recall. And if your system of learning does depend on space repetition, then there are some serious problems with it that I do talk about in all of my other videos. But it doesn't

mean that flash cards do not have its place. In fact, I've probably used flash

place. In fact, I've probably used flash cards more than most people. After all,

across my medical degree, my honors degree, my master's degree, my learning teaching certification, I've spent over eight years learning at uni to eventually become top ranked. Flash

cards, including apps like Anki, can be a very effective and useful tool in your toolkit. But like any tool, we have to

toolkit. But like any tool, we have to know how to use it properly. For

example, you might have the best screwdriver in the world, but you can't build an entire house with nothing else but a screwdriver. at least not without seriously abusing your screwdriver, taking 10 years longer than it needed to

and probably injuring yourself in the process. So, let's take a quick look at

process. So, let's take a quick look at what flash cards are good at and what they are bad at, and then I'll tell you the strategy for how you can increase the good and reduce the bad. So, most

flash cards work like this. You have a prompt, which could be a question or a fill in the blanks or an image occlusion, which is basically just fill in the blanks with an image. You then

answer it from memory and mark it as correct or incorrect. Some apps even let you rate how easy it was to get that answer right and that affects the spacing algorithm. And then depending on

spacing algorithm. And then depending on how long that algorithm calculated for you, you're then prompted to answer that question again. And this could be even

question again. And this could be even just a few minutes later up to weeks.

Flashcards are useful for three main reasons. Firstly, it triggers active

reasons. Firstly, it triggers active retrieval of knowledge which has wellproven benefits on your memory and retention. Now, the research is

retention. Now, the research is surprisingly complicated here, much more complicated than a lot of people make it out to be. So, we're not going to go into exactly why and how it helps you, but in summary, actively retrieving your

knowledge is a very important part of any learning system, and you should definitely do it. No learning system is complete without having retrieval practice. The problems can arise when

practice. The problems can arise when you rely on the retrieval too much, but we'll get to that later. Secondly, it

makes it very easy to space your repetitions out and it allows you to repeat stuff not at a topic or subject level, but at a fact or at a concept level depending on your ability to recall that fact or concept. Repetition

to some extent is always going to be necessary for learning. So, flashcard

apps make this a lot easier. Honestly,

the person that invented the digital lateness system is a genius. Trying to

manage this with a manual calendar and a schedule and tracking every single thing that you got right or wrong would be a nightmare and extremely timeconsuming.

And timeconuming isn't always a bad thing but in this case that time is not invested in learning. It's just admin time. And lastly it helps with something

time. And lastly it helps with something called microlearning. Microlearning is

called microlearning. Microlearning is when you have these study sessions that are very concentrated and short bursts of time like only a few minutes long.

And for some very complicated reasons that we haven't fully figured out yet, microllearning tends to be quite effective. Having these concentrated

effective. Having these concentrated shorter bursts of studying tends to have a disproportionately high benefit for your memory and your retention. Now,

that isn't to say that having longer study sessions is not useful. What it

means is that having the shorter ones that are only like 3 to 7 minutes long are also useful. So, flash cards are great for this. You can use flashcards when you're waiting for the bus, when you're on the toilet, when you're

waiting to order a coffee. You could

stack up to maybe 20 or 30 minutes a day of microlearning without actually scheduling any extra time. You're just

using these pockets of time that you might not have been able to utilize before. And so, when you look at these

before. And so, when you look at these three main benefits, you can see it's genuinely very useful. Add on top of the fact that it's also pretty straightforward and easy to use, and it doesn't take a long time to learn to use

them correctly, flashcards are very, very popular. So, what are flashcards

very popular. So, what are flashcards not good at? Well, even though flash cards trigger active retrieval of knowledge, the way you retrieve the knowledge makes a big difference. Flash

card apps are generally designed to test you on a one:1 ratio. What that means is that you get one prompt or question that tests you on one concept or fact. And

this is good for direct fact recall and memorization, but it's not as helpful for the higher order learning needs where you actually need to draw on multiple concepts and facts and how they influence and relate to each other. And

I talk about this concept a lot in my other videos, like all the time. Now,

you could make flashc cards like a challenging exam question that tests you on these interrelated concepts, but it tends to get a little bit messy. It's a

lot longer to create those questions. It

takes longer to answer them, and it's tricky to understand whether you should mark a question right or wrong. For

example, if your flash card is testing you now on six or seven different concepts and facts and you get five of those correct and you miss one of them,

do you answer that card as correct or incorrect? If you've ever tried this

incorrect? If you've ever tried this yourself, you know that it gets pretty messy once you start testing on more than two or three facts and concepts per card. So problem number one is that it

card. So problem number one is that it only really helps for the lower order style direct fact recall and memorization type of learning which is

usually not enough to get you the best marks or especially if you're at uni and beyond even a pass which is also part of problem number two. Flash cards get overwhelming very quickly. If you try to

use flashcards to learn absolutely everything, then you get to a point where you have to do hundreds of flashcards every single day. And this is very timeconuming and also not very effective. As I often talk about in my

effective. As I often talk about in my videos, human memory excels when knowledge is connected into a network.

When information is less connected in a network, your brain holds onto that information much less strongly, which means you forget it more easily. It's

really common for students to rely so heavily on apps like Anki that they don't actually use any other learning methods which might be much better at

building higher order knowledge networks since all knowledge must exist in a network for it to be retained and used.

And because flashc cards are pretty bad at building knowledge networks, we end up with a mountain of information we have to learn through pure rope

memorization and repetition. Even if we didn't need to in the first place, it actually creates unnecessary work for us. And it's a very brute force way of

us. And it's a very brute force way of trying to study a topic. And I can tell you experts in their field that know more about that field than anyone else, they're not sitting at home doing flash

cards on the hundreds of new journal articles that are released every week.

They probably aren't using flash cards at all. In fact, and again, it goes back

at all. In fact, and again, it goes back to that analogy of the screwdriver. Yes,

a screwdriver can be really good at what it does, and you can love using your screwdriver for tightening a screw. If

you've never used a screwdriver before, you're going to feel that it's amazing compared to trying to tighten a screw with your fingernail. But it doesn't mean that it magically solves every possible need that you have when you're

building a house. Flash cards are great at what it's good at, but when you try to use it in ways that it's not good at, it's not efficient and it's actually going to do more harm than good. And

then once you do get overwhelmed by the volume of flash cards, it's actually very hard to escape because now you're investing so much of your time into doing your flash cards that you can't

use other methods without falling behind. And in some cases, being able to

behind. And in some cases, being able to get a flash card correct might actually even be harmful. So this is problem

number three, which is that flash cards are very repetitive, which is the whole point of it. But there's another part to this. Because we repeat the same flash

this. Because we repeat the same flash card again and again, we may end up memorizing the flash card rather than the actual knowledge. And you've

probably already experienced this before. For example, if you've got a

before. For example, if you've got a flash card that asks the question, what is the function of the mitochondria? And

the answer is mitochondria is a powerhouse of the cell. Then if you do this flash card enough times, you might actually just read what is the function of and then you already know that the rest of this flash card says

mitochondria. Then if you do this enough

mitochondria. Then if you do this enough times, you might recognize the flash card just by reading what is the fun.

And at that point, you already know that the rest of it is going to say function of a mitochondria. And you're able to recall the answer straight away without even having to read the whole question,

which might seem like a really good thing cuz your recall is faster, but it's not. The problem here is that we're

it's not. The problem here is that we're no longer testing our ability to recall the knowledge anymore. All we're testing is our ability to associate that particular flashc card with that

particular answer. So when we get into

particular answer. So when we get into an exam or any other type of assessment and we're asked on that knowledge but in a way that's different to how our flash

card put it, we may actually struggle to recall that knowledge because it's not testing our recall of the knowledge in itself anymore. When we get these types

itself anymore. When we get these types of questions wrong, we could often look at it and say, "Well, I just made a silly mistake because I already knew

that." But actually, there's a very big

that." But actually, there's a very big and important difference between knowing something and being able to retrieve and

use it in a realistic setting. So, as a rule of thumb, if I see a student using flashcards for almost all of their learning and they end up with hundreds

or even thousands of them, I know that they're probably doing more harm than good. Like much more harm than good. So,

good. Like much more harm than good. So,

therefore, to make flash cards more effective, we need to make them better at doing the higher order of learning stuff and make them less overwhelming and also stop ourselves from getting into that pattern where we're just memorizing the flash card rather than

the knowledge. And surprisingly,

the knowledge. And surprisingly, potentially one of the most useful things that you can actually do is to like this video. And the second most important thing is to follow this strategy that I'm about to teach you.

Now, this strategy is very rare. I

almost never really see anyone using flashcards like this, even though it is extremely extremely effective. About 6

years ago, I coached a young athlete.

They were world-class Olympic level athlete, and they had a 30hour per week training schedule. And I was coaching

training schedule. And I was coaching them not on the athletics. I was

coaching them to handle studying for uni and handle all of their learning stuff while they were also doing this crazy training. This person had really no time

training. This person had really no time to sit down and study for long periods of time. The only time they had was a

of time. The only time they had was a 6-hour block on a Saturday where they could get through as much studying as possible. And as a result of that

possible. And as a result of that experience, I learned a lot about microlearning and how to really make microlearning, including flashcards, work for you. And since then, I've taught these principles and techniques

that I'm about to teach you to thousands of students. So, here's how you want to

of students. So, here's how you want to set your learning up. You want to split your dedicated long study sessions into three parts. Now, when I say a long

three parts. Now, when I say a long study session, I think anything more than three or 4 hours, I'd say is a long study session, but it's kind of relative. Like if you're studying 3 to

relative. Like if you're studying 3 to four hours every single day and then your long session is like a 7-hour block on a weekend, then you could call that your long study session. The first part

is targeted review. The second part is consolidation and preparation. And the

third part is preview. In the second part, which is consolidation and preparation, we're going to be covering all the material that we've learned since our previous long study session.

So that could have been maybe a few days ago or even a whole week ago. During

this time, you're going to review your material. You're going to write your

material. You're going to write your notes. This is kind of like the main

notes. This is kind of like the main what we'd normally think of as your normal study time. And if possible, I'd recommend that you use an efficient method for encoding that is nonlinear and multi-order. And if you don't know

and multi-order. And if you don't know how to do that, then I'd really recommend checking out my video on how I studied for my masters where I literally show you exactly how I did it. Now, of

course, as I always talk about, the quality of your encoding makes a big difference to how much you forget and the quality of your knowledge. It's not

something that you can just pick up and learn in 30 seconds. I'm going to teach you the principles. I teach you the techniques in my other videos all the time. You have to actually practice it.

time. You have to actually practice it.

So, if you're sitting there watching this thinking that you can get good at this and know how to do it just by watching videos, that's not going to happen. Okay? Like, it's a skill. It's

happen. Okay? Like, it's a skill. It's

not just a theory. You have to actually put in the practice. Anyway, while

you're going through the material and you're encoding it, you're actually filtering out the information. So, the

stuff that you feel like you can encode, you're going to encode it with whatever method that you're using. And the stuff that you feel like you're going to forget even by using that method or it just doesn't fit, that's the stuff that goes into your flash cards. It's already

different because a lot of people will just dump absolutely everything onto their flash cards. And again, that's kind of as soon as you do that, you're fighting a losing battle. At first, the flash cards you make are going to be simple, just direct recall of facts and

concepts, just kind of the normal way that you'd use flash cards. And if you again have an effective method of encoding, then you should have already less flash cards than before because you'll have less things to just straight

up memorize. But here is where things

up memorize. But here is where things get interesting. Throughout the week, in

get interesting. Throughout the week, in these little pockets of time, you're going to continue to do your flash cards and you should reasonably be able to get through around about 100 to 150 flash cards per week just through these random

little pockets of time. And if you've got more than that, then that probably indicates that your method of encoding is actually holding you back instead. So

that's the trigger for you to go check out my videos on encoding. As you go throughout the week and you're completing the flash cards, you need to mark the ones that you got correct three

times in a row. We want to come back to these later. Most apps have some kind of

these later. Most apps have some kind of like star or flag or some kind of way to kind of just note that flash card. We're

going to want to be able to find all of the ones that we got correct three times in a row. Likewise, if you get a flash card incorrect three times in a row, we also want to flag that one, too. Flag it

something different so you can tell the two apart. Now, in your next long study

two apart. Now, in your next long study session, which is a few days or a week later, we're going to have a list of flash cards that we got correct three times in a row and a list of flashards that we got incorrect three times in a

row. And at the beginning of this long

row. And at the beginning of this long study session, we're going to do our targeted review. Start with the flash

targeted review. Start with the flash cards you got wrong three times in a row. the chances are these flash cards

row. the chances are these flash cards are going to continue to be a problem for you. And so it's not worth it to

for you. And so it's not worth it to just leave it inside your flash card deck and continue to just repeat them again and again. Sometimes getting it right, sometimes getting it wrong. It's

just going to clog up your system. It's

worthwhile to just spend a little bit more time to really consolidate the knowledge in those cards so that you reduce the chances of you forgetting them. For each of these cards, spend 5

them. For each of these cards, spend 5 to 10 minutes per card to go a little bit deeper and to try to connect that fact or concept with your prior existing

knowledge or other parts of the topic or create analogies. We're going to try to

create analogies. We're going to try to build more of a network around this. It

doesn't matter if you can't get through all of your incorrect list. If you

dedicate a part of your study sessions every time to doing this, you're just going to help reduce that flash card burden over time. Now, if you do this and then you still get those flash cards

wrong, then you just do the same process again, but this time you go even deeper and you build even more connections and and create even more of a network around it. This often does mean that you have

it. This often does mean that you have to go a little bit out of scope of the topic, but honestly, it's fine. The time

it takes to go out of scope, but hold on to that piece of information is just going to be worth it. You might also find when you do this that you look at this card and you think, you know what, I don't even really need to know this.

which would be great because then you can just remove it from your system and you don't have to worry about it again.

The more things you can get rid of, the better it is. For the cards you got correct three times in a row, we're going to go through those and merge and upgrade them. We already remember the

upgrade them. We already remember the basic facts, so let's challenge ourselves with a higher level. Take a

look at all the facts and concepts that you got in that correct list of cards and start thinking how some of these cards might be related to each other or influence each other. When you see that

some of these things might be connected, we're going to combine them to create a higher order question instead. For

example, if you got two flash cards correct and one of them said, "How does protein synthesis work?" And the other one said, "How are hormones received by cell receptors?" Then you could fuse the

cell receptors?" Then you could fuse the two of them together to create a question that's like, "Uh, how do hormones influence protein synthesis?"

So, this new card is actually testing on the same basic facts as the original, but now we're also testing on the relationships and influences that they have on each other. So, there are multiple benefits of doing this. Number

one, it just reduces the number of flash cards you've got to deal with. Number

two, it forces you to think about relationships and builds networks. And

number three, it builds on your existing knowledge. And what I mean by that is

knowledge. And what I mean by that is that when you have this kind of mega flash card that's a combination of multiple other ones, you already know that you've got mastery over the foundational information. So when you

foundational information. So when you test yourself on that, it's unlikely that you're going to get like 80% of it right every single time and then just 20% of it consistently wrong. And

because the flash cards are constantly merging and changing as your mastery grows, you're not going to get into that point where you're just so repetitive on it that you're just memorizing only the

flash card. And then as you go, your

flash card. And then as you go, your flash cards should continue to just converge and get upgraded. Now, it does take a little bit of time to set all of this up and use this process, but first

of all, it pays itself off in efficiency gains across really just like one or two weeks. But also, it's probably faster to

weeks. But also, it's probably faster to answer each of these questions cuz it's constantly building on what you already know. And creating these challenging

know. And creating these challenging questions is much easier when you've got that filtered list to work with and you know, you can just see exactly how they could come together. It's easier than just trying to do it from scratch. So,

these two steps, which is the reviewing your incorrect ones and going deeper and then reviewing your correct ones to fuse and take them higher, this is part one,

targeted review. And then in part two,

targeted review. And then in part two, we're going to go through our new material, which is where we're, you know, encoding even more. And then

obviously, we're creating even more flashcards to work with for the week to come. And then part three is the

come. And then part three is the preview. Preview is when you're priming

preview. Preview is when you're priming yourself in the material that you haven't really covered yet is one of the most important parts of studying. If you

had to choose between only doing review versus only doing the preview, I would always say go for preview because it's the thing that's going to stop you from forgetting so much in the first place.

It makes everything easier from that point onwards. You can always catch up

point onwards. You can always catch up on review if you start falling behind, but if you don't do the preview, then you're just constantly going to be falling behind cuz you're just going to forget so much. Preview is ultimately

what stops you from getting overwhelmed.

So, by following the strategy, you will find that your flash cards become more challenging, but in a good way. They're

a lot more engaging and enjoyable. It

helps you to prepare for your exams a lot more comprehensively. It makes

flashcards less overwhelming and overall improves your retention.

So that brings us to the end of chapter one which is about retrieval. In the

next section we are now starting with encoding.

Okay. So um encoding and uh increasing that long-term memory, not being over reliant on space repetition and active recall. Here's how you do it. For those

recall. Here's how you do it. For those

that are new, my name is Dr. Justin. I'm

a medical doctor, a learning coach, and I help students learn to learn. If you

haven't watched my video on the problem to do with active recall and space repetition and this thing called encoding versus retrieval and the idea of cognitive load and all of that sort of stuff, you definitely want to check

that out first. Otherwise, this video isn't going to make as much sense for those of you that have seen it. Okay,

let's dive into some of the basics. Hey,

it's um future me and someone said that I should do a quick introduction about the points I'm going to cover and I forgot to do that. So in this video I'm going to talk about uh the basic principle behind how you can do encoding

and then I'm going to talk about the second point which is to increase your encoding toler tolerance and cognitive load tolerance cuz those are two like fundamental fundamental. It doesn't get

fundamental fundamental. It doesn't get more fundamental than that. They're like

the step zero of do effective encoding.

What you'll find is that I don't talk about specific like techniques like step one, step two, step three, do this like write your notes like this. So, you're

probably going to have questions like, "How do I write my notes?" or "What do I do for this subject?" or "What I do for this subject." And the reason that I

this subject." And the reason that I didn't cover that is because there's like literally hundreds of different variations of this. And so, it's better for me to just teach you the principle.

If it abides by the principles that I talk about in this video, it it's probably going to be okayish. If it

doesn't abide by these principles, then it's definitely not okay. But again,

I've got other videos that I'll post up about, you know, more specific techniques and examples. And this is really just that first step introduction into the basics of encoding which I hope to just build on in future videos.

Anyway, back to the actual thing. Before

we really start, uh it is important to realize that encoding techniques are not easy by nature. Like literally by definition, right? Encoding involves

definition, right? Encoding involves cognitive load and cognitive load naturally feels uncomfortable, naturally feels confusing. So, if you are using an

feels confusing. So, if you are using an encoding technique, especially a new one that you haven't tried before and you're finding that it's hard to wrap your head around and you're just like generally a little lost, that's actually completely

normal. In fact, if you didn't feel

normal. In fact, if you didn't feel that, it probably means you're doing it wrong. So, a lot of students will use an

wrong. So, a lot of students will use an encoding technique for the first time.

Uh they'll give it a go and they feel this and then they back off. They will

give up. They'll say, "Hey, it's not working for me. Uh I'm not getting those results." The results do not come

results." The results do not come immediately. It's kind of like training

immediately. It's kind of like training your muscles. It's kind of like learning

your muscles. It's kind of like learning to play an instrument. It takes time to develop the skill. For some people, that's only a few days. For some people, it's only a few hours, but for most

people, that that that's around a month to two months, and that that can be a little bit daunting, but I do promise that the the result pays off. So, how do we do this whole encoding thing? There

are a lot of different techniques that you can use to encode, but every single encoding technique has to sort of follow a few basic principles. and I'm going to drive them down to just two. Okay. So

the first step is understanding about different orders of learning. There are

low orders of learning and then there are high orders of learning. Deep

processing, higher encoding. This

happens a lot more when we're at the higher order of learning. So encoding is really only happening when you have clear organizational structure in your brain. What that means is that you not

brain. What that means is that you not only know what the information is, but you know how it fits in. There is a way of navigating this information in your brain that makes intuitive and logical

sense. There usually isn't a lot that

sense. There usually isn't a lot that relies on you having memorized things like memorize different groups of anything, it's usually pretty logical.

And so someone that has done a high level of encoding, when they explain something, it sounds very simple. And

you can often get that feeling of like, wow, I never thought of it that simply before. and they can do the classic kind

before. and they can do the classic kind of explaining it to a 5-year-old or explaining it to a 10-year-old and that is a sign generally of someone having a higher order of learning. So, how do we

know what higher order learning is?

There are two different frameworks that we can use to understand this. The first

one is called Bloom's taxonomy and as you can see the lower order learning is really the stuff at the bottom levels, the remembering and the understanding. A

lot of people will say that just memorizing something is not real learning. understanding is when you're

learning. understanding is when you're getting real learning. That's not true because understanding something is still very isolated. When we're doing good

very isolated. When we're doing good encoding, we never want information to be isolated. Every single thing that you

be isolated. Every single thing that you consume, every information that comes into your sensory memory that you shunt into your working memory, again, if this is foreign to you, check out that other video that I mentioned before. All of

that stuff in our working memory, that's going to be forgotten in seconds. We've

got seconds. So, in the in the seconds that that information is in our working memory, that's our opportunity to encode it into our long-term memory. If we miss

that window, we're wasting time. So, we

can't just consume information first and then settle on it and then consolidate it and then try to encode it afterwards.

By then, it's already late. We've

already put it into kind of like a a memorization box. we're already sort of

memorization box. we're already sort of looking at it in terms of stuff to role learn through repetition. And what I found is that students that are generally pretty heavy with the rope

learning or the memorization, if they don't follow this right order, then they are so pulled into their previous habit of just rope learning that it's it's

very very very difficult to break out of and certainly will waste a lot of time.

So step number one as soon as possible we want to just jump to higher order learning and that is something like applying but more so things like

analyzing and evaluating the ideas. So

here's how we work up the ladder and I want you to think about where you spend most of your time thinking. Again we

want to be at those higher levels not just in general but as early as possible. Okay that's that's the key. So

possible. Okay that's that's the key. So

the lower level is about remembering.

This is just like recalling facts and individual details. The next level is

individual details. The next level is about understanding. If you understand

about understanding. If you understand it, you can explain it. The next level above this is applying. So this means solving problems but the problems are

usually pretty uh concept specific like isolated problems testing on just individual concepts. And then we have

individual concepts. And then we have analyzing. So analyzing is the first

analyzing. So analyzing is the first point at which we're starting to take ideas and bring them together and comparing them against each other. So,

it's not just about having one idea and then just understanding that idea really, really well and focusing on understanding that idea. And you'll hear me talk about this in a lot of other videos as well. It's it's about taking

that idea and then looking at it in relation to another idea and comparing and contrasting between them, but not just one or two, but multiple different

ideas and seeing the relationships between them. And then the next step,

between them. And then the next step, evaluating. This is about not just

evaluating. This is about not just comparing and contrasting the ideas but it's about figuring out how we can judge them, how we can prioritize them. So we

might know that we have three concepts that are related to each other. Concept

A, concept B, concept C. And we know that there is a relationship here.

Evaluating would be saying, okay, which of these relationships is actually the most important? Is it this one here or

most important? Is it this one here or is it is it this relationship that's the most important or is it kind of like okay A that leads to B and then A and B

together combined lead to C. Is that the nature of the relationship? So when

you're analyzing you may have an understanding that there is a relationship. You may get an idea that

relationship. You may get an idea that they are connected that they are related to each other that they exert some kind of influence. But when you're evaluating

of influence. But when you're evaluating it means that you understand it much more deeply. you're very explicit.

more deeply. you're very explicit.

You're very clear about what the nature of that relationship is and how important it is in the in the big picture in the grand scheme of things.

So, I want you to start trying to find the similarities essentially doing that level five thinking of uh evaluating or analyzing the information with this next

part. So, another taxonomy that we can

part. So, another taxonomy that we can use apart from blooms is solo taxonomy.

And I personally like this one a little bit more. So if you think about this

bit more. So if you think about this one, this part where we're actually saying that the ideas don't exist in isolation anymore, but we're actually trying to see the connections between

them. We we're getting this in this kind

them. We we're getting this in this kind of relational type of learning. But then

when we actually start implementing the bigger picture, we have an understanding of its significance with the bigger picture. That's now activating higher

picture. That's now activating higher order learning. So in order to do

order learning. So in order to do correct encoding, we always need to try to relate the information to each other and to the bigger picture. So we're

always trying to relate the information to each other and to the bigger picture.

Now for some people this is actually an automatic process that they will do. Uh

students that are already pretty good at encoding, they will naturally do this.

But I found that a lot of the time this process goes sort of subconscious and they will sort of flick in and out of this method of thinking. What I'm saying is that it's actually possible, very

possible. Like I this is legitimately

possible. Like I this is legitimately kind of one of the core principles of a lot of the techniques that I teach is

the idea that you don't actually need to really spend much time at all on the lower levels of thinking. You don't

really need to try to memorize or try to understand something. Now you're

understand something. Now you're thinking, Justin, how am I going to evaluate and analyze and get an understanding of the big picture of something without even knowing what it is? Like how without understanding

is? Like how without understanding something, how will I be able to do that? And the answer is that you can't.

that? And the answer is that you can't.

You can't do that. And that's the point.

Your brain will automatically will automatically fill in the lower order levels of thinking. So the idea here is that you set your goal, your focus, your

objective is to do the higher order thinking as early as possible. By doing

that, your brain will automatically do the memorizing and the understanding and the application of it on the way there without you even trying to do that. And

the benefit of this is that because you have the big picture in mind, the information naturally becomes more organized. Because if you were to do it

organized. Because if you were to do it step by step, if you were to take each individual piece of information, sensory memory into your working memory, you say, "Okay, I'm going to memorize this.

Okay, now I'm going to try to understand it more deeply. Okay, now I'm going to try to apply this and then I'm going to try to see how it fits in the big picture." If you were to do that, then

picture." If you were to do that, then each piece of information is being consumed individually and it's isolated.

And at that point, remember, we've got seconds to encode it from our working memory to our long-term memory. At that

moment we have decided that we are going to look at it in isolation first. And

already our organizational structure is starting off on the wrong foot. So now

we have to spend time to unlearn the way that we had organized it and then find another way to organize it afterwards.

So it's kind of like if you have a really messy room, it's like putting all of your stuff in there first and then going into your messy room and saying, "Okay, let's clean it up." It actually makes more sense to take each individual item, look at all the other items you

need to put into your room, think, "Okay, I can see that I've got a lot of stationery. I probably need to find a

stationery. I probably need to find a way to organize that stationary in my room." So, if you're thinking about this

room." So, if you're thinking about this to begin with, when you pick up your pencil, then you know where it's going to go. So, it's organized to begin with.

to go. So, it's organized to begin with.

It takes a little bit longer to process through the information the first time round, but it's it's it's much incomparably faster and it saves you a lot of time because that information is encoded straight away. And you'll find

that retention can be 80 90. I mean,

I've got some of the um students on my course that are saying that their retention is like 90% plus after 2 3 weeks of not even having looked at it again. And that's far above the uh what

again. And that's far above the uh what the research says is is the just generally accepted norm of around 40 to 60% sort of 50% area. So that's the first thing. Okay, that's the first

first thing. Okay, that's the first thing. So let me just really quickly

thing. So let me just really quickly summarize that is that in order to do good coding you have to you have to try to organize the ideas in relation to the big picture and you do this by comparing the ideas against each other and against the big picture and then creating an

actual organizational system so that each piece of information knows where to fit. So every technique that you use

fit. So every technique that you use should try to leverage off that. That

means you're not just reading something and then just writing notes on it. You

shouldn't be doing that. If you read something and just write notes on it straight away, then you're not letting your brain figure out how to organize it first. You should never really be

first. You should never really be committing anything, you know, into your notes or anything like that until you've figured out a way to organize it in

relation to other concepts and in relation to the bigger picture. Right?

So, we're always looking for those relationships. We're always looking to

relationships. We're always looking to build big picture relevance. Now, it

sounds simple and for some of you, it truly will be simple. And for those of you, you're probably already a pretty good academic achiever yourself. This

part of the message is really for those students that are listening that will struggle with this and and this is the statistical majority, vast majority of students, even some high achieving students, especially at in the high

school level, they're high achieving because they're relying on repetition.

Uh but this is a completely different method of thinking. So you could be a very high achiever, but you may actually still be not that good at encoding. Uh,

and then what you'll find is that as the information gets harder and harder, th this repetition based learning becomes less and less sustainable like I like I talked about in my last video. So for

those of you that are struggling with this method of thinking, just remember what I said before is that it is a skill you do need to, you know, practice it.

And that confusion of thinking how does this fit? How does it come together?

this fit? How does it come together?

Where does it connect? Can I organize it this way or maybe I can organize it this way instead? All of that is good. That

way instead? All of that is good. That

that's learning that's good cognitive load being used and that's actually directly contributing to improving your memory. So that's the first thing. The

memory. So that's the first thing. The

second thing is a much uh smaller point and this is just something that's going to help you do that first thing which is you need to start training your cognitive load tolerance. You need to start becoming more and more familiar

with the idea of keeping information in your brain. When you when you're writing

your brain. When you when you're writing notes, you will get the sensation that as soon as you've written notes about it, there is a sort of burden that's been lifted from your mind. You can kind

of breathe a little bit easier. You can

probably relate to this feeling. That's

not necessarily a good thing. And this

again is pretty nuanced because it it can be good sometimes and it might not be. And again, I've got videos on that

be. And again, I've got videos on that coming up as well. But as a rule of thumb, if you're someone that generally writes notes in a very linear format, uh, and by linear, what I mean is that your notes kind of just look like this.

You might have some bullet points in there as well, uh, but they're pretty pretty linear. You might be typing them,

pretty linear. You might be typing them, uh, you might be using an app like notion or something. The idea is that all of these ways of writing notes are linear and they're usually quite wordy.

So, this method of writing notes is not very effective for a number of different reasons. And if you're doing it that way

reasons. And if you're doing it that way already, you probably have a habit of reducing your cognitive load and offloading it into your notes. And

that's that's not a good thing because it means that yes, you've got a record of it, but you're not actually encoding it. So that again is going to create

it. So that again is going to create future work for yourself and repetition.

It's going to end up wasting a lot of time. What you want to do is you want to

time. What you want to do is you want to get into the habit of slowly increasing your cognitive load capacity. So if

you're finding it really really difficult, if you tending to write a lot of notes, just practice um reading something or listening to something and instead of writing notes straight away,

get into the habit of just holding on to that information a little bit more, taking in a little bit more information and asking yourself the questions, how does that relate to what I just learned?

And then how does that relate to the big picture? Ask yourself these questions.

picture? Ask yourself these questions.

And as you do this more and more, you will start to be able to hold on to more and more information at a time up until a certain point where you'll be able to really read for 15, 20, 30 minutes

without writing any notes. And at the end of it, you can put down a very highly organized, beautifully processed set of notes. And people will look at you and think, man, how did you actually

do that? And that takes time and it

do that? And that takes time and it takes practice. But slowly graduate

takes practice. But slowly graduate gradually just trying to expand your tolerance for cognitive load is very very important skill. Most of the more

advanced encoding techniques require you to be able to have require you to tolerate a certain level of cognitive load uh to be able to do it at at all.

If you don't have a certain level of tolerance, a lot of these techniques are just completely impossible. So this is something that you're going to need to develop as like a very fundamental skill

for any in reasonably if even intermediate encoding techniques. From

this we will be able to build on this.

We'll be in able to incorporate things like chunking. We'll be able to use

like chunking. We'll be able to use nonlinear note-taking like mind maps.

We'll be able to bring them together into something that I call chunk mapping which is a very specific variation of mind mapping that facilitates this uh

chunking process. uh optimally. We'll be

chunking process. uh optimally. We'll be

able to start layering in uh a lot of other techniques like more interle microlearning. We'll see how flash cards

microlearning. We'll see how flash cards can fit into this system. We'll see how we can do our space repetition in a healthy and productive way. We'll learn

how to add on memorization techniques that um supplement this just like wrote learning techniques to fill in any other gaps. We can look at revision

gaps. We can look at revision techniques. All of these things we can

techniques. All of these things we can start layering on. But we can't do any of that unless we patch the hole in the bucket, right? We can't we can't do

bucket, right? We can't we can't do anything else until that hole in the bucket is already at least reasonably patched. And that means we need to start

patched. And that means we need to start getting a system where our encoding is relatively high and we're not forgetting things quite as quickly the first time

we learn it. And this is a process that again it will take you some time, but I also promise that it will contribute uh and and help you and and benefit you.

For those of you that struggle with the idea of like comparing and thinking about the big picture, if you find that you've got way too many relationships, way too many connections, and it's just overwhelming, then what I'd suggest is

that you take it down a notch first.

Think about applying the information first. So we know that applying the

first. So we know that applying the information is not quite as good as that highle evaluation where we're comparing and contrasting and prioritizing different ideas, but it's still a lot better than just the memorization and

understanding. So if you think about

understanding. So if you think about taking information in and just thinking, how can I apply this? How can I apply this? And you focus on that, that will

this? And you focus on that, that will increase your tolerance a little bit.

When you're good at that, then you can bring it up to the next level. All of

the stuff that I've just talked about that I've only briefly mentioned, I have plans to make videos on all of that. And

I've got a lot of examples that I can um work through, stuff that my students have sent me um where where there are very common mistakes and issues that I found that I think you'll find very helpful. I've got all this footage. I

helpful. I've got all this footage. I

just need to sit down and edit them because again, YouTube is not my full-time thing. The the teaching

full-time thing. The the teaching students how to learn, that's my full-time thing. This is just something

full-time thing. This is just something that I do when I have the time and space to be able to do it.

So that was a good first intro to encoding. But now we are going to go

encoding. But now we are going to go into encoding more deeply in more specific contexts. One of the most

specific contexts. One of the most common uh forms of encoding that people often tell me that they struggle with is as they are reading new information and it leads to a lot of frustration because you just end up forgetting everything

that you've read. So to address this in the next section, I'm going to introduce to you a framework called Pacer, which is a really simple framework that you can apply to improve your encoding when

you read, which means you will just remember more of what you read. In this

video, I'll teach you a system for remembering everything you read, study, or learn. I've been using the system for

or learn. I've been using the system for the last seven years starting from learning disease pathophysiology in medical school through to reading research articles and learning science

or uh reading books on productivity or business. And the reason the system

business. And the reason the system works so consistently and so well is because it breaks down that process of reading into two distinct stages. The

first stage is the consumption period and the second stage is the digestion period.

Most people think that by focusing on the first stage and consuming more information, they'll be able to therefore remember and apply more information. So they focus on trying to

information. So they focus on trying to read faster or watching lectures at triple speed or binge listening to audio books or watching hours of YouTube tutorials. But that is not how learning

tutorials. But that is not how learning works. And once we understand how

works. And once we understand how learning does work, you'll see why my system is so effective. You see, when it comes to remembering and applying information, it's much less about what

comes in to your brain and it's much more about how much stays in your brain.

And that is what the second stage, the digestion period, is all about. And it's

the part that is often neglected. So,

I'll teach you a system for mastering both of these stages, which in turn increases your raw retention as well as your ability to actually use the

knowledge in the way that you need to.

But first, we need to ask ourselves, is it even possible to remember everything you read? And the short answer is no.

you read? And the short answer is no.

But here's the secret. Trying to

remember everything we read should not be the goal in the first place. And we

know this because of a man who actually could remember everything. This man's

name is Kim Peak. And his story is so crazy that Hollywood made an entire movie about him. Kim Peak was a mega genius and his memory was ridiculous. He

was able to memorize a book with such perfect recall that after reading a book one time he would be able to write it

out word for word with every comma and full stop back to front. He memorized so many maps and atlases that he could give you driving directions between any two

cities in the world and the path that he gave you was mentally calculated to be the shortest distance. Now the reason Compique had such supernatural abilities is because of a very rare medical

condition he had called FG syndrome. He

was born with macroephily which means he had a larger brain and he had no corpus colosum which is basically the bundle of neurons that connect both hemispheres of the brain together. And scientists

believe that because he didn't have the normal pattern of neurons, his brain adapted and developed new connections to compensate, which I guess gave him like

superhuman memory. Now, I want you to

superhuman memory. Now, I want you to imagine that both you and Kim Peak were about to sit the same exam. Who do you think would do better? And the answer is

that it actually depends on the exam.

You see, despite his superhuman memory, Kim Peak struggled with reasoning and problem solving, which means that if the exam was at the junior levels of

schooling, which often tests on the lower levels of learning, which involve a lot of memorization and recall, then Kim Peak would definitely win. But if

the exam was at a higher level like university or post-graduate where the reasoning and problem solving the higher orders of learning are examined as a

higher priority then you may actually have the edge. Now for most of you listening probably using the knowledge you've consumed to reason and problem solve is kind of the whole point of why

you're trying to read and remember in the first place. which basically means that it is not enough to remember everything which is good because for

most people that's not possible anyway but it is possible to remember everything you need to remember in such

a way that we can use that knowledge in the way we need to and that is what the system that I'll teach you helps you to achieve so to start using the system we

have to understand that not all information is equal. In fact, I break down the information that I read into five different categories using the acronym Pacer.

And it's important to be able to identify which category the information you're reading to belongs to because for each category, there are specific targeted processes that then help you to

deal with and manage that information more effectively. And when we use the

more effectively. And when we use the wrong process for the specific category of information, it makes remembering and understanding what you read much harder,

much more time consuming, and much less effective, and that you're more likely to forget what you read. It also

increases the chance of you entering the passive mode of reading, which is where you get to the bottom of a page and you can't even remember what you just read.

So the system goes like this. In the

first part where we are consuming information, we want to identify which category what we are consuming belongs

to using the pacer acronym. Then during

stage two, we digest what we have read using the targeted process for that category which takes the information and stores it in our long-term memory

through the process called encoding. So

let's go through pacer together so that you can accurately identify the category of information you're trying to remember. The P in pacer stands for

remember. The P in pacer stands for procedural.

And procedural information is any information that tells you how something should be executed. For example, this is a book that I used during medical school that taught me about how to do a

clinical examination like listen to a heartbeat or take someone's blood pressure. And a lot of the information

pressure. And a lot of the information in this book is about the correct technique to perform the examination.

And some subjects and domains have a lot of procedural information. Some great

examples of this would be coding and languages. And the targeted process for

languages. And the targeted process for working with and mastering this type of procedural information is practice.

The key is that you want to apply procedural information in real life as early as possible. A lot of people will spend time to read it and memorize it

and write lots of notes about it and then a week or two later they'll try to practice it, but by then it's too late.

We've already forgotten a lot of it. And

a lot of that time is just wasted.

Instead, as soon as you take that procedural information into your brain, try to apply it and practice it as early as you can. Now, straight away, we run

into a problem with using this approach.

What if we're reading something and we don't have time to practice it right now? The answer is you either move on to

now? The answer is you either move on to something else or you stop consuming anything and you wait until you have

time to practice it. But you do not waste your time trying to just memorize it on the spot. Because here is the crucial part about learning that

everyone overlooks. The two stages of

everyone overlooks. The two stages of consuming and digesting must always be balanced.

Everything you consume must be digested in order for you to retain and use it.

Only when stage one is followed by stage two does learning actually occur. If

we're reading something and we don't have time to use the right process, like practice, then most people will say, "Oh, well, I don't have time right now.

I'm just going to get through as much of it as I can." And they spend more time reading and reading and essentially just consuming more and more. But this is the learning equivalent of overeing. They

haven't had a chance to digest it. So,

they're just going to end up vomiting it all up again through the mental vomiting process we call forgetting. Which is why for most people the amount that they

forget after reading is extremely high with some studies suggesting that up to 90% of what is consumed is forgotten

despite hours of consuming. And if we're forgetting 90% of what we read, rather than consuming more and taking time away

from the digesting, it actually makes more sense to spend less time consuming and more time on the digesting and processing. This increases your

processing. This increases your retention, which therefore increases the amount of working knowledge you're able to build. That's why earlier I said what

to build. That's why earlier I said what goes into your brain is less important than what stays in your brain. And this

principle of balancing stage one consuming with stage two digesting is important not just for procedural information but for every other category

of pacer. Unfortunately stage two

of pacer. Unfortunately stage two digesting is almost completely neglected for the second category of information the a of pacer which stands for

analogous.

Analogous information is actually one of the easiest types of information to work with and remember and apply because

analogous information is the information that is related to something you already have prior knowledge about. And even if

we don't have direct prior knowledge about it, it may remind us indirectly of something that we do have knowledge about. For example, let's say that we

about. For example, let's say that we are an avid swimmer and we're learning about the physiology of a muscle contraction. When we look at that muscle

contraction. When we look at that muscle contraction cycle, we might think, hey, that reminds me a lot about the swimming technique I use. And by connecting the

new information about muscle contraction physiology with what we already know, our swimming technique, we have created an analogy. And so that is analogous

an analogy. And so that is analogous information and analogies can form with any prior knowledge including knowledge within a topic itself. In most fields of

study there are concepts or patterns of concepts and relationships that tend to repeat and recur throughout that field.

You might have learned about how to solve a particular type of problem last semester and now this semester this new problem solving approach that you're learning for the first time reminds you

a lot of that old problem solving process and relating those two approaches is also an analogy. So when

we're engaging in stage one, the consumption period of reading, we want to actively be thinking about whether what we are reading is related to

something that we already have knowledge about. And once we identify it as

about. And once we identify it as potentially analogous information, the targeted process we want to use here is critique.

This is the part I said everyone misses once we create an analogy. Critiquing it

means we examine critically how good that analogy actually is. For example,

with the analogy of muscle contraction and swimming technique, critiquing that analogy means asking ourselves in what way specifically are these two things

similar or related to each other? In

what ways are they different? In what

situation does this analogy not make sense anymore? And if there are a lot of

sense anymore? And if there are a lot of differences or a lot of conditions and situations where the analogy breaks apart, then is there a better analogy or can we extend or modify that analogy to

make it more comprehensive and more accurate? This critiquing process

accurate? This critiquing process massively drives up our retention and depth of understanding of this new information. And the reason this works

information. And the reason this works is because instead of new information just being new information that your brain doesn't know what to do with, we're actually extending it from what we

already know. We're taking our existing

already know. We're taking our existing network and connecting it to the new information straight away. Which is the reason why creating analogies has been shown in studies repeatedly to be so

powerful for our retention and understanding. Now, at this point, you

understanding. Now, at this point, you might be looking at the system and thinking, "This seems a little forced.

It doesn't feel natural." And you're right. In fact, it's crucial that you

right. In fact, it's crucial that you understand that this is not natural. And

that's why it works. If you have no time pressure and it doesn't matter how well you learn something, then you can learn and read however you want. But

unfortunately what research has shown is that there are clear biological limitations of the human brain to how much it can consume and store into our

memory in one go. And in the modern day when there is so much we have to learn, it is very very easy to exceed that biological limit and then get

overwhelmed. Learning is extremely

overwhelmed. Learning is extremely complicated. So to be able to learn a

complicated. So to be able to learn a lot in a short amount of time, reach a high level of knowledge, a lot of processes need to go right. And this is

why most people will plateau on their learning ability and after a point not really improve for the rest of their lives. For me, figuring out what

lives. For me, figuring out what processes to care about and therefore what to improve on and then how to even execute on those correctly took me at

least seven or eight years of almost constant experimentation and reading of research and coaching people to see what works for them. And honestly, I got

lucky because 10, 15 years ago, a lot of the research didn't even exist. Which is

why to make it easier for you, I've started a free weekly newsletter. I take

everything that I've learned that helps you become a more efficient learner. The

things that have the highest chance of giving you success in a short amount of time and I package them in a way that you can take and implement into your own learning in less than 105 minutes. If

you want to sign up for the newsletter, it's completely free. I'll leave a link in the description for you. Now, getting

back to Pacer, you might notice that the way that I've written the A in Pacer is is like this. It's this kind of strange shape there. And the reason is because a

shape there. And the reason is because a the analogous information can exist within as a subset of procedural

information. For example, you could

information. For example, you could create an analogy on a set of instructions to make it simpler and easier for you to understand and then later you go and practice it. But

analogous information also exists as a subset within the next category of information which is the C of pacer and this stands for conceptual.

If procedural information is the how to do something then conceptual information is the what. And for most science subjects the majority of what you need to learn is conceptual. Conceptual

information includes facts and explanations, theories and principles, relationships between concepts, and ways that that concept can be applied. And in

most cases, we need both the procedural and the conceptual knowledge to solve a problem and apply our knowledge properly. For example, although this

properly. For example, although this book goes through how to listen to someone's heart, I still need to have the conceptual knowledge about what I'm

listening to to be able to analyze that and make a conclusion on the diagnosis.

So, when we identify that a piece of text we're reading is conceptual type information, the process we want to use straight away is mapping.

Nonlinear networkbased notetaking such as mind mapping is an efficient way of increasing your attention and mastery of

conceptual knowledge because conceptual knowledge inherently exists in a network. Although a textbook or a

network. Although a textbook or a lecture might be delivered word after word in a linear format, if we look at the mind and knowledge of the person

that wrote that textbook, it doesn't exist in a linear sentence by sentence structure. Their knowledge and expertise

structure. Their knowledge and expertise exists in a highly connected network of information. There is no innate sequence

information. There is no innate sequence of information. An expert can start at

of information. An expert can start at any point and navigate to any other point. This is what allows an expert to

point. This is what allows an expert to do complex problem solving because they can look at a problem, understand what concepts are related, and see how those

concepts connect together to solve the problem. Whereas a beginner who's only

problem. Whereas a beginner who's only learned it at a surface level just sees individual separated concepts and they don't understand how they link together.

As a learner, our job is not to remember the sequence word for word. Our job is to try to recreate that network of knowledge that the expert had. And

mapping is such a great technique because it forces us to not only think about each fact and concept, but also how they connect to each other to form a

bigger picture. So when you are reading

bigger picture. So when you are reading and consuming, take some time to get out a piece of paper or a tablet and make a

map of the things that you're learning.

And as you read more, you add more to your map. You move things around. You

your map. You move things around. You

reorganize things. As you read more, you also digest more and your map grows.

Remember, analogous information can also exist within conceptual information. And

so you might find opportunities within conceptual information to create some analogies and you might want to add those into your map as well. Even if the analogy doesn't make its way into the map, it could give you an idea in terms

of how you want to structure your ideas on your map. Now, here's that same problem again. Let's say you're reading,

problem again. Let's say you're reading, but you don't have time to draw a map or maybe you don't have anything to map on while you're reading. Then again, we

need to slow down and consume less so that consumption and digestion can stay balanced. And if you don't, you'll just

balanced. And if you don't, you'll just end up overwhelmed again and wasting time because not only are you going to forget a lot of what you are consuming,

but now you've given the future version of you more work to do by having to go and figure out what you've forgotten and then reconsume it again. Anyway, now the good news is that the digesting of

procedural analogous and conceptual information is easily the most timeconuming. The E and the R of Pacer

timeconuming. The E and the R of Pacer are much faster and easier to deal with.

I'll talk about E and R together because they're both very similar to each other.

But pay close attention because the two are actually so similar to each other that most people never distinguish between the two and that can lead

directly to hours of wasted time per week. The E and Pacer stands for

week. The E and Pacer stands for evidence.

Evidence type information is the information that helps make conceptual information more concrete. They're often

very detailed, sometimes very technical pieces of information, but they're useful because we can use these facts or

statistics or cases as examples to prove a conceptual point. For example, we could understand conceptually how World

War I started. But we also need to know the evidence information of date certain specific events occurred between which

specific people at which specific location to make that concept more concrete. And the key process for

concrete. And the key process for evidence type information is to store and rehearse.

Store means that you just collect that information and note it down somewhere.

You could add it to your conceptual map or you could add it to a second brain system using something like notion or Rome or obsidian or you could put it onto flashcards. You could even just

onto flashcards. You could even just write them down on a document somewhere with all the other things that you are storing. This should happen as soon as

storing. This should happen as soon as you identify it. So as you are consuming the information and you identify that this piece of information is an evidence

type, we go ahead and straight away store it. The rehearsing part of it

store it. The rehearsing part of it comes a little later. We put aside time to do the rehearsal. And rehearsing the information is the key to improving our

retention of evidence type information.

Rehearsing means that we think about how we will need to use this piece of information. How are we going to apply

information. How are we going to apply it? What type of conceptual information

it? What type of conceptual information is this an example of? We then challenge ourselves by using and applying that information in the way that we will need

to use it. This means solving problems or writing detailed answers to questions or creating explanations, teaching it to other people or maybe writing essays

that use that piece of evidence as a supporting example for a wider concept.

And so while we store the information while we consume it, the rehearsing happens later, maybe at the end of the day or at the end of the week. But do

not waste time while you are consuming trying to just memorize and read and reread and writing copious notes on that piece of information. Otherwise, you are

not going to have enough time for the PA and C the first three types of information which is what forms the foundation of knowledge that the

evidence type needs to build off of in the first place. Now, evidence type information is very similar to the final type which is the R of Pacer and this

stands for reference type information.

Reference information is the easiest to deal with. It is all of the nittygritty

deal with. It is all of the nittygritty very specific detailed bits of information that don't really change your conceptual understanding. They're

not particularly that important. They're

not analogous and they're not procedural. But for whatever reason, we

procedural. But for whatever reason, we might need to know this later. This

might be something like the exact value of a mathematical constant or a specific gene involved in a particular mutation or the name of a very specific molecule

of a disease or maybe a list of attributes used to define a variable for coding. And the process we use to deal

coding. And the process we use to deal with this type of information is the same as for evidence almost. It's store

and rehearse. the same things.

The storing part exactly the same. You

chuck it in a second brain on your flash cards, wherever makes sense for you. But

if you need to be able to record this information from memory and you can't like refer back to your notes when you need to use it, then you probably want to use something like flashcards because

the rehearse part is a little different.

Because reference type information is by definition not very conceptually important anyway. It's quite hard to use

important anyway. It's quite hard to use this for problem solving or as part of like an extended discussion or answer.

The way we are probably going to use this information is just direct fact recall. Which is why something like

recall. Which is why something like flashcards using a space repetition active recall strategy like an app like Anki is going to be the best way to

handle reference type information. So as

you're reading and you're thinking, hey, this might be a reference type information, you dump it into your flashcards and you put aside like 30 minutes every day or whatever to just go

through your flash cards to do your rehearsal. But please again absolutely

rehearsal. But please again absolutely do not waste time while you're reading trying to just read and reread and write notes and just memorize this information

at the time. You need to use that time for the first three which forms the bulk of your knowledge. As I said earlier, there are a lot of things that need to go right to be able to learn a lot of

information in a short period of time.

And wasting time on trying to memorize reference information while you're reading it instead of spending that time on the first three types is one of the

worst offenders. And as soon as you get

worst offenders. And as soon as you get into that mind frame of reading something and then rereading it again, trying to get it into your head, you can say goodbye to your learning efficiency.

So now you know the five types of information for you to try to identify as you consume in stage one and the appropriate targeted process that will help you to digest that information in

stage two. And the key to being able to

stage two. And the key to being able to retain a lot and have a good high level of knowledge for what you have consumed is to keep that stage one and stage two balanced. And I will see you in the next

balanced. And I will see you in the next one.

So by now we've gone through quite a lot of strategies on encoding uh and you should definitely apply them but as you apply them one of the things you'll realize uh and this is a common barrier

for people is that encoding effectively is actually really tiring. It can be mentally quite exhausting and this is actually a good thing. Effective

learning takes effort. It does take up mental energy. But for a lot of

mental energy. But for a lot of learners, always feeling tired when they're learning is quite demotivating.

And you're not going to be able to get much work done or maintain your productivity if you don't know how to basically force your brain through that feeling and still make meaningful learning progress even on the days when

you feel exhausted and tired. So, in

this next section, we're going to go through how you can overcome this. There

is a method of learning that I've been using for years to force my brain to study even when I don't feel like it, especially on days where I am feeling

tired and burnt out. It's called the ladder method. I use this method to

ladder method. I use this method to study learning science while working as a doctor full-time while running a business. I also use this for my

business. I also use this for my full-time masters again while I was working full-time and I managed to graduate at the top of my cohort. It's

probably one of the most useful techniques that I use on a daily basis anyone can use, including you. And I'll

show you how it works on something like this beefy textbook. But first, we have to understand why we don't feel like learning in the first place. And once

you understand that, the latter method will make a lot of sense. Now, there's a reason that we don't feel overwhelmed at the thought of tying our shoelaces or walking 20 steps, but we might get

overwhelmed at the thought of climbing an entire mountain. Even though walking a few steps and tying your shoes are the first steps of climbing a mountain.

What's happening is that our brain is making a judgment on how hard something is going to be and how much effort and energy it's going to require. Our brain

uses a lot of energy. It's the most energyconsuming organ in our body, consuming 20% of our resting energy. So,

it is incredibly efficient at avoiding unnecessary energy intake. Now, when it comes to studying, one of the most energy consuming things that your brain

has to do and therefore doesn't want to do is to organize information. It's a

crucial part of forming memory and developing understanding. So, here's how

developing understanding. So, here's how that works. Imagine these marbles

that works. Imagine these marbles represent new information. Each marble

is a fact or concept that you need to learn. And these cups represent how your

learn. And these cups represent how your brain is trying to organize it. Whenever

you learn something new, your brain has to look at it, understand it, analyze it, and make a decision about which cup it belongs in. It looks at how similar

it is to what is already inside these cups. And it groups this information

cups. And it groups this information based on similarities. And all of this thinking takes energy and we feel that as mental effort. Our brain is working.

And once it figures out where it belongs and then it organizes it, then the mental effort goes down cuz it's stored away. And this process repeats with the

away. And this process repeats with the next piece of information. It looks at, makes a decision, and then decides where we want to store it. And then we repeat

this process until our learning is complete.

So then what part of this makes our brain feel overwhelmed so that we don't feel like studying? Well, imagine if I didn't have any cups at all. Now instead

of picking up a piece of information, looking at it, and asking ourselves, which cup does it go in, we have to ask ourselves, how many cups do I need?

Which cup should I get? What are the alternative options? What else do I need

alternative options? What else do I need to put into this hypothetical cup? And

then what am I meant to do if uh a few more pieces of information later I realize that that was wrong? After all,

I don't know what other options there are because I've only got this one piece of information to work with. And trying

to figure out all of that takes much more effort and energy which creates the I don't want to study feeling. So there

are three main ways that your brain uses lots of energy while learning. First is

to just understand what it is consuming, reading, listening to. The second is to compare it with what you already know.

And then the third is to decide where it's going to put that information.

Where does it belong based on how similar it is or how related it is to the things that you just compared it to?

And trying to do all three of these things at once while you're learning creates overwhelm and is going to be very daunting. So what do we do instead?

very daunting. So what do we do instead?

So let's say that I want to study this chapter in this textbook. Immediately I

look through this and I feel like man there's a lot to cover. Uh I feel like it's going to require a lot of work. I'm

getting overwhelmed and now I don't want to study. This is where the ladder

to study. This is where the ladder method comes in. Based on the ladder method we are going to be breaking up this topic, this chapter based on

different rungs of effort. And each rung on the ladder is low effort. So let me show you this. Here's what I'm doing during this. I'm going through the

during this. I'm going through the textbook and I'm looking for the things that are low effort. I'm saying what are the things that feel easy for me to

understand that I can easily compare with the things that I already know and that I can easily think about and how the topic might be organized. I'm also

using some nonlinear note takingaking to track my thoughts which I talk about in some other videos. I'm also highlighting the parts that I actually focused on just for you to be able to see at the end of this. I wouldn't normally

highlight anything when I'm doing this.

Just a nonlinear notes is fine. You'll

be able to see that, but I'm just trying to show you what I am focusing on and what I am either skimm reading or just completely skipping because I think it would take too much effort to try to

understand or compare or to organize. By

the way, don't worry. This is an old ass textbook uh with highlighting all over the place already. uh I'm not ruining a new book. Okay. So, as you can see, I

new book. Okay. So, as you can see, I have skipped basically, you know, like most things. If you look at the parts

most things. If you look at the parts that are highlighted, most of it has been skipped. You know, it's pretty

been skipped. You know, it's pretty bare. However, I have managed to with

bare. However, I have managed to with just the parts that I focused on build a pretty decent scaffold for me to work off of. And so this topic has become a

off of. And so this topic has become a little bit easier for me now than it would have been 10 15 minutes ago. So if

I'm really tired, I can call that a day.

I can end on that rung of the ladder and I can pick up the second rung another day. Or if I want to, I can just do the

day. Or if I want to, I can just do the second rung now. And on the second rung, I'm going to do exactly the same thing.

I'm going to look for the things that feel easier and feel lower effort. I'm

going to build on my scaffold and build up on my knowledge. But the difference is that it's going to take a little bit longer. Each successive rung on the

longer. Each successive rung on the ladder takes a little bit longer because now more things make sense to us than they did before. And we're probably ready to go into a little bit more

detail. Having said that, it is still

detail. Having said that, it is still low effort because now I've established some of those major cups I need to fill.

So, let's now do the second run.

All righty. And that was about 35 minutes that I spent on that. So, you

can see the second rung took a little longer. I was able to get through more

longer. I was able to get through more detail. What was surprising in a way is

detail. What was surprising in a way is that the second rung when I went through it, there wasn't a lot more stuff that I felt like I was going through, but it was more like I was just going through the same ideas but deeper and really

figuring it out. And you can see that a lot of the time was spent on just organizing the information. So you can see of the ways that our brain can use energy. Before I was using a lot of that

energy. Before I was using a lot of that energy on just trying to understand things and put things together in a very general rough way. again just figuring

out maybe how many cups I need roughly.

And in the second rung, I'm now refining that. I'm spending more of that energy

that. I'm spending more of that energy not on just understanding but now really on just making sure those decisions and those comparisons are correct. So same

amount of effort just used in a different way depending on the run. Now

the third time I go through it should be enough to cover off this topic. I'd be

going through a little bit more of those details either adding them to my map or adding them to flashcards depending on the type of information. most topics I find you generally can get through all of it in just three rungs of the ladder.

And so here's the secret as to why this technique works so well. It's because

each rung takes the same effort as the last rung and I'm splitting all the work that I'd need to do for this topic into each rung. It makes every study session

each rung. It makes every study session easy cuz we're just not letting ourselves spend time on things that are hard. But also, it gets easier the more

hard. But also, it gets easier the more you do it. Even though with each rung we're covering more content and more detail, it's easier to make sense of it

because our cups and our structure and our foundations are so strong. The more

you learn, the easier it gets. You can

also apply the same approach for projects or assignments as well, where you start with the easy highlevel planning first and you progressively get more and more detailed with each rung of

the ladder. Now, this is just one type

the ladder. Now, this is just one type of way that you can use the ladder method and there are so many other applications of this principle that I teach in my full guided program. But for

someone who has never tried studying like this, it is a complete gamecher. By

the way, if you are interested in my program, you can check out the link in the description. There's this technique

the description. There's this technique and dozens of other techniques that you can learn. Once you start using this

can learn. Once you start using this ladder method a couple of times, your brain will realize, hey, studying isn't that bad. and it'll make you less likely

that bad. and it'll make you less likely to put things off and less likely to procrastinate.

Now, once you've improved your ability to encode uh and encode even when you are tired, you're now ready to learn a few more slightly more advanced encoding

strategies. And to round off chapter 2,

strategies. And to round off chapter 2, here are 12 more advanced encoding strategies that you should learn and apply.

I've been a learning coach for the past 13 years and I found that proper encoding is one of the most important abilities for any student or professional to master. If you have a

strong encoding ability, you are able to remember more of what you learn and to a deeper level. But if you're weak at

deeper level. But if you're weak at encoding, you could be wasting hundreds of hours every year. In fact, I've coached over 30,000 learners and I found that strong encoding skills are so

important and rare that it is a hallmark of what we call genius. So that person you remember from your class who never

studied and remembered everything that is strong encoding and you can learn it by following these 12 rules. Rule number

one, stop fighting your brain. Encoding

is the word that we use anytime that your brain forms memories with new information. And your brain is actually

information. And your brain is actually really good at doing this if we stay out of the way. Anytime there's new information that comes in and we want to

learn it, our brain starts the process of encoding and what it wants to do to put it into our long-term memory is see where it fits. It's like putting a book

on a library shelf. There is a organizational structure. There is a

organizational structure. There is a logic to it. And when our brain is able to see where this new information fits and how it's relevant and how to

organize it into our memory, that's when we feel like it makes sense. That's when

we feel like, okay, I understand it and I feel like I'm going to hold on to this. When it doesn't fit anywhere,

this. When it doesn't fit anywhere, that's when it feels like I don't know what to do with this. I'm not sure how this is relevant. And you can feel that you are about to forget it. And your

brain is not going to hold on to that piece of information because there's no need to. And it's very important that it

need to. And it's very important that it doesn't just use up energy on just holding on to every scrap of random piece of information that it gets hit with. And so your brain is trying to

with. And so your brain is trying to organize and make sense and place information somewhere that it belongs, where it connects, where it's relevant,

where it influences other things. And

then for the things that don't fit anywhere, it says this is not worth keeping and then it's going to throw it away. Good. Good brain. And so now if

away. Good. Good brain. And so now if you take that information that was just thrown away and forgotten and then you tell your brain, "No, you need to

remember this. Put it back in." And it

remember this. Put it back in." And it still doesn't fit anywhere. And so your brain forgets it again. And then you pick it up again and you say, "No, you

need to remember this." That process is extremely inefficient. You are having a

extremely inefficient. You are having a shouting match with your brain. And this

is basically the spectrum of the quality of encoding. On one end you have

of encoding. On one end you have techniques, methods of learning, notetaking, listening, reading that help

the brain to see how it connects to create structure and to organize it. And

on the other end, you've got techniques where you are not helping to connect it.

You're not seeing the big picture. There

is nowhere for it to fit. you're just

repeatedly smashing it into your brain.

And that's a process we call wrote memorization. Being a good encoder is

memorization. Being a good encoder is about realizing that that is not going to help with our memory compared to finding a way to make it more relevant

in the first place. And you have to make that switch because the second rule is to prevent learning debt. Learning debt

is what happens when you keep fighting your brain. So let's say that this is us

your brain. So let's say that this is us and we're going to learn a new piece of information which is this square. It

goes into our brain and initially we feel like we don't know how it's relevant. If we keep fighting our brain,

relevant. If we keep fighting our brain, it's going to stay irrelevant which means our brain is going to continually forget it. It's going to put it in the

forget it. It's going to put it in the dump.

And so what do we need to do later?

Well, later we now need to spend time to look at what's in the dump. We need to then spend time to learn it again. We

need to spend time to think about it and realize, oh, it's still irrelevant. And

we need to spend time to repeat it and tell our brain, no, you need to hold on to this. And so, what's your brain going

to this. And so, what's your brain going to do? Well, it's still irrelevant. So,

to do? Well, it's still irrelevant. So,

it's just going to forget it again. And

then this entire process has to repeat again and again and again. And this is all wasted time. By not taking the time

here to turn this irrelevant information into something that we think is relevant, we have created all of this

debt for ourselves. Learning that we just put off until later and now the future version of us has to pay that off. And if you have a habit of creating

off. And if you have a habit of creating learning debt where your ability to learn depends on how much repetition you can do later, it's very difficult to

ever improve your encoding because every time there is the opportunity to practice the skill and make the irrelevant relevant, we just say, "Nope, I'll just deal with that later." And so,

what's one way that you can break this habit? What's one way that you can make

habit? What's one way that you can make it easier to turn the irrelevant into the relevant? Well, this is rule number

the relevant? Well, this is rule number three. Don't overeat information. I

three. Don't overeat information. I

often talk about learning as a two-phase process. Consuming and digesting.

process. Consuming and digesting.

Consuming is what gives you the information. Digesting is what makes

information. Digesting is what makes that information something that sticks in your memory that you can use. That's

basically what encoding is. Digesting

and encoding in this example are the same thing. And so this is what I mean

same thing. And so this is what I mean by overeing information. And it's very easy to do this. Everyone falls into this trap at some point. If you are sitting there in a lecture and you're

listening for an hour, dense information coming in, and then afterwards you go and read through a textbook for another hour. Again, lots of information coming

hour. Again, lots of information coming in. And at that point, you decide, okay,

in. And at that point, you decide, okay, I'm going to get all this information that I've collected, and I'm now going to start trying to see how it fits together, making it feel more relevant,

connecting the dots. You are already overeing. That is going to be much more

overeing. That is going to be much more difficult and more timeconuming and overall less efficient than just digesting constantly but frequently throughout

that entire process. So, as you're listening, listen, listen, listen. take

some information and then try to piece it together even in a very simple way. A

little summary, a little synthesis, a tiny mini mind map and then you go back to listening and collecting information.

Getting into the habit of constantly trying to digest what you're consuming and making sense of it as you go creates

this snowball effect of learning. As you

learn more, more things start to make sense to you. you start seeing patterns and trends. And so the new information

and trends. And so the new information that comes in becomes easier to connect because you've got a better foundation.

You've got more anchor points to connect to. And so as you get more and more

to. And so as you get more and more information, learning becomes easier and easier. On the other hand, if you just

easier. On the other hand, if you just consume for a really long time and then try to digest all of that at once, instead of having two or three concepts that you're trying to put together,

you're now working with 25. and it can feel really overwhelming and cognitively taxing to work through all those possible interactions and relationships

and make it work. This is also one of the reasons why I always recommend if you can to pre-study before entering into something like a lecture or a workshop. It gives you the opportunity

workshop. It gives you the opportunity to just consume a little bit some of the most important things and to digest that in your own time so that when you come to the live event which might be a

little bit faster pace, harder to keep up with, you have that foundation to work off. That snowball has already been

work off. That snowball has already been built. If pre-study is not already part

built. If pre-study is not already part of your learning system, I highly recommend it. And if you're not sure

recommend it. And if you're not sure about your current learning system and you're not sure how to improve your learning system, I also have a free learning system diagnostic quiz that you

can take. Everyone has some learning

can take. Everyone has some learning system whether you know it or not. But

that learning system may not be the best. This quiz helps you to map out

best. This quiz helps you to map out your learning system across five important domains of learning among which encoding and pre-study are part of it. And at the end, it even actually

it. And at the end, it even actually gives you a score for your encoding skills. So, if you're interested in that

skills. So, if you're interested in that quiz, it's completely free and I'll leave a link in the description below.

Now, the next four rules are actually tactics. There are four types of

tactics. There are four types of thinking that you can do that will force you into more effective encoding. So, if

you took that quiz before and let's say your encoding score was like 10%, then just doing these four tactics could increase that to maybe 50 or 60%. So,

starting with rule number four, simplify everything. Here's the trick.

everything. Here's the trick.

Stop trying to remember or understand what you read or hear. And I know that sounds really counterintuitive if you're new to this because it feels like, well,

that's kind of the whole point of learning is to remember and understand it.

Being able to remember and understand something is a side effect of doing the right type of thinking. Just trying to remember something and trying to

understand it is actually not the most effective way to achieve that.

Confusing, I know. On the other hand, if you try to simplify it, if that's your number one goal for any new piece of information that you hear is you're just

trying to simplify it, then your brain will automatically go through the right motions and processes that allow you to understand it and remember it better

than if you were just trying to remember and understand to begin with. Even if

you incorrectly simplify something, the work that went into trying to simplify it will make your memory of it stronger when you get the correct version. And

this is especially useful for really dense technical complicated information.

Like I remember going through medical school reading these definitions like anaphilaxis is a life-threatening severe systemic hyper sensitivity reaction

involving IG mediator. Like it's like okay so basically your immune system hits the panic button. You know, being able to frame something that initially is complicated in a way that it's just simpler and more intuitive to understand

allows you to work with that concept more easily. And this is really

more easily. And this is really important because the next rule, rule number five is to compare everything.

Before I talked about how good encoding means making the irrelevant relevant.

Well, this is the first part of how your brain creates relevance. Your brain

fundamentally operates in networks, which means that information is only meaningful because of its relationship to other pieces of information. You

might say, "My house is really important to me." Why? Because of the implication

to me." Why? Because of the implication it has on shelter and stability and security and warmth and all these other

things. So forcing ourselves to compare

things. So forcing ourselves to compare new information with another piece of new information or to compare it with something that we already know. This is

basically opening up our brain in the networks within it to this new one to see where it can fit. We're actively

looking to give it meaning by finding similarities and differences. And once

you've done that, once you've been able to simplify something and then see the similarities and differences of this piece of information compared to this other piece of information, then we're

ready for the next step, which is rule number six, connect everything. Once we

go through this process of trying to simplify and trying to compare all these different concepts with each other, then we can actually see how they connect with each other. We start seeing the influences and the impacts and the

implications. We start building the

implications. We start building the network. We are creating memory. And I

network. We are creating memory. And I

deliberately use the word everything when I say simplify everything, compare everything, connect everything because you have to do this consistently. It's

not simplify when you feel like it. It's

not compare things when it feels obvious. It's every single time. A

obvious. It's every single time. A

strong encoder is someone who has a habit of every piece of information that comes into their brain. They are

examining it. They are trying to simplify, compare, and connect it. And

sometimes they're not successful. They

don't know how to make it simpler. They

don't see what it's similar to at all.

They don't see how it could connect with anything else. And this is what makes

anything else. And this is what makes good encoders also have really good questions. The question is not just,

questions. The question is not just, hey, what does this mean? It is, hey, this seems kind of similar to this thing, but also very different from it,

and I feel like it might connect with this other thing, but I'm not sure. It's

much more targeted. And at a certain point, if you are encoding the right way and you're doing following these steps, you will feel that at a certain point,

there are a lot of connections and similarities that are overlapping. And

that's actually a good thing because that means you're ready for the next step and it's the fourth tactic. Rule

number seven, group everything. Before you group

group everything. Before you group things, this is what your organization, your mind map, how your thoughts are currently organized. Something like

currently organized. Something like this. It's this kind of complicated

this. It's this kind of complicated network of all these different things that are connected together. And yes,

there's connection, but it's also so overwhelming that there's no way we're going to be able to remember this.

Grouping is about taking this and then simplifying it. Again, making it easier

simplifying it. Again, making it easier for us to hold on to and package into our memory. And the way we do this is by

our memory. And the way we do this is by looking for these patterns of shared similarities. So, for example, we might

similarities. So, for example, we might see that these three items here are actually connected to each other. So

maybe they actually share a single similarity and that could be the name of the group that they form underneath. So

instead of representing it like this, if we look at all the different shared similarities, we can actually simplify the exact same network down to something that looks a little bit more like this.

And so this is actually preserving all those same connections. But look at how much more organized this looks and how much easier it is to remember. And so

again, this is that digesting. It's

about not necessarily taking in any new information. It's about looking at the

information. It's about looking at the information you've already got and then looking for these patterns and these trends and doing that deep thinking. And

that thinking is you doing the encoding.

The very process of looking for ways to organize it, of creating groups, realizing that those groups don't make sense and therefore thinking of a different group. That is the encoding

different group. That is the encoding process. And so that the time spent

process. And so that the time spent doing that leads to better memory, leads to a deeper understanding, saves you hundreds of hours every single year that

you spend studying just through how much it improves your attention and efficiency. And the awesome thing is

efficiency. And the awesome thing is that a genius is able to do these steps.

They are looking for comparisons.

They're making connections. They're

grouping and they're simplifying. And

they're doing it automatically.

Sometimes they're not even aware that they're actively doing it. But by

teaching you these techniques, you can do the same thing. You don't have to be born with it. Even if you're not built different, you can build differently.

And I'm really making this uh a point and I'm emphasizing this because of the next rule, which is rule number eight.

Get used to thinking hard. By this

point, I think you've realized that this is a lot more mental effort. Digesting

it takes effort. It takes concentration to be able to do this. It is a lot easier just to read through, speed read some textbook, listen to a lecture on

three times speed, and just smash your face infinitely into flashcards. But

there is a reason most people are not very efficient at learning. Because

getting to the point where you're efficient at learning means doing this stuff, doing the hard work, and getting used to thinking at that level. And one

day it will become a habit. And so

thinking at that level will be just as easy as however you're thinking now if you're not at that level. But if cutting down on wasted time while learning, improving your attention, getting a

deeper understanding, being able to solve more complex problems, if these are things that you've struggled with, you're not at the level that you want to be quite yet, you have to go through

this process. There's no way that you

this process. There's no way that you will reach that result without going through this path of getting used to thinking like this. Now, on to rule

number nine, which is to do everything again.

Learning is endless, which means that encoding never ends. Just because you created a

never ends. Just because you created a nice mind map, created a nice network for what you have learned right now doesn't mean that that's where it ends.

And you may have done a lot of hard thinking. You're sweating bullets.

thinking. You're sweating bullets.

Unfortunately, we have to keep going. As you learn more, as you get even more detail, as your knowledge deepens, as you realize there might be gaps or mistakes in the

way that you encoded the information, you have to then re-evaluate what you've constructed and then restructure it.

There have been many times where I've created a mind map of something and I feel like it makes a lot of sense. I

test myself and I realize I got it wrong. And even at a micro level, you

wrong. And even at a micro level, you know, I was talking about how you need to be consuming and then digesting frequently. So you take a little bit in

frequently. So you take a little bit in and then you digest it and then you take another little bit in and then you digest it. That process of digesting.

digest it. That process of digesting.

What that really means is take in a little bit of information, couple of concepts, simplify them, compare them, connect them, group them together, and

then take in the next bit. With that

next bit, you now simplify that, compare it, connect it, and then group it. And

what will happen is that as you are continuing to collect and consume more information, you realize that the way you grouped and connected it before

isn't enough. You have to re-evaluate

isn't enough. You have to re-evaluate your groups to encompass the new information. And so mentally you are

information. And so mentally you are constantly I I mean literally if you're an effective learner who can encode

efficiently, you are constantly in a cycle of simplifying, connecting, comparing, grouping, taking new information in and then doing it all over again. And this is why rule number

over again. And this is why rule number eight is really important. You have to get used to thinking hard. But the good news is that even though it might sound really overwhelming to just constantly

be doing this, it's actually easier than you might think. The hard part is just setting up those initial habits. Once

you have your habits of simplifying and comparing and connecting and grouping things together, it's straightforward to just keep thinking in that way. And at

that point you will feel that the control you have and how strong you can make your memory and how deeply you can understand something is a rare skill

that most people you encounter will not have. Now this next rule is actually uh

have. Now this next rule is actually uh another tactic that helps you to do all of those previous ones using a single

technique which is to use better analogies. Creating an analogy is

analogies. Creating an analogy is actually like a magical technique.

Anytime you want to create an analogy, you have to simplify the information, compare it, connect it, and group them, you have to to create an analogy. Now,

you can't just rely on only using analogies for the rest of your life. But

having that as one tool to achieve this as part of your learning toolkit is incredibly valuable. Now, why do I say

incredibly valuable. Now, why do I say to make better analogies? Well, it's

because a better analogy makes your learning even more effective. It takes a powerful technique and really supercharges it. So, what is a better

supercharges it. So, what is a better analogy? A better analogy is one that is

analogy? A better analogy is one that is more comprehensive in that it involves more of the key details and concepts of what you're trying to learn while being

simple and also accurate. And it's

balancing these three parts of an analogy that can be challenging.

Whenever you create an analogy, it's often very simple to make a simple analogy for only two or three concepts and how they relate to each other. But

once you start adding additional concepts and more factors and more conditions, then our analogy grows.

Suddenly it's not just learning is like eating and then digesting. It's like,

but then there's also depends on how spicy the food is and then what you ate before and whether you know you're already full and how far you are from the toilet. And so now the analogy just

the toilet. And so now the analogy just becomes itself like a whole thing to try to memorize. And so that's why we need

to memorize. And so that's why we need to make it simple. But then if you make it too simple, you actually start losing accuracy. And so, as you probably have

accuracy. And so, as you probably have guessed by now, when you're trying to make a really comprehensive, while simple, while accurate analogy, the thought process and the effort that goes

on mentally to see whether it makes sense and to make it meet those conditions, that is also helping with your encoding. Now, the next rule is

your encoding. Now, the next rule is something that makes everything that we've talked about easier to do. It is

your best friend when it comes to learning, which is note-taking.

Rule number 11 is to use notetaking as an offload. If you're carrying like five plates of food and you're about to

drop them, you give a couple of those plates to your friend. You let them carry it so that you can focus on what you can hold. When it comes to learning, note takingaking is that friend. While

the human brain is extremely powerful, it also has very well-defined limits and it is not good at holding on to multiple

pieces of information at the same time.

So, if you're trying to balance like 12 different concepts and see how all of these concepts can be simplified and compared and connected with each other, there are probably very very few people

in the world that could manage that for new complex information just mentally.

So, the way that we use our note-taking needs to be in the realm of hold on to this thought for me. Here are a few concepts. Maybe they relate together.

concepts. Maybe they relate together.

I'm just going to jot that down so I don't have to hold on to that. Could it

be like this? Could it be connected like this? Where does this fit? Jot that

this? Where does this fit? Jot that

down. Get to the habit of thinking on paper. And there are two huge advantages

paper. And there are two huge advantages to how this helps with your encoding.

Number one, it actually makes it cognitively easier because you can literally see the thoughts on paper and you can actually, you know, visualize it. You can move things around. You're

it. You can move things around. You're

not spending so much time just trying to remember and juggle the information mentally. The second thing is that your

mentally. The second thing is that your notes start becoming a reflection of your mind. After all, it is a mind map.

your mind. After all, it is a mind map.

And this is really useful because you can then look at your notes to find gaps in your knowledge or areas where your memory is going to be weaker by just evaluating the types of connections. If

you see this straggly piece of information way out there that's not connected to anything, you know that you're likely to forget that and that you're not going to be able to solve complex problems with that information.

That becomes a weak point. You don't

even need to test yourself. You can look at your notes to find areas of weakness in your knowledge.

I think that's pretty cool. And learning

to do that is crucial because of the next rule, which is rule number 12.

Challenge your hypothesis constantly. You will never know you are

constantly. You will never know you are wrong until you know you are wrong.

Every piece of knowledge we're crafting, every network we're forming is just a hypothesis. This is just how we think

hypothesis. This is just how we think that knowledge is structured right now.

I've been studying about learning science for a pretty long time now, like 13 years, and everything I know about learning is still I think of it as a

hypothesis. I'm willing to challenge any

hypothesis. I'm willing to challenge any part of how I think learning works when new information comes in. This is what allows me to be flexible and adapt my

structures very freely. And it is this mindset, the willingness to constantly challenge your hypothesis and to constantly challenge how you have

understood something that allows your expertise to keep growing quickly. When

we don't challenge our hypothesis, it makes our knowledge very rigid. Mistakes

and gaps in our knowledge stay hidden.

Especially when you're just starting a new topic, everything's a hypothesis.

There's almost no chance you're going to get right the first time. But if we group it a certain way and connect it a certain way and we say, "Okay, well, now that I've connected it and now that I've grouped it, I'm just going to keep it

like that and we continue to learn things that suggest that maybe this group is not the best, unless we stay open to the fact that this was just a

hypothesis, we're not going to change it. This becomes rigid. So the mistakes

it. This becomes rigid. So the mistakes and the misunderstandings that we formed early on stay there. They become the foundation where all the additional knowledge is built on top of. So those

are the 12 rules to dramatically boost your encoding abilities. And if you're listening to it and you're thinking it doesn't sound simple, it doesn't sound

sexy and quick to just apply it.

That's what learning is. If you're

looking for a shortcut to learning, I'm sorry to say that it doesn't exist. But

there is a path which is up to you to take. Thanks for watching and I'll see

take. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one.

So that brings us to the end of chapter two on encoding and we'll now move on to chapter three which is about mind mapping. Mind mapping is technically

mapping. Mind mapping is technically just a strategy that's used to help with encoding. It's just a note-taking

encoding. It's just a note-taking strategy. Uh however, it's its own

strategy. Uh however, it's its own chapter because it's a complex skill and there's a lot of things to do uh correctly to get the full benefit from it. And it's also going to build on the

it. And it's also going to build on the encoding strategies and principles that we've already talked about uh in the previous sections. But in this chapter,

previous sections. But in this chapter, we're going into more detail with some more step-by-step instructions. We're

going to start with this kind of general but comprehensive guide on how to do the perfect mind map. I've taught people to mind map for over 10 years. I've made

hundreds of mind maps myself and reviewed thousands more as a coach. It's

a skill that's allowed me and my students to not only get top results, but to do so efficiently and without spending every waking hour studying. So,

in this video, I'll show you my six-step framework for mind mapping, which I call grind. And each step of this framework

grind. And each step of this framework helps you unlock a different learning outcome. Following these six steps

outcome. Following these six steps correctly will help you create the perfect mind map, which allows you to have a deep and nuanced understanding of

a topic much more quickly than what it would normally take you, as well as a stronger memory on what you've learned and the ability to apply what you've learned in deeper, more nuanced ways.

But first, we need to clear up a common misunderstanding and talk about what a perfect mind map even is. is. And once

we understand what a perfect mind map actually means, creating one becomes much easier. You see, the perfect mind

much easier. You see, the perfect mind map is less about the mind map and more about the process you use to create it.

Let's say you took one of the mind maps that I created and got first in class and then you imported that into your own notes. Would you do just as well with

notes. Would you do just as well with just that? Probably not. And that's

just that? Probably not. And that's

because you can't just copy paste knowledge from one person's brain into another. Well, at least not yet.

another. Well, at least not yet.

Learning is not something that happens automatically or even naturally in some cases. Learning is a series of processes

cases. Learning is a series of processes that we have to deliberately engage in.

Great learners are ones that have a lot of great processes and bad learners are ones that are either not engaging in enough processes or they're wasting time

with the wrong processes. And when we engage in the right effective processes, the side effects of that are better understanding, better memory, and a

better ability to apply what we've learned. When we use the wrong

learned. When we use the wrong processes, that's when we can spend hours and hours reading and writing notes and not really having any benefit on our memory or our understanding or

our ability to use knowledge. So, what

most people don't appreciate is that the point of mind mapping isn't to have a mind map. The mind map itself is not the

mind map. The mind map itself is not the knowledge. Mind mapping is a skill that

knowledge. Mind mapping is a skill that helps us engage in the right thinking processes to build the knowledge. And

that concept is distilled in my six-step grind checklist. When we create a mind

grind checklist. When we create a mind map following grind, we effectively force our brain to engage in high efficiency in coding, which is basically

the technical term for our brain turning information into memory. So let's start with the first step of grind which is also one of the most fundamental processes that you should ever do in

learning. There's almost no situation

learning. There's almost no situation where you should not be doing this. And

step one of grind the G is grouping.

Grouping is simply arranging related ideas together. So, for example, if I

ideas together. So, for example, if I have these pens, then grouping just means that I'm categorizing them somehow and putting the categories together. The

hard part, which takes thinking and therefore promotes learning, is figuring out what kind of grouping I want. For

example, I could group these pens based on color, or I could group them based on how much ink is left in them. Or I could even group them based on sentimental

value. Uh, this one I got as a as a

value. Uh, this one I got as a as a gift, and this one I just found off the floor. So, you see, the way that we

floor. So, you see, the way that we think about how these items are similar or related to each other affects the groups we arrive at. The point is that

there are always multiple ways that we can group information and the right way for you and your memory is not always the first or most obvious one even if

that's the way that it's taught to you.

So if we have a look here are some mind maps that do not have much grouping going on. And now we have a look at some

going on. And now we have a look at some mind maps that do have grouping. When we

create groups to organize information, it has a twofold benefit. The first one is that the process of grouping and figuring out how I want to arrange the information promotes a stronger memory

and depth of understanding. But in

addition, the fact that we have organized the information in these categories makes it easier for our brain to then retain and access that information again in the future. In

other words, we not only benefit from having these groups in our memory, but the process of making the groups themselves is also beneficial. In the

learning science research, you'll often hear the benefits of grouping referred to by terms like chunking or scaffolding or creating mental models or information schemas. And as more and more research

schemas. And as more and more research comes out, we're increasingly finding that grouping is critical for promoting a strong memory. Now, these days with

AI, there are actually some ways that we can kind of cheat this step and get the AI to group things for you. And there

are definitely some ways that you can use AI to help you, but there are some ways that it can harm you instead. I'll

show you the right way to use AI later uh right after I go through the other steps of grind. Now, step two of grind is something that we already started doing back in step one while we're

grouping, but here we take it to the next level. The R in grind, step two,

next level. The R in grind, step two, stands for relational. We want to make our mind maps relational. Relational

means we're thinking about how ideas are related to each other and we're expressing that on our mind map. And

there are broadly three levels of relationships that we can form while mind mapping. In level one, we have too

mind mapping. In level one, we have too few relationships. And here's an example

few relationships. And here's an example of that. Now at level two we are having

of that. Now at level two we are having too many relationships. It's getting

overwhelming and that's what it looks like here. And then in level three we

like here. And then in level three we have a good amount of very organized relationships. And it's the fact that

relationships. And it's the fact that you can actually have too many relationships that makes this second

step tricky. Here's why. A relationship

step tricky. Here's why. A relationship

can be any way that two facts or concepts relate to each other. This

could be a influence that they have on each other. It could be a cause and

each other. It could be a cause and effect relationship. It could be a

effect relationship. It could be a chronological relationship like step one or step two or any other conceptual link. Which means there are really a lot

link. Which means there are really a lot of different ways that two things or three things or an entire topic can be related to each other. So it's not

enough just to know that two things are related. We have to understand the

related. We have to understand the nature of that relationship. When we put down just every relationship we can find, that's when it ends up looking

like that level two where there's too much going on. We have to consciously decide which relationships are important enough for us to put down on the mind

map. And that's a decision that we need

map. And that's a decision that we need to make. Now, the reason that the grind

to make. Now, the reason that the grind checklist is so effective is because each step of grind influences the other steps. So, for example, depending on the

steps. So, for example, depending on the types of relationships we want to emphasize, it also affects the groups we will form. So, if we take this example

will form. So, if we take this example of uh a medical disease, this is the method of grouping and the types of relationships that are a little bit more obvious. This is usually how it will be

obvious. This is usually how it will be taught in a textbook. But here is that exact same topic and the same information arranged differently by looking at

different types of relationships which leads to different types of groups and you can see that the two look very different to each other and that reflects it being organized in a

different way in our mind. Now there's

no right or wrong answer. It's the

process of trying to figure out which is best for me that promotes that stronger memory and depth of understanding.

You'll also see later on how the other steps influence your grouping and relationships as well. Now, the third step of the grind checklist is something that should naturally occur if we did

step one, the grouping, and step two, the relationships properly. But if we do happen to miss step three, then we'll find that we know each individual

concept pretty well, but we struggle to apply that information, especially in more complex problem solving, having deeper discussions, or just trying to use that knowledge in a way that's

different to how it was just directly taught to you. So, if you've ever felt that way about what you've learned, then step three is the one you need to look out for. And step three, the I in grind

out for. And step three, the I in grind stands for making our mind maps interconnected.

Once we have formed the groups and relationships in step one and step two, we need to make sure that the groups themselves are related and connected to

each other to create an overall structure aka a big picture understanding of the topic. And here's

an example of a mind map that has done step one and step two correctly. So

there are groups and there are lots of relationships but it's not very well interconnected. You can see that there

interconnected. You can see that there are these really dense uh bodies of relationships but the overall connection between each group is relatively weak

and loose. When we zoom out it's a

and loose. When we zoom out it's a little hard to see how that entire topic comes together. This is a pattern I call

comes together. This is a pattern I call islands and it's actually one of the over 90 patterns in my training program that I teach people to avoid. This

usually happens when we get tunnel vision on what we're learning and we're not really thinking about how what we're learning right now relates to that overall big picture frequently enough.

And when that happens and we end up with these islands of quite concentrated but sort of isolated uh groups then it compartmentalizes

our understanding of the topic and it restricts our ability to use that information more freely and fluidly which is exactly the type of way we need to be able to think about the

information to do complex problem solving or to have deeper more nuanced applications. So, here's an example

applications. So, here's an example where there is a similar density of information, but it's being organized with a much better overall structure and

aka the interconnectedness is a lot better. And you can see it actually just

better. And you can see it actually just looks cleaner and more organized as well. And by making sure that our mind

well. And by making sure that our mind maps are grouped, relational, and interconnected, we're able to form what's known in the research as a

knowledge schema, which is basically the way that our brain organizes information to form knowledge and memory. Now, just

for your reference, getting to this point with your mind mapping skill is not something that you can usually pull off in just one or two attempts, at least not correctly. Most people try

mind mapping, they're not really able to hit these first three steps correctly.

They don't find mind mapping is very useful for them and then they stop. And

yes, if you're not doing it correctly, it's not going to be effective. On my

training program, I normally teach these types of processes over 3 to four weeks and then an additional three or four weeks to refine and consolidate them.

And the reason is because each step of grind has several cognitive processes that we need to get correct to be able to do it properly. And those processes

are not always obvious. Trying to do all of them correctly all at once is pretty much impossible. But when we spend a

much impossible. But when we spend a week on just nailing one part of the process and then the next week on the next part of the process, then it means

that every week we can consistently improve, unlocking better and better results along the way. By the way, these processes do get quite complicated. So,

if you want me to dive into any of them in more detail, let me know in the comments. Alternatively, if you want to

comments. Alternatively, if you want to learn each step of making the perfect mind map straight away in complete detail with stepbystep instructions and

feedback on your work, then you might be interested in my program at I can study.

I'll leave a link in the description if you want to learn more about it and see if it's right for you. Now, by this point, if we've got our grouping, relational, and interconnected parts of the mind map done, we should be seeing

some real improvements to our memory and our ability to understand concepts deeply, comprehensively, and accurately.

Uh, and our ability to apply that information. And in my experience, this

information. And in my experience, this is almost certain. So, if you've done the GRNI steps and you're not seeing these improvements, it probably means

that one of those processes was not quite done correctly. However, even

though it's effective, a lot of people find that doing this can take a lot of time, especially during uh lectures or seminars where someone is talking to you and you need to process that information

and write notes on the go. It can seem impossible, which is where step four, the N of grind comes in, which is to make our mind maps nonverbal.

Non-verbal simply means that we should try to express our ideas without necessarily using so many words. There's

a lot of research around how writing lots of notes can actually reduce the quality of your learning because it probably means you're not processing the information as much before you write it down. You might have also noticed that

down. You might have also noticed that in the previous myap examples I showed you, most of them were not that wordy.

And this is the first level of achieving nonverbal, which is just to reduce unnecessary words. Reducing unnecessary

unnecessary words. Reducing unnecessary words forces you to synthesize and summarize what you're learning. Doing

this also helps you to engage in what's called the generation effect of learning, which is one of the most important processes to build new knowledge effectively. One excellent way

knowledge effectively. One excellent way of reducing your wordiness is just to use your lines, arrows, and spatial arrangement to represent ideas. For

example, instead of writing the sentence, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, she sells seashells by the seashore," we can instead draw

something like this.

And the bonus benefit of doing this is that it gives us an opportunity to look at the information and ask ourselves, how can I group this? What are the

relationships that I can find those step one and step two processes? For example,

why is the fox jumping over the lazy dog? Why is the dog lazy? Why is she

dog? Why is the dog lazy? Why is she selling seashells? Is there a

selling seashells? Is there a relationship between the selling of seashells and the lazy dog? Is she

raising money to build a fence to protect the dog from the fox because a dog is not lazy, it's actually elderly and disabled. This kind of thinking and

and disabled. This kind of thinking and uh questioning is one of the most important things that we can actually do. It's part of a process that's called

do. It's part of a process that's called active learning, which is crucial for promoting a strong memory and a deeper level of understanding. We can also take nonverbal to the next level by adding

some simple, sometimes abstract images.

You can see I did a very basic example on this here with the shells, some symbols here for she and and and the money. Uh, but here's another example

money. Uh, but here's another example where I spent a little bit more time to flesh it out. And doing this is something that I call adding a memory

landmark. By drawing these memorable,

landmark. By drawing these memorable, somewhat abstract images in our mind maps, it makes it easier for us to review the information and come back to

it in the future. It creates a unique element in our notes that makes it more memorable and also makes the process a little bit more fun. Does take a bit of time though, so I probably wouldn't be doing that during a lecture or seminar.

Now, to get to this point where we've got G, R, I, and N down, I would expect that this takes at least a couple of months of practice. But remember, before

you have mastered this, you're still going to be getting benefits from just applying this probably straight away.

And once you have mastered it, your mind maps are going to be so beneficial for your learning that people around you are going to look at your notes and have no idea how you are doing so well. and they

will certainly have no idea about how deep the process was that you used to create your notes. But it is the next two steps of grind that take our mind

mapping skill to the highest level.

Starting with step five, the D of grind.

We have to make our mind maps directional.

A perfect mind map not only has groups, has relationships, is interconnected, is nonverbal, it also has directionality,

or in other words, flow. And no, I don't mean a mystical chakra flow. Uh, I mean that we're using arrows to show how the

ideas on our mind map interact with each other. Using mind maps purposefully to

other. Using mind maps purposefully to add direction and flow in our mind map achieves two main things. First of all, it forces us to examine the nature of

the relationships and the groups that we've formed. Like for example, if I've

we've formed. Like for example, if I've got these concepts here, sure, these might all be related to each other, but are they related to each other in a way

that looks like this? Or maybe it's more accurate to say

this? Or maybe it's more accurate to say that the relationships are more like this. They're the same relationships,

this. They're the same relationships, but it paints a completely different picture. And number two, it actually

picture. And number two, it actually helps make our mind maps clearer and more organized, which also helps with our retention. Have a look at this mind

our retention. Have a look at this mind map that doesn't have great directionality.

And now have a look at this one that does. You can see that this one with

does. You can see that this one with more directionality gives the mind map more of a purposeful structure. It adds

meaning and context to the mind map, which ultimately makes it more memorable. Now, finally, we're ready for

memorable. Now, finally, we're ready for the sixth and final step of grind, which is arguably the step that most people skip, but is also the step that probably

increases our knowledge, our memory, our depth of understanding to the highest level. A grind map without the final

level. A grind map without the final sixth step, the E, is not a perfect mind map. And the E, step six, stands for

map. And the E, step six, stands for making our mind maps emphasized.

Emphasizing your mind maps is all about making decisions and judgments about what you're learning. Aka that critical

level five of Bloom's taxonomy, that higher order thinking. To achieve step six and make our mind maps emphasize, we need to deliberately make a decision on

which relationships and groups and combination of relationships and groups are the most important for this topic and we need to visually represent that

on our mind map. This creates something that I often call the backbone of the mind map. Here's an example without

mind map. Here's an example without clear emphasizing.

And now here are a couple that have good emphasizing. Now, those of you that are

emphasizing. Now, those of you that are on my program have probably heard me or the other coaches uh talking about the backbone constantly, and there is good

reason for that. It's because a mind map with a clear backbone means that the most important relationships and groups have been clearly emphasized. Which

means we have made clear and deliberate judgments about which parts of the mind map and the topic are most important.

Now remember how I said that each step of the grind map actually influences each other? Well, here's another example

each other? Well, here's another example of that. When we examine which

of that. When we examine which relationships and groups are the most important, often we find that the relationships and groups we expressed

are not actually the best. Maybe there's

an alternative grouping or relationship structure that we think would actually make even more sense. And if that happens, that's a disaster because now we have to go through and do step one,

two, and three all over again. And that

takes time. is what you might think, but actually this is a good thing. By

forcing ourselves to think about what we're learning more critically and make more explicit judgments about the importance of different things, it helps

us to refine and consolidate our knowledge, helping us arrive at uh knowledge that is more accurate and deeper and is also stickier in our

memory. this back and forth process

memory. this back and forth process where we're redoing parts of the mind map and adjusting the structure and regrouping and testing different relationships and going back and forth

between different resources. This is

actually a natural part of learning which in the research is often called the recursive nature of deep learning and you can't skip this step or at least you shouldn't if you want a higher level

of knowledge mastery. The ability to explain what is and is not important and justify that is a hallmark sign of

expertise. Likewise, not being able to

expertise. Likewise, not being able to clearly articulate what is or is not important, but instead just knowing a whole bunch of individual facts that are

generally connected to each other is a sign of a beginner in that topic. Now

earlier in the video I said that there is a right and wrong way of using AI to help you make a mind map. And if we

remember that mind mapping is a process, a skill that helps us engage in the right thinking process to promote good learning. It becomes much more obvious

learning. It becomes much more obvious as to what will help us and what will harm us. For example, I could plug a

harm us. For example, I could plug a bunch of keywords into Chat GPT and get it to generate some groups for me.

And just like that, it's done. Would

that be harmful or helpful for our learning? Well, if we remember the fact

learning? Well, if we remember the fact that the process of looking for similarities and differences and therefore deciding on which groups we

want to form in itself is a process that helps us with learning. Then getting AI to just do that for us would be harmful.

It saves us time, but it defeats the purpose of grouping it in the first place. Okay, but what about instead if I

place. Okay, but what about instead if I think of some groups myself, but then I use chat GPT to verify whether those groups make sense or not. After all,

those are the types of things that it could be hard to verify using a Google search or trolling through your textbook.

And now that bit of feedback actually seems pretty helpful. So was this going to be helpful or harmful for our learning? Well, in this case, it would

learning? Well, in this case, it would be helpful because we've already done the hard part of thinking about the groups and comparing and arriving at some kind of hypothesis. And verifying

whether that hypothesis is legitimate or not through Google searches and reading through pages and pages of textbooks and lecture slides is not really that different from getting the answer in a

single report. So as a rule of thumb,

single report. So as a rule of thumb, using AI in our learning is generally harmful for learning if it number one

makes it cognitively easier for us to organize the information and number two if it bypasses the need for us to

compare or make active independent judgments about what we're learning. On

the other hand, AI is generally helpful if it saves time for us in just collecting information or in just

summarizing large bodies for us to then process and compare and make judgments on. Or number three, it saves time

on. Or number three, it saves time compared to doing a Google search of essentially the same thing. Now, if you follow these guidelines, you will be well on your way to creating the perfect

mind map.

You've now completed your intro to mind mapping. I'm shortly going to share some

mapping. I'm shortly going to share some more advanced strategies and tips for mind mapping. But before we do that, I

mind mapping. But before we do that, I need to address the most common mistakes people make when they start experimenting with mind mapping. If you

make these mistakes, mind mapping can become a huge waste of time. Most people

who say that mind mapping doesn't work for them, they're running into these mistakes. So, let's start by avoiding

mistakes. So, let's start by avoiding those. Mind maps are seriously powerful

those. Mind maps are seriously powerful and I learned pretty much everything using them, but a lot of people struggle getting started with mind mapping. So,

if you've ever tried mind mapping and you found that it was overwhelming or you're just staring at a blank page, not sure what to put down or you're even insecure about trying it, then I'm going

to tell you exactly why you feel that way and what you can do about it. Now, I

travel around the world delivering workshops on how to learn more effectively. And mind mapping is a

effectively. And mind mapping is a common technique that I'll teach. And

the way that I teach it now is actually very different to how I taught it 10 years ago. 10 years ago, I would just

years ago. 10 years ago, I would just say, "Here's how to mind map. Go and do it." And then 5 minutes later, I'd look

it." And then 5 minutes later, I'd look around and everyone has a blank page in front of them, confused, and they don't know where to start. And at first, it confused me because I'm literally giving

stepbystep instructions on how to do the technique. Like, why can't you just do

technique. Like, why can't you just do it? But then over the years I realized

it? But then over the years I realized that there are two very common and powerful mental barriers that people form over their academic lives that

seriously hold them back. And it's not just for mind mapping. These mental

barriers which are basically habits that we form will hold you back for pretty much any effective learning technique that you can ever learn. So what are

these mental barriers? The first thing is that you have to trust your brain.

What does that mean? Okay, imagine

you're sitting there in a lecture. Most

people, if they're awake, will just be listening, sitting there, and writing or typing down their notes constantly. Just

listening and writing it down straight away like a human photocopier. And if

that's you, then you're really going to struggle to learn more efficiently. And

I'll explain why in a sec. But first,

here's a question for you. If you write notes constantly while you are consuming new information, why do you do that? Why

don't you just listen to it first, piece it all together, think about it, synthesize it, and then output it in a nicely formatted, organized set of notes. The answer is that number one,

notes. The answer is that number one, you probably don't know how. And that

seems really overwhelming. And number

two, you don't trust your brain to be able to do that in the first place.

After all, you've never been able to do that before. And you might think that

that before. And you might think that your memory is like a civ. So, there's

no reason to believe that your brain could hold on to all of that information, put it all together nicely, and then write a set of notes right at the end. But this is a self-fulfilling

the end. But this is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it's not a good prophecy.

The prophecy says, "You are going to struggle to learn forever." Because I want you to think about how learning actually works. Let's say I'm learning

actually works. Let's say I'm learning from this book. If I just look at this book, how much do you think I'm going to learn? Not a lot. Now, what if I open

learn? Not a lot. Now, what if I open the book and look at some pages? Am I

learning now? Yeah, probably not yet.

But what if I now read the words that are on the page? Am I learning now?

Yeah, a little bit more than before.

Okay. What if I now read the words, think about them, ask myself some questions, and then go back to try to answer those questions, flicking back and forth within the book to answer

that, and then write down my notes that summarize my thoughts. Obviously, that

last one will probably result in the most amount of learning. And the key difference between those examples I just gave you is how much your brain is involved in that process. So when we

think about us reading something, that information coming into our brain, then us writing some notes about it, learning is the part that happens in the middle,

in the gap between where information goes in and then comes out again. In

fact, research tells us that writing notes immediately after listening or reading to something like at the same time makes us worse at learning. And

that's because this space in between information coming in and going out gets so so small that there's no opportunity for your brain to do any thinking in the

first place. So if you want information

first place. So if you want information to come into your brain and stay in your brain, then you have to actually let your brain in on the action. You need to

give it the time and the opportunity to sink and pull it apart and ask questions and connect it all together again.

Because your job as a learner isn't just to take information and document it for later. Your job as a learner is to take

later. Your job as a learner is to take in information so that your brain can process it. And honestly, if all you're

process it. And honestly, if all you're doing is reading something or listening to something, writing some notes, and then later going to reread and then rewrite those notes, you are not letting your brain in on that process at any

point. Unfortunately, if you like most

point. Unfortunately, if you like most people spent 10 years just writing notes endlessly as your main form of studying and then someone like me tells you to

stop doing that and try mind mapping instead, that's going to feel uncomfortable. It's different. It's new.

uncomfortable. It's different. It's new.

It's unknown. It can make you feel anxious and insecure. What if it doesn't work? What if you start with the wrong

work? What if you start with the wrong fact or concept? What if you forget and you write down the wrong thing? Or what

if you put down the wrong relationship or connection? What if the world

or connection? What if the world explodes? You know, all sorts of

explodes? You know, all sorts of terrible things can start happening if you mind map. And if that's you, and especially if you've been following my content for a while and you want to give mind mapping a go, but you just feel

like you don't know how to start, then I want you to understand two things.

Number one, anything new is uncomfortable. You either live with the

uncomfortable. You either live with the discomfort of learning something new or you live with a discomfort of never learning and growing. And number two, it's actually not hard at all if you

take it one step at a time. So here's a couple of strategies that have worked really well for my students in the past to help them unlock their first proper effective mind map. First thing I call

delayed notetaking. The concept to this

delayed notetaking. The concept to this is simple because learning happens inside the brain. And if we're just writing notes immediately as soon as that information comes in, we're

effectively bypassing the brain. With

delayed note takingaking, we're just going to increase this space. We're

going to increase that gap and give our brain more of an opportunity to jump in on the process. How do we do that? By

literally just waiting and taking in more information before we write our notes. For example, let's say you

notes. For example, let's say you normally write notes constantly and straight away. Then you would be writing

straight away. Then you would be writing notes on a word forword basis. As soon

as someone says a word, you write that word down and it would look something like this. So here the lecturer would

like this. So here the lecturer would just be talking to you or you're watching a video or you're just reading a textbook and you are just constantly writing writing the notes. Basically no

gap between the information coming in and the information going out. Zero

brain actually involved. Now here's what it would look like with a sentence level of delay. We're first listening or we

of delay. We're first listening or we might be reading something. Uh and then after a sentence, then we're writing it down very quickly and then we're going to be listening again. We're thinking

about it and then we're writing it down again and again. We're listening or reading and then we're writing it down again. So you see there's more time

again. So you see there's more time spent in my brain and less time spent just on the keyboard. We're creating a pause between the information coming in and the information going out. And

therefore, we're introducing an opportunity for real learning to take place. Now, the secret to making this

place. Now, the secret to making this actually helpful for you is that you have to activate this cognitive switch.

And this is important because this cognitive switch is actually crucial to do any form of effective learning, especially mind mapping. In fact, I guarantee you talk to any top learner and they are already doing this

cognitive switch without them even realizing it. Here's how this cognitive

realizing it. Here's how this cognitive switch works. When we add a small delay,

switch works. When we add a small delay, like just two or three sentences, then our brain is in this juggle mode. We're

basically just trying to hold on to and juggle mentally all this new information that's come in and desperately try not to forget it until we can write it back down. That's juggle mode. And that kind

down. That's juggle mode. And that kind of thinking is not helpful for learning.

It's not going to help you build a good memory. And it's certainly not going to

memory. And it's certainly not going to help you apply what you've learned. But

once that delay in our note-taking starts widening even further, a really interesting thing starts happening in our brain. This graph represents how

our brain. This graph represents how long we delay our note-taking for. And

then here on the left, that's zero.

That's basically as soon as I hear it, I'm writing it down again. And then here on the right, let's say this is, you know, a 10-minute delay, which means that after I hear something new for the first time, I'm actually holding on to

that for 10 minutes and continually consuming 10 minutes worth of information before I'm writing it down.

and have a look at what happens to our mental effort and memory on the yaxis.

So at first our effort involved in doing this is basically zero. It's you know it's easy to do and our memory on this is almost zero as well. This is

extremely easy but also extremely useless. Now once we start delaying our

useless. Now once we start delaying our note takingaking for a little longer like a few sentences what we'll find is that the amount of mental effort goes up a lot. We're in juggle mode. We're

a lot. We're in juggle mode. We're

trying to hold on to all of this new information before we can write it down again. But remember, I said juggle mode

again. But remember, I said juggle mode is not an efficient way for your brain to encode new information. So even

though the effort goes up rather rapidly, our memory doesn't really go up by much at all. Now, here's where it gets interesting. Because after we

gets interesting. Because after we introduce a delay of more than let's say 1 or 2 minutes, we're taking in so much new information that it's pretty much

impossible for our brain to hold on to everything without forgetting it. Our

effort is already going to be at its limit and we're going to be forgetting most of what we consume during that time anyway. So this situation which feels

anyway. So this situation which feels quite overwhelming is exactly where we want to put ourselves because this is what puts us into that cognitive switch

from juggle mode into organizing mode.

And learning to think in this organizing mode is crucial to do any kind of effective learning. In organizing mode,

effective learning. In organizing mode, we're not trying to hold on to every new piece of information and and juggle it in our in our brain so we're not going

to forget it because it's impossible.

It's too much. In organizing mode, instead we're focused on trying to group it, to simplify it, to summarize it so that there are less individual things to

hold on to. We're transforming it into something that feels easier to remember and makes more sense. And research as well as my own observations from coaching thousands of people have shown

that this process of organizing these separate facts and concepts into groups is critical for forming stronger memory and deepening our ability to apply that

knowledge. It's kind of like folding and

knowledge. It's kind of like folding and putting your clothes away instead of just trying to hold on to all of your laundry at once. You know where to find your socks because they are logically in

your sock drawer together. In the same way, your brain knows how to access certain information because it's been actively organized in a way that makes sense. So, if we look at this graph

sense. So, if we look at this graph again, once we flick into this organizing mode, then our mental effort

actually starts going down and we'll stay at this more reasonable level. It's

not going to drop to zero because you still have to spend effort on trying to find ways to group it and organize it together, but it's a lot easier than just holding on to and trying to remember everything. But more

remember everything. But more importantly, our memory and our depth of understanding shoots up massively. Now,

an efficient learner can usually delay their note-taking by around five minutes or more, depending on how dense and complicated the information is. However,

diligence is key. It could literally take you years to delay your note-taking by up to 3 to 5 minutes, which is really the level that you want it to be if you

want a chance at mastering mind mapping.

And in fact, it's going to take so long that you're probably going to give up before you actually crack it. Which

means if you want to improve your memory and retain more and solve more complex problems and improve your performance and assessment without studying all day,

then you have to work on your learning skills. consistently

skills. consistently every week. And even if you found me on

every week. And even if you found me on YouTube today, I worked on this every day for years, which is why to try to make this as easy as possible for you so

that you don't have to spend every day for years. I make videos like this, but

for years. I make videos like this, but I also have a free newsletter. It's

called the Learning Drops Newsletter.

It's a completely free newsletter that you can sign up to and I'll email you every single week practical things that you can do to get better and faster at learning every single week. The emails

only take 3 to 6 minutes to read, but they aim to save you hours per week in study time while improving your academic performance and without spending years to figure it out like I did. I'll leave

a link in the description if you want to join. Now, if you give delayed

join. Now, if you give delayed note-taking a go, you're going to run into another problem, which is that you don't have enough time to write your notes. Because if you're just listening

notes. Because if you're just listening and sitting there like listening or reading something for 5 or 10 minutes and then you are writing your notes, then you need to write those notes very very quickly. Otherwise, you're going to

very quickly. Otherwise, you're going to miss the next 5 minutes worth of stuff.

Or if you're reading and it's a self-study session, this study session is going to take you hours. But if this happens to you, then that's probably because of another bad habit that you

have. And this is the second major

have. And this is the second major mental barrier, which is the belief that writing more notes is better. Cuz for a lot of people, there's a sense of

security with writing lots of detailed, comprehensive notes. Research actually

comprehensive notes. Research actually shows that having longer, wordier notes tends to reduce your academic performance. And the reason is because

performance. And the reason is because of what I mentioned before. If you have lots of notes, it probably means you did more constant writing, which means that you actually thought about what to write

less. So, on top of delaying your

less. So, on top of delaying your note-taking, I also want you to actively drop your word count. By writing less, not only does it save time, but also

forces you to think about another way that you can represent that same information, which in turn forces us to think about the information more deeply.

And honestly, rather than delaying the note-taking, it's this dropping the word count part that I found most people find more challenging. And it's probably

more challenging. And it's probably because writing lots of notes keeps you in the illusion of learning. The

illusion of learning is when we are doing things that make us feel like we're making progress when we're actually not. For example, I know a lot

actually not. For example, I know a lot of people that buy a lot of like books or audio books and it just goes from like the delivery person to their shelf.

Like they never even read it. That is

the illusion of learning. You're doing

something, usually something very easy that feels like it's productive when it actually isn't making a difference to the thing you're trying to improve.

Writing notes is the same thing. Anyone

can write a lot of notes. And when you get to the end of a long study session and you've got 30 pages of beautiful, comprehensive notes, you look at that and think, "Wow, that's so beautiful.

Pat yourself on the back. I've been so productive." Except that's a lie. And we

productive." Except that's a lie. And we

all know it because a week later we're probably going to forget half of it and we're not even going to read the other half again anyway. But once we force ourselves to drop the word count, it strips away the illusion of learning.

It's forcing us to engage with the process of learning directly. If we

struggle with that learning process, it becomes painfully obvious because we can literally see it in our notes. So to

make it a little easier for you to escape this illusion of learning more successfully, let me show you a stepbystep progression of what it would look like as you progressively drop your

word count. We start with your original

word count. We start with your original notes that might look something like this. So we're going to take the first

this. So we're going to take the first step now of shortening it, which is just reducing down some of those unnecessary sentences, turning some of them into

bullet points, just just taking out unnecessary obvious filler words.

All righty. And this is the simplified word drop version. Straight away just comparing it back and forth. There's

literally no useful information that was stripped away between the two versions here. So that's the first step of

here. So that's the first step of dropping the word count. So now what we're going to do is take the next step where we're not necessarily taking away more words, but we're now seeing how we

can start using spatial arrangement, some lines, some basic arrows and connections to just express some of these obvious relationships and ideas without having to physically write it

out.

And you can see at this point it's even simpler. And again, there's no useful

simpler. And again, there's no useful information that was stripped away. In

fact, I'd say that this final one is actually a little better at showing the relationships uh and showing the overall picture of how I should understand it.

You can see at a glance, it's actually easier to see as well. At this point, you can see it's actually almost starting to naturally form a kind of mindm. So even though with each of these

mindm. So even though with each of these iterations there's less and less on the page, there's more and more learning that is happening in the brain. Less on

the page, more in the membrane. This is

how you're meant to create a mind map.

This kind of natural progression here.

Most people when they think about doing a mind map, they start with this big central theme on a page and all these things branch out of it. But that's not the point. The a mind map is just a

the point. The a mind map is just a representation of the relationships and the connections that you discovered and synthesized based on thinking about how

the information is related and can be grouped together. And by getting to this

grouped together. And by getting to this point alongside some delayed notetaking, that's going to help you unlock a better memory, which means that you're going to forget less of what you studied and

better knowledge application, which means that you can use what you've learned to solve more problems and do better in your exams. So, how long does it take to go from this here all the way through to this final version? If you

are a total beginner who has only done linear note-taking before and you're feeling really really insecure and uncomfortable about this, it's going to take you probably one or two weeks if

you are diligent with practicing it. And

from this point to get to a fully supercharged memory boosting mind map will take another 2 to 6 weeks with guidance or 2 to 6 months if you're doing it alone. Again, it depends on how

deep your old habits are and how diligently you practice.

Okay, so with those mistakes out of the way, we are now ready to move on to some more specific strategies and cognitive processes to help you build a bulletproof mind mapping system. We've

covered a lot so far and you're still here with me. So, well done. At this

point, I want to tell you about two different things. First thing, if you're

different things. First thing, if you're finding this valuable so far and you're seeing that there's new insights and you're seeing how it's kind of all fit together, understand that this is not a

process that happens overnight. It's

more of a marathon. You can do it. You

can transform it and it is worthwhile to spend the effort to do it. It is a really special feeling to have the confidence to look at any challenge to

do with learning new knowledge or learning new skills and just know that you will be able to tackle that and overcome it and do it probably better and faster than everyone else. It is a life-changing skill and it has been for me both when I was a student going

through medical school uh doing my masters working as a professional. So

the first message really is just to keep it up. You can do it. The second message

it up. You can do it. The second message is to say that if you want to make this process a little bit faster, a little bit smoother, a little bit more guided, if you've liked so far that I've kind of

structured and put together a few of these videos and you like the fact that you can sort of start from one place and then just progress through step by step, then you may also be interested in joining my full paid program. If you're

not interested in joining and you just want to watch the videos for free on YouTube, I will keep uploading videos for free on YouTube. And I plan to do this for a long time. But for those of you who are serious about learning to

learn and you want to do this faster with closer support and you like this stepbystep structure where you can just learn everything that you need to to be a better learner, then I think you may also be interested in learning a little

bit about my full guided program. This

is a 4hour video and it's still not comprehensive. There's a lot of other

comprehensive. There's a lot of other aspects about learning and self-management that is just not covered um in this master class at all. So, if

you are interested in learning a little bit more, I'll leave a link to it in the description below. You can also sign up

description below. You can also sign up at icenstudy.com. If you're not

at icenstudy.com. If you're not interested, that's all good. There's no

pressure. But for those of you who are, you can check it out. Now, if you want to make the process of mind mapping easier, one thing you need to be able to do very accurately is assess your

current level of mind mapping. You

should be able to look at your mind map and understand what level you are, what the issues you have are, and therefore what you need to do to improve on it.

And this process is a little bit tricky, especially if you're just starting out on learning the skill. So, this next video helps you to self diagnose that and tells you exactly what you need to work on to improve your mind mapping.

Mind mapping can be broken down into three different levels of skill. When

mind mapping is done at a skill level of level three, it's legitimately one of the most powerful learning techniques that you can master. It improves your memory. It increases your processing

memory. It increases your processing speed. It makes it easier to think about

speed. It makes it easier to think about more content more deeply. But when mind mapping is done at level one, it can be a complete waste of time. For me, being

able to do a level three mind map every time is a big part of what gave me the confidence to run a business full-time while going through medical school and then later uh my full-time masters for

which I ranked first in my year. Now,

the first step in actually being able to level up your mind mapping is to be able to look at a mind map and identify what level it's at. Once we can figure out the difference between the different

levels of mind map, we can then focus on the processes that help us bridge each of these levels. So, I'll show you some examples of each level of my maps. See

if you can spot the difference. So,

these ones are level one.

And then these ones here are level two.

These are some level three.

Now, you might think that the main difference is that a level three mind map just looks simpler or more comprehensive, but it is so much more than that. And the difference between a

than that. And the difference between a level one and a level three is probably the difference that separates a top 30% learner from a top 1% learner. But

before we get into that, let's take a deep dive into level one. So, here's the example of the level one my map again.

Now the level one mind map has two important characteristics. The first

important characteristics. The first thing is that it has nonlinearity of ideas. So if you have a look at this you

ideas. So if you have a look at this you can see that it's not just going left to right down the page. Uh all of these things it's trying to represent the ideas spatially around the page. And

second thing is that there are connections between the ideas. Uh you

can see that they're trying to express these connections with these lines and arrows. Now, the difference is actually

arrows. Now, the difference is actually a lot more obvious when we go back a level to what's even before level one, which is level zero note takingaking.

And level zero note takingaking looks a little bit more like this. And these are actually my old notes from like over 10

years ago. And I can tell you that the

years ago. And I can tell you that the thousands of hours I spent on writing notes like these were ultimately a waste of time. So at level zero, there are

of time. So at level zero, there are five characteristics that you should definitely avoid. Firstly, it's very

definitely avoid. Firstly, it's very linear. Uh secondly, it's usually very

linear. Uh secondly, it's usually very wordy. And thirdly, it's pretty

wordy. And thirdly, it's pretty superficial. Uh it doesn't go into the

superficial. Uh it doesn't go into the content very deeply. It doesn't really look at how ideas are related to each other because frankly trying to write that all down through level zero linear note-taking would be completely

overwhelming. There's often a lot of

overwhelming. There's often a lot of highlighting and sometimes there's a lot of annotating. And at the end of the

of annotating. And at the end of the day, it is uselessly time consuming in that it takes a lot of time, but it's not really helping with our retention or our depth of understanding. So level one

really represents this first point where someone's trying to break this old linear mold, but the important thing is not to just recognize the characteristics of each level. It's to

know what the process is that takes you from level zero to level one. And there

are three key processes that someone is engaging in to go from level zero to level one. The first

process is that they're looking at how they can use arrows and lines to represent information instead of just

writing it out as full sentences. So no

full sentences.

The second thing is that we're trying to cut down on how wordy it is. we're often

doing a little bit more summarizing.

And the third part is getting a little bit more comfortable with just representing information spatially and without using words.

When we follow these processes, we go from level zero to level one. Now, at

level one, we're not really getting a strong benefit from mind mapping. The

real power of mind mapping comes from level two and level three. And in fact, level one often looks pretty messy.

However, level one is not bad. Mind mapping is a skill and like any other skill, there are levels to that skill and you can't

just skip a level. Level one is necessary because it allows us to break out from level zero to then work towards level two. It's kind of like training

level two. It's kind of like training wheels on a bicycle. And a lot of people will say, "Oh, I gave mind mapping a go.

It didn't really work for me." But they actually only reached level one. And

you're right. If you only reach level one, it's not really going to work for you. So, let's have a look at level two

you. So, let's have a look at level two where you should see some benefit.

Here's an example of the level two mind maps again. And once we're at this level

maps again. And once we're at this level two skill, we should be feeling a lot more comfortable with expressing information nonlinearly. And at level

information nonlinearly. And at level two, there are three characteristics to look out for. First of all, we have groups of information and these groups

are related to each other and as a result there is a clearer flow or structure to the information. You can

see these groups being represented uh here in the brown uh as well as the flow of information with the arrows being a little bit cleaner. And if your mind map

has these characteristics, it's probably at level two. And by the way, let me know what level you are in the comments so that I can help cater my future videos to you. So, now that we know what

a level two mind map looks like, let's think about what the processes are that take us from level one to level two.

There are again three main processes that we want to focus on here. The first

one is that we're thinking a little bit more about how ideas are similar or different to each other.

And by thinking about how similar things are to each other, this allows us to put them into groups. We're arranging them by those similarities. Number two, we're

now thinking about how the information actually flows and influences each other.

We've created these groups. We've looked

at how things might be related and similar to each other. And we're

thinking, how do these ideas connect together in a coherent structure? Which

leads to number three. We're actually

thinking about intentionally creating more of a structure as opposed to, for example, just drawing a bunch of lines and arrows connecting

things all over the place. And overall,

the the difference between level one and level two. The major difference is that

level two. The major difference is that we're spending a lot more time thinking about how we want to arrange the information and organize it as opposed

to just getting used to organizing it nonlinearly. And by thinking about how

nonlinearly. And by thinking about how to organize the information in level two and later also in level three, we're forcing our brain to engage in that

higher order thinking, which is one of the most important cognitive processes that you can do to understand, remember, and apply what you learned properly. In

fact, the OECD has even come out with a statement saying that higher order thinking skills is one of the most crucial things that a modern-day learner

needs to know to be successful. So, what

that means is that if you are mind mapping and you're not noticing improvements in your understanding or your memory or your ability to apply the information, it probably means that

you're not engaging at that higher order of thinking. And that would be common

of thinking. And that would be common because most people tend to avoid higher order thinking since it takes more mental effort and it can feel

uncomfortable which basically means most people are avoiding the type of thinking that helps build stronger memory and deeper understanding in the first place.

This is famously called the misinterpreted effort hypothesis which I've talked about in lots of my other videos. And this is important because

videos. And this is important because there's essentially no point in using mind mapping as a technique if we're not engaging in the right type of thinking.

And it's actually really easy to demonstrate the difference between level zero, level one, and level two. So I'll

show you using this article on metacognition, which is just taking from Wikipedia. It could be from a textbook

Wikipedia. It could be from a textbook or from lecture slides. Uh it doesn't really matter. This is just a

really matter. This is just a demonstration. So at level zero, let me

demonstration. So at level zero, let me show you what my note takingaking would look like. like I'll type it out for you

look like. like I'll type it out for you so that you don't have to struggle reading through my handwriting. So, as

I'm writing these notes, all I'm doing is I'm reading a sentence, I'm summarizing it a little, I'm transcribing it down. Honestly, I may as well have just used Chat GBT or something to do this because it takes no

mental effort and my brain is almost asleep. Uh, no real learning is

asleep. Uh, no real learning is happening in the brain. Now, there

actually is a way to still do linear notes while still getting level three results. Uh, and I'll show you that one

results. Uh, and I'll show you that one later. Okay, so I'll just end that

later. Okay, so I'll just end that demonstration there because I'm losing brain cells. Let me do the same passage

brain cells. Let me do the same passage at level one.

And so here, as I'm writing, I'm mentally doing the same thing. I'm

basically just reading a sentence. I'm

summarizing it a little uh maybe a little bit more concisely and then I'm just writing it down. And I'm basically just looking to see if it's connected to

anything else really obviously. And I'm

putting some lines and arrows down. Uh

as we are progressing, you can see it's starting to get a little messy and honestly like it's already kind of overwhelming in terms of just there's a lot of lines and arrows going

everywhere. Um, and this is usually when

everywhere. Um, and this is usually when a lot of students will say it's not working since it might actually feel worse than just linear notes which are at least easier to read. But anyway,

that was level one. Same content, same stuff, but done through level one mind mapping. And you can see some

mapping. And you can see some similarities with the examples that I showed you before. So now let's do level two. Exactly the same content again.

two. Exactly the same content again.

Now, here there's a big difference in thinking compared to before because instead of just going sentence by sentence and putting it down, I'm actually uh reading more. I'm actually

thinking about it back and forth. I'm

actively deciding how I want to structure this information in a way that makes sense. And I'm also actively

makes sense. And I'm also actively trying to group related ideas together.

You can see it's looking tidier. It's

there's more groups. It's a little bit easier to follow. And it's actually a lot more engaging. In fact, it's actually even a little bit fun and I can feel that the information uh sticks in

my head a lot more easily while at level zero and then level one, I barely remember what I wrote down. Uh also,

it's a little hard to see from the video, but the time I spent just thinking about what to write before even writing anything down in the first place is a lot longer. So, at level zero and

level one, I'm I'm basically writing something every 5 or 10 seconds. I'm

pretty much writing non-stop. And at

level two, I'm thinking about things for like, you know, 20 or 30 seconds or even more before even writing it down because I'm just trying to think about how I

want to arrange it. That's actually um one really good way to see if you're thinking about things enough to learn effectively. It shouldn't really be

effectively. It shouldn't really be possible to think at level two depth and also write constantly. So that is level

two. And now going from level zero to

two. And now going from level zero to level two is probably enough to give you a decent little grade bump of like 10 to 15%. But level three is where you start

15%. But level three is where you start seeing some serious improvements. Here's

an example of my maps at level three again. And there are three

again. And there are three characteristics that you need to know uh at level three. The first thing is that the structure and flow is much clearer.

you can clearly see uh where the information is going throughout this map. Number two, there's more emphasis

map. Number two, there's more emphasis to some groups and arrows over others.

For example, you can see that these arrows are a little bit thicker compared to, for example, these arrows that visually indicates the importance of information and relationships. And this

last one is harder to notice, but the groups themselves are more intuitive and easier to remember. So if we kind of zoom in a little bit here, we can see

that the actual name of the groups that have been used are not always the same terminology that is taught for the topic. They've actually releabeled the

topic. They've actually releabeled the group so it makes more sense for them at an intuitive level. It's actually easier to understand the difference between level two and three by talking about the

processes that we need to engage in to go from level two to level three. Now,

by the time we're at a level three skill, we're used to writing nonlinear notes. We're used to thinking about how

notes. We're used to thinking about how things are similar. We're used to grouping things together. We're used to creating structures and flows. What

we're focusing on with the process at level three is the quality. So, we're

improving the quality of the connections and relationships that we're forming.

We're also increasing the quality. And

when I say quality, I'm talking about how intuitive the groups that we're forming are. Yeah, sure. We can connect

forming are. Yeah, sure. We can connect this group to this group. We can connect these ideas to these other ideas. We can

group these things together. Sure. But

which way of grouping is actually the best for us? Which makes the most sense?

Which is the most intuitive? Which feels

like it's going to be stickier in our memory? Which means number three, we

memory? Which means number three, we have to spend time to identify alternatives and then make an actual judgment on which one is the best. For

example, here's that little map that I made before at level two. And then here is the exact same map with essentially the exact same information, but just

grouped and structured differently. So,

at level three, I'm actually thinking about these alternative ways of structuring the information and arranging them in a way that makes more sense to me. At level three, our mind

maps are becoming cleaner, more intuitive, more deliberate. The lines

and the arrows and everything that I'm putting on there is more intentional.

Now, for most people, the difference between level two and level three uh may not seem like much. After all, we're still just grouping and organizing information. But the difference between

information. But the difference between level two and level three in terms of how much it affects your performance and results and memory and depth of understanding is probably more than the

difference between going from level zero all the way through to level two. Being

able to create a level three mind map consistently is very uncommon and probably translates to a roughly top 10%

level of performance. In fact, the type of thinking that you have to do for a level three mind map is so crucial that

virtually any top 1 or 2% learner is going to be thinking in this way even if they're not using mind maps as the technique mentally. They're engaging in

technique mentally. They're engaging in those same higher order thinking processes and patterns. which is why earlier I said that it is actually

possible to do level zero uh linear note takingaking but still get level three types of results and let me show you how just going back to my article on

metacognition here I'm going to do the like pseudo level three note-taking with linear notes uh here so as I do this just notice how I'm spending a lot of

time reading and um and when I'm writing I'm not actually just reading things and writing things down. I'm actually

thinking about it and synthesizing it and I'm doing all of that higher order thinking and grouping and thinking about how things are related to each other.

I'm doing that all mentally as I read and then I'm writing down like my entire synthesis and structure. So, it's almost like a mini essay where I'm trying to explain all the relationships and

nuances of the content that I've read.

And this is basically how you're able to get some people that are using what seems like a pretty mediocre method of note-taking, but they're getting great results because mentally what's going on

is at a high level. But there are two specific reasons that you should not do this. First of all, it's honestly just

this. First of all, it's honestly just much harder than doing the level three mindm because I'm having to do all the thinking in my head and all the processing. I can't track my thoughts

processing. I can't track my thoughts and uh all the relationships that I'm thinking of on the mind map. So, it's

much much harder for me to actually create the connections and organize my thoughts. Being able to just literally

thoughts. Being able to just literally write it down and brainstorm the ideas as I go uh is probably two or even three times faster and easier than trying to

do it all mentally and then just forcing it back down into a linear set of notes again. This is actually also the reason

again. This is actually also the reason why you should use mind maps to plan uh literature reviews and essays. It's also

probably two or three times more timeconuming overall. Not just when I'm writing the

overall. Not just when I'm writing the notes, but later when I go to review the notes, I'm forcing myself to have to read through this entire thing all over

again to extract the the meaning from it. Whereas if I had just the mind map,

it. Whereas if I had just the mind map, I can just glance at it to review the structure in like seconds or minutes.

And even though the mind map looks simpler, it's actually the same types of relationships and thoughts that as were

in the essay. The essay is not a more comprehensive set of notes at all. In

fact, the essay probably doesn't even cover all of the relationships that I'd be able to express in the mind map. The

level three mind map is incomparably simpler, faster, and more organized.

This synthesized essay writing thing that I just did, you can use that as a revision technique later instead. Now,

if you found this video and you want even more to help you master the art and science of learning, then I've got a free weekly newsletter that I've created

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Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.

And that is the end of chapter 3 on mindapping. And I want to reinforce that

mindapping. And I want to reinforce that just knowing about the skill of mind mapping is not enough. The only way you're going to improve is through targeted repetitions, getting feedback,

and iterating. Your ability to mind map

and iterating. Your ability to mind map will get better over time as you continue to practice, as with any skill.

And so, on that note, let's move on to chapter four, which is about skill acquisition. If you want to be a

acquisition. If you want to be a well-rounded learner, yes, you need to be able to learn new knowledge very quickly, but it's arguably even more important that you can learn new skills quickly. And so we're going to kick off

quickly. And so we're going to kick off chapter 4 talking about skill acquisition with how you can master any complex skill more easily. There are

four stages of learning any complex skill that you need to know. And there

are four corresponding actions that you have to take to be able to learn that skill effectively. When we do the right

skill effectively. When we do the right actions for the right stage, we're able to progress through that stage very quickly. This is what fasttracks our

quickly. This is what fasttracks our ability to learn skills. Unfortunately,

most people are doing actions at stage three when they're only at stage two.

And when there's this misalignment, it creates wasted time, frustration, stress, and ultimately you will not be able to master pretty much any complex

skill. This is where the rail framework

skill. This is where the rail framework comes in to make sure that we are aligned and mastering new skills as effectively as possible. By using this framework, my ability to coach students

on how to study and learn more effectively has become about five or six times faster than before. What used to take me 2 years to train now only takes

me 2 or 3 months. And I've personally used this framework to learn pretty much every new skill I've picked up over the last 10 years. from studying to public

speaking dancing archery photography even using nunchucks. In fact, actually, let me show you. I don't break anything.

Uh, as I do this, let's give it a go.

Literally just hit my light.

Nothing destroyed. Uh, and yes, FYI, that is a skill that serves absolutely no purpose in my life. But the best part is that this framework is actually really, really easy to use. By the end

of this video, you'll learn how to use rail to learn any new complex skill. But

first, we actually have to understand the scientific principle behind why some skills are even harder to learn than other skills in the first place. So,

when I was 15, I watched this video on how to tie shoelaces really quickly and I practiced this skill for like 5

minutes and I learned how to do it. But

learning to tie a shoelace is very different from learning to play an instrument or learning to code or most other complex skills. And one of the

things that makes a complex skill complex is this thing called the latent learning period. Latent learning was

learning period. Latent learning was first described in the 1930s by this American psychologist called Edward Tolman. And it basically talks about

Tolman. And it basically talks about when there is no immediate reinforcement while you are learning the skill. For

example, if I'm learning something simple like tying my shoelaces, then there's no real latent learning period.

I'm getting immediate feedback on whether the shoes were tied up well or not. But as soon as we enter into any

not. But as soon as we enter into any even moderately complex skill, the latent learning period stretches out much longer. For example, if you learn

much longer. For example, if you learn to play chess, you might spend lots of time, weeks even, just learning the rules and how to move which piece and figuring out the strategy. But until you

really play a game and get some real experience, you're not going to know where your mistakes are and how to actually improve. And so there's a long

actually improve. And so there's a long time between the learning and then the getting feedback on the learning. That's

the latent learning period. And for

skills like learning how to study, you might not get feedback on how good your new study technique is for weeks or months until you actually get an exam

result. And during that time, you might

result. And during that time, you might have done hundreds of other things that all affect the outcome. It's pretty much impossible to know what was the reason you got the result that you did and

therefore what you need to change to improve. And every skill, especially

improve. And every skill, especially complex skills, take trial and error and experimentation to improve. But we waste

a lot of time triing things and making errors over and over again sort of aimlessly. But if we can answer just one

aimlessly. But if we can answer just one question, it can massively increase our ability to learn any complex skill. And

that question is, am I moving in the right direction? Because even if we

right direction? Because even if we don't know the fastest, most direct line to learn a skill, if we have guidelines that tell us whenever we're potentially

deviating off track, then we know that our experiments and our efforts are going to eventually get us towards the goal rather than just wandering around aimlessly for years. And we can answer

this question of am I moving in the right direction with the rail framework.

Here's how it works. In the first stage of learning any complex skill, we're pretty clueless. We have no idea where

pretty clueless. We have no idea where to start. We don't know how to think

to start. We don't know how to think about it. We don't even know what

about it. We don't even know what questions to ask because we don't know enough to even ask questions. And this

is a huge problem because it means we don't know where to put our effort and attention. Because I'm learning coach,

attention. Because I'm learning coach, I'm going to use learning to learn as an example. Most people have no idea really

example. Most people have no idea really where to start increasing their learning efficiency. And they come in with a

efficiency. And they come in with a bunch of misconceptions about learning like just thinking that more hours studying is the key to success. And even

in my training program and I can study where people are actually trying to upgrade their studying techniques. It is

not uncommon for me to see someone skip a technique because they don't think it's important or relevant for them when actually it might be literally the most

important thing that they could possibly be working on. We don't know what we don't know and trying to improve anything without knowing where to direct

our effort is the biggest time waste of all. But this is the first stage of

all. But this is the first stage of learning a new skill. It is the R of rail and it stands for relevance

because improving at this stage means understanding what is relevant for you and what is worth caring about. So how

do you know you're at the relevant stage? Number one, you'll feel generally

stage? Number one, you'll feel generally lost and confused about where to begin.

You either can't think of many things to work on or experiment with, or there seem to be so many things to work on and experiment with that it's overwhelming,

aka, we don't know what to care about yet. You'll know you're making progress

yet. You'll know you're making progress through this relevant stage when you start realizing more variables to think and care about. And things that seemed

irrelevant before now become relevant for learning to learn. These variables

might be things like understanding what creates active learning or being able to assess your cognitive load or learning about different orders of learning or understanding how encoding affects

retrieval. So, as you progress through

retrieval. So, as you progress through the relevant stage, you're not actually getting any better at the skill. Like,

you can't do it properly yet, and you're certainly not getting any results for it, but you are still progressing, and that's the key. So, how do we actually make this progress? Well, the actions

that help you progress through the relevance stage are number one, exploration, and two, challenging.

Exploration means that we're spending time to understand the skill. Talk to

people that are already good at it. What

do they say you should be thinking about and caring about? Get a diverse range of opinions. Spend some time to learn more

opinions. Spend some time to learn more about the theory. What are the other variables that you should be thinking about? Challenging means that we're

about? Challenging means that we're being open-minded and challenging our own beliefs or assumptions. Like I

mentioned with learning to learn, a lot of people think that a certain technique is what they need to get better. But in

reality, what's really holding them back might be another variable that they haven't considered or don't think is very important, like the way that they're practicing or how they're managing their time. And the only way

that we can really find out what matters is to be open-minded to the idea that what we think is important right now

might not be correct. Now, learning to learn is one of the most important skills that you can master because it makes learning everything else in your life much easier. However, it is probably one of the most challenging

skills to learn because it is an incredibly long latent learning period.

And seeing people trying to learn to learn and struggling and stressing because they don't know where to start is not only really sad, but it's very

frustrating for me because it is so much easier when you know what to care about.

So, to help you with this, I've created a free learning system health check quiz for you. It's a free quiz that you can

for you. It's a free quiz that you can take that will evaluate your learning system and score you out of a 100. But

more importantly, you'll get a personalized report that will give you which components you're doing well on and then which parts that are holding you back from being a learning master.

Now, for learning to learn, this quiz should probably get you almost to the end of stage one of rail and it only takes like 10 minutes. FYI, it took me

like 2 years to get to the end of stage one uh because I had no one to teach me and I was literally spending like thousands of hours reading research papers and thinking about the way that I

learn. For some people, they never reach

learn. For some people, they never reach the end of stage one for their entire lives. But you can now skip all that.

lives. But you can now skip all that.

I've got the link to the quiz in the description below. So anyway, we're now

description below. So anyway, we're now at the end of stage one, relevance. We

know what to care about. We know what the variables are. What now? Well, this

is the part in skill acquisition research, which is called the plateau period. It's often the part where most

period. It's often the part where most people give up. In the second stage of learning a skill, we are trying to perform the skill, but we are consistently failing. Sometimes we know

consistently failing. Sometimes we know why we failed and sometimes we don't. We

continuously make mistakes and we don't seem to be making any clear progress.

This is why it's called the plateau period. It's frustrating and

period. It's frustrating and demotivating and so this is when a lot of people will give up but not if you know the rail framework because the

second stage is the awareness stage as in we're becoming more aware of our mistakes. And a key sign that you're in

mistakes. And a key sign that you're in this stage is that you are trying and making mistakes. hopefully lots of

making mistakes. hopefully lots of mistakes. Think of it like a checklist.

mistakes. Think of it like a checklist.

Let's say to learn a skill correctly, you need to make a hundred mistakes in order to finally be able to do it correctly for the first time. In that

case, progress is about making as many of those mistakes as quickly as possible. So, making mistakes doesn't

possible. So, making mistakes doesn't feel good, but it is helpful and necessary. Once you know how to overcome

necessary. Once you know how to overcome the mistakes, doing it correctly happens by default. A lot of people who go

by default. A lot of people who go through my program hold off on practicing new techniques because they're afraid of making mistakes and getting it wrong. They can spend days or

even weeks just thinking about it and asking questions to try to avoid every possible mistake they can think of. And

then by the time it comes to give it a go, the head is so full of things to try to avoid that they become overwhelmed and paralyzed. On the other hand, people

and paralyzed. On the other hand, people who recognize the value of learning from mistakes can give things a go and pick up a new skill within days. So, as you progress through the awareness stage,

again, you're still not doing it correctly yet, and you're still not seeing good results, but you are progressing by becoming more aware of the mistakes you tend to make. So, how

can you progress through the awareness stage more quickly? Well, the two actions here are experimentation and reflection. Experimentation is about

reflection. Experimentation is about trying to perform the skill correctly and probably making mistakes. Reflection

is about thinking what those mistakes were and why you made them. We can then try a new experiment based on that reflection to try to overcome that mistake. If it was a repeated mistake

mistake. If it was a repeated mistake that you already knew about, you think, well, what am I missing? What's the

variable that I haven't considered? And

if you don't even know what your mistake was in the first place, you need to get feedback from someone who does know. And

everyone needs feedback. Even the

highest performing athletes in the world have coaches to give them feedback. Like

I said, we don't know what we don't know. Awareness is about knowing more

know. Awareness is about knowing more things so that we can overcome them. And

it's hard to gain awareness when you're going through it alone. So, as you move through this second stage of awareness, we are making less and less mistakes.

And at a certain point, there are no more mistakes we're making. This is the sign that we're nearing the end of stage two. Now, you might think at this point,

two. Now, you might think at this point, we're done. We've learned the skill.

we're done. We've learned the skill.

We're not making any mistakes. Time to

move on with my life. But unfortunately,

not. We're now only entering into stage three of four. And stage three is another point at which many people tend to give up. Now, before we get into

stage three, it's important to know why rail even works. And it's because it's derived from another widely studied model called the four stages of

competence. In this original model, the

competence. In this original model, the stages are called unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence. And I love this model, and I

competence. And I love this model, and I even teach it in my program. But the

reason I'm teaching you rail is because the four stages of competence is very dense, and there are a lot of nuances.

It's also a little abstract, and it doesn't actually tell you what you need to do to progress through the stages.

The reason I developed rail is so that you'd have something that's a little more practical, especially for stage three. And that's because stage three

three. And that's because stage three can be even more demotivating than stage two if you don't have rail. So at stage three, we've finally overcome our

mistakes. We've learned how to do the

mistakes. We've learned how to do the skill correctly. However, it takes a lot

skill correctly. However, it takes a lot of effort. We're not very consistent and

of effort. We're not very consistent and it's pretty slow. And that's because it's a brand new skill. because it's

brand new. It's slower and takes more effort than our previous habits and how we used to do things. And in the early part of stage three, our consistency is so bad that out of 10 attempts, we might

only get it correct two or three times, which is why stage three is called iteration.

And you know you're in stage three when you've been able to perform the technique correctly at least one or two times and you're not discovering any new mistakes, but you're struggling to

overcome all of them every time. You

know, you're progressing through stage three when with each cycle or iteration, you feel that your consistency is improving and you're able to do the technique correctly a higher percentage

of the time. you're starting to feel that it's becoming easier to do it and it requires less effort and you're getting faster as well and it must be in

that order. If you try to go faster when

that order. If you try to go faster when you don't have the consistency and accuracy yet, you're just going to be increasing your error rate. This is a common reason for demotivation and why people might give up at this stage. So

to progress through this stage more quickly, we want to take these two actions which is varied practice and adjust. So varied practice isn't just

adjust. So varied practice isn't just performing the skill again and again.

It's actually about performing the skill in different levels of challenge, different context, and in different conditions. If you're learning a new

conditions. If you're learning a new study technique, you want to apply it to lots of different subjects with different volumes of workload through different mediums and different difficulties. Adjust means you're

difficulties. Adjust means you're observing how your consistency changes in each of these different contexts and levels of difficulty. Adjusting involves

fine-tuning your technique so that you can maintain your consistency even when the situation isn't optimal. For

example, how do you adjust your technique for different subjects or for when you're tired or when you don't have as much time to study? Again, I'm using study techniques as an example here, but you can use this for literally any other skill. And after enough iterations,

skill. And after enough iterations, you'll notice that you're able to perform the skill with a high level of consistency, with a low level of effort, and you're able to do it very fast. This

means you've entered the final stage of rail and it's when your new skill has become a new habit. It's just as easy as any other habit. And in fact, it actually takes effort to do it

differently. At this stage, the actions

differently. At this stage, the actions to take are not so much about improving the technique, but about refining it to make it better if it needs to be and regularly using it because if you don't

use it enough, you will lose it. This is

a phenomenon called skill decay. And it

can happen for any skill that's neglected. And it causes us to slip down

neglected. And it causes us to slip down into the earlier stages of rail. And

because stage 4 is about keeping your skills for life, it is called the lifong stage. So you can now use rail to figure

stage. So you can now use rail to figure out what stage you're in. see whether

the actions you've been taking to learn a new complex skill have been aligned for the stage you're at and start taking the right action to progress you to the next stage more quickly. And if you're

wanting to get a head start on the rail framework for one of the most complex and important skills that you can ever learn, aka learning to learn, then make sure to check out that free learning

system health check quiz linked in the description below. As usual, thank you

description below. As usual, thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one.

Now, as you make your way through these four different stages of learning, it's important that you are wary of and avoid one super common mistake that lots of

people make when they're learning any new skill. It's a really harmful

new skill. It's a really harmful sabotaging mistake, which I'm going to explain in this next video. I've been

obsessed with figuring out the fastest and easiest possible way to learn new skills for the last decade. And after

years of teaching people and reading the research on this, I've stumbled across a mistake that guarantees an almost 100%

failure rate on learning any skill. And

sadly, this is a mistake that most people make every single day. I call

this mistake theory overload. And I

think it is one of the most important things to know about when you're trying to learn any new skill. But first, we have to understand a key, often overlooked ingredient to learning any

new skill that allows us to even learn skills in the first place. And this

ingredient is experiential cycling. So,

if I practice shooting this bow every day for a month, I should get better, right?

Maybe, but maybe not. Once I let go of this arrow, I cannot control where it goes midair. At least as far as I know.

goes midair. At least as far as I know.

Where this arrow lands depends on everything that I did in the setup beforehand. And by the way, like any

beforehand. And by the way, like any skill, learning to learn is the same.

Our exam results, our memory, our depth of understanding, these things depend on the processes we used before when we were studying. Now, imagine I shot this

were studying. Now, imagine I shot this arrow and it landed here. Not very good. But to do better

here. Not very good. But to do better next time, I have to know what to change to get it into the center. I cannot keep just firing arrows off randomly

expecting to get better. I might get a bullseye once in a while, but it's not going to be consistent. And once the target moves further away, it's not going to work anymore. Same thing in learning. If we get a bad exam result,

learning. If we get a bad exam result, we need to know what to change. Just

because we get a better exam result in a different exam, it doesn't mean we actually solved the problem. So this is essentially the experiential cycle. We

have an experience. We observe the result. We think about what we need to

result. We think about what we need to change and then we do an experiment to see if it made it any better. Without

this cycle, we cannot learn any new skill. This is pretty straightforward

skill. This is pretty straightforward and obvious. But here's the part that

and obvious. But here's the part that traps people. Whether it's learning

traps people. Whether it's learning about learning skills or learning to shoot an arrow or learning any other

skill, the fastest way to learn any skill is to learn more slowly. This is

the theory overload trap. Now, most of you know that I've got a program that teaches people to learn more efficiently. And one of the things that

efficiently. And one of the things that I can do on the program that I can't do on YouTube is I get to observe how the students behave and I can track their

progress much more closely. So take a look at these two students and see if you can guess which one ended up being more academically successful. First one

to look at is this one here, Suresh, who was on the program for 5 weeks and got through 31% of the program. And the second student

that I want you to look at is Enzo, who was on the program for 54 weeks and got through 20% of the program. Who do you

think improved the fastest? So despite

covering less of the course, it was actually Enzo who ended up with better academic results. He went from a

academic results. He went from a baseline of 62% to the latest exam result of 92%.

Compared to Sesh, and this is the surprising part, Sesh actually went from 80% to 71%.

Sesh actually got worse after working on it for 5 weeks. Why did Sesh get worse?

I'll give you a clue. It's not just because Enzo had so much more time to work on things. Well, the answer is

theory overload. Okay, now imagine this

theory overload. Okay, now imagine this bowl is your brain.

Very smooth. Just kidding. Now, your

brain has a limited amount of cognitive resources that it can spend. It's like

how much memory or RAM your computer has. So let's say that these wooden

has. So let's say that these wooden blocks represent your cognitive resources. Now whenever we learn a new

resources. Now whenever we learn a new skill, we're introduced to new things that we need to think about. So each

thing takes resources to keep it in mind and think about it. Hold my arrow more tightly, stabilize my core, keep my

shoulders uh relaxed, breathe more slowly, aim a little bit lower. You can

see that my bowl, my capacity is becoming filled up. And on top of that, there's a certain amount of resources it takes to just perform the activity. Now,

once a new skill eventually becomes a habit, the amount of resources it takes goes down. But when you're learning a

goes down. But when you're learning a new skill, it's not going to be a habit.

It's going to be unfamiliar and difficult and awkward. And all of those things take additional resources to overcome. So more and more needs to be

overcome. So more and more needs to be invested into just doing the actual skill. And as you can see now, we are

skill. And as you can see now, we are overflowing. We've overloaded our

overflowing. We've overloaded our brain's ability to think about things because we have given it too many things to think about. In the research, our brain trying to think about lots of

different things at the same time is called multiple element interactivity.

And it's a common reason why we enter into what's called cognitive overload.

But here is the thing about learning a cognitive skill like learning to learn for example unlike learning a physical skill like archery. For a physical skill

we burn energy using our body using our muscles. For a cognitive skill we burn

muscles. For a cognitive skill we burn effort with our brain. Which means that the amount of cognitive resources it

takes to just perform the skill the act of learning is innately very high to begin with. It takes a lot of mental

begin with. It takes a lot of mental resources to understand new information and process it and organize it and think about where it belongs and create new

memory. And all of this effort helps to

memory. And all of this effort helps to translate the learning into memory and understanding. If we didn't feel this

understanding. If we didn't feel this effort, we wouldn't have any memory and that would be called passive learning.

But with effective more active learning, it takes a lot of resources to begin with, which means adding just a few more

things can put us into overload very quickly. So in that case, what is the

quickly. So in that case, what is the best way to learn a new skill, especially a cognitive skill? Well, at

the end of the day, all of that means that when we're learning a new skill, we should only ever be trying to experiment with one or two things at the same time.

So Sesh, who covered like 30% of the program in a month, would have learned over a dozen new techniques. And each

technique has two or three things to think about. So that means that Sesh

think about. So that means that Sesh would have been trying to juggle 20 or 30 things at any given time. He was

completely overloaded and therefore his brain was not able to actually learn the skills. And this is exactly why some

skills. And this is exactly why some students, if they don't realize this trap, can spend months or even years

trying to learn a new skill and feeling like it is impossible to get it right because no matter how much time they put into it, they do not seem to be improving. It is incredibly frustrating.

improving. It is incredibly frustrating.

So, here's the secret to learning any skill the right way. Always balance your new theory with practice. If you

practice without any theory, it's aimless. If you practice with too much

aimless. If you practice with too much theory, you're getting overloaded. So,

the trick is to balance new theory coming in with your existing skills becoming habits. Like I mentioned

becoming habits. Like I mentioned before, when skills become habits, your brain figures out a more efficient way to do it. that doesn't require so many

cognitive resources anymore. It finds a shortcut. And so the amount of cognitive

shortcut. And so the amount of cognitive resources it takes to perform the skill goes down as more of this new skill just

starts to become an old habit. And

eventually what took a lot of concentration to do now takes virtually no thinking at all. and you can still do it just as accurately and just as

consistently. We have freed up more

consistently. We have freed up more cognitive resources to take in some new theory and turn those into habits. For some

skills and techniques, it can take weeks if not months to develop them into habits. Whereas for some it can just

habits. Whereas for some it can just take a few hours. And by balancing the theory with practice, we can achieve optimum skill growth where we are

practicing and every time we practice, we're improving with focus and direction, but we're not getting overloaded. So, here's what this looks

overloaded. So, here's what this looks like in practice. Let's say we've only got 5 hours a week to practice.

Now, that is not probably enough to form new habits very quickly. And so we're going to need to reduce the amount of new theory we take in. And because we've

got a low amount of practice and therefore a low amount of theory, the two of them are aligned and we can achieve our optimum skill growth. Now

let's say we now have a little bit more free time and we want to dedicate a little bit more time to learning this skill. So we have now 20 hours a week

skill. So we have now 20 hours a week that we can dedicate to practice. So the

amount that we can practice has now gone up, which means we can also go up in the amount of theory we can take in.

But it's proportional to the amount of extra practice we're getting. So as a rule of thumb, I usually say for every hour of theory, we should have at least

5 hours of practice. So for example, if we have 5 hours of practice, we would only be able to take in 1 hour of theory in this first example. Whereas in the second example, we've got 20 hours of

practice. Therefore, we can have up to 4

practice. Therefore, we can have up to 4 hours of theory. Now, unfortunately,

that's just a rule of thumb. And in

reality, it's a little bit more complicated because 5 hours of practicing a very complicated skill is not the same as 5 hours of practicing a very simple skill like a new way to tie

your shoelaces, in which case 5 hours of practice is probably overkill. And so,

what's more important and accurate than just the number of hours of practice is actually monitoring how quickly we're able to form new habits. When new habits

form, we have the mental space to take in more theory. So, if we're very slow at forming new habits, then we're going to be slower at taking in new theory.

And the way you can know that new habits are forming is when you can feel that things are becoming easier and faster

without compromising your accuracy and your consistency. And most of the time,

your consistency. And most of the time, you're able to get faster without trying to get faster. The speed comes with the efficiency that your brain develops at

just getting better at doing it. Now,

this is where I have to give props to Enzo because Enzo realized that he was developing new habits more slowly than

we would have anticipated. And so, he took a year to cover 20% of the program.

So instead of 5 hours of practice for every hour of theory, he was doing more like 15 20 hours of practice for every hour of theory. So even though on the

surface it looked like he was going very slowly, his skill growth was being maintained at an optimal rate because he was never letting himself get

overloaded. And by the way, if you're

overloaded. And by the way, if you're interested in the program yourself, there's a link in the description that you can check out. Now, while theory overload has an almost 100% failure

rate, the reverse is also true. Almost

100% of the time, I see someone balancing their theory intake rate with their practice and habit forming rate.

They are able to learn their desired skill very smoothly and very quickly.

which is why I said that I think this is one of the most important things to understand if you want to learn any skill.

So those are some of the core principles on how you can learn any new skill more quickly. Next I want to talk about how

quickly. Next I want to talk about how you can apply these skills and these strategies for your work as a professional. So if you're a

professional. So if you're a professional trying to learn complex new skills for your work, this next video is going to be especially valuable for you.

I've been a learning coach for the past 13 years. I've coached hundreds of

13 years. I've coached hundreds of professionals, entrepreneurs, and CEOs to learn effectively even under immense time pressures and responsibilities.

This is going to be no BS advice on how to learn as a professional. Number one,

start from zero. Let's say we have two different types of professionals. The

first is a great diligent student throughout university and the other is a university dropout. Of the two, which

university dropout. Of the two, which would you think is easier to coach to become a super efficient learner? In my

experience, most of the time the second person who struggled, was a terrible student is actually easier to coach.

This is because they actually have less built-in habits of learning. A lot of professionals struggle with learning, especially with high workloads, because when they start learning, they use the

same techniques and habits that they were used to while going through university. not realizing that those

university. not realizing that those methods are not serving them anymore.

And a lot of the time it didn't serve them back then either. They just got away with it. And it's not to say that book smarts is not important, but it's about understanding that your learning system probably is a combination of good

habits that are working and you should keep doing them and then bad habits that are holding you back which you are probably not even aware of. And the hard part about becoming an efficient learner

is not actually just learning new methods and techniques. That is easy.

The hard part is discovering and then unlearning your existing bad habits that have set in over years. So start from zero means just wipe the slate clean.

Forget about the way you used to learn.

If it's still working for you now, it will come back into your system. But

don't build your learning system from okay, here's what I used to do in university. Let's start from that. Just

university. Let's start from that. Just

start from what is my learning goal?

What's my current situation? And then

just build from a blank slate. Number

two, learn in sprints. When you go through uni, everything is laid out for you. There's a curriculum to follow and

you. There's a curriculum to follow and all you have to do is just learn what's given to you and then hit the assessment, which they usually tell you how they're going to market. None of

that applies in a professional learning context. However, having that structure

context. However, having that structure makes it much easier to learn. So one of the things that I recommend any professional to do is to actually set very clear explicit learning goals

almost like lecture objectives for yourself. What do I need to know? How

yourself. What do I need to know? How

well do I need to know it? And in what time frame do I need to achieve this expertise by? Once you've set your

expertise by? Once you've set your learning goals, learn aggressively. This

is the sprint part. Consume as much as you can about this topic until you feel like you're starting to lose track of it. It's a little overwhelming. And that

it. It's a little overwhelming. And that

may actually only take like a few hours of learning about it and then apply what you've learned immediately. So the

sprint is setting a learning goal, consuming about this aggressively, and then applying it usually for a more extended period of time. Once you've

applied it enough that this new knowledge feels like your own and you're pretty comfortable with it, then you can move into your next sprint where you set your next learning goal and then again consume aggressively. There's been

consume aggressively. There's been situations where I've spent maybe two weeks to read a few books on something and then I'll spend six months just applying what I've learned because I

don't feel comfortable enough to consume more information without having consolidated and lived through the learning that I've already accumulated.

Remember that the value of learning as a professional is your ability to execute and apply that knowledge. It doesn't

matter how much you've consumed and how much you know. If you can't actually use that and if you don't have the wisdom to use that in the right way, it's ultimately meaningless. Number three,

ultimately meaningless. Number three, lead don't follow. I go around the world doing workshops for various different industries. And when I work with new

industries. And when I work with new graduates, one of the most common things that I see is that the new graduates that really excel, whose managers see a lot of potential in them, that they're

being picked to be the rising stars, they do something different to the typical graduate. And it's very rare.

typical graduate. And it's very rare.

What they do is they put themselves in the mindset of becoming the expert. And

this is actually really important when it comes to learning because the way your brain will store and organize new information that you learn is heavily

influenced by the context and the purpose with which you're learning it.

So if you're learning just trying to hit your current requirements and your current level, then yes, you will be able to reach that current level, but

90% of the value of that learning is going to end there. But you can bet that that same piece of information, if you were to ask an expert about it, they would know even deeper and more nuance.

It may not be new information that you haven't learned, but it's a way of seeing that information that the beginner normally can't see. And so if you're setting your sights on trying to

develop that higher level of expertise, being the expert, not just following along everyone else, but becoming the leader within your level, then not only will you hit your current requirements,

but because you are thinking like an expert, the way that that knowledge is consolidated into your brain is going to be closer to that of an expert. So it's

actually going to carry you to the next level and beyond. And trust me, when you are tackling a new topic or a new client or a new project and you have learned

about it and the way you contribute and the questions you ask and the way you think about it is way beyond your current level, people will notice.

Number four, write less. You are not a human photocopier and words on paper don't mean anything. Back when you're a student, some of you may have taken a

lot of pride in writing lots of really nice, pretty comprehensive notes. But

what you will probably quickly realize in a professional learning environment is that writing a lot of notes takes a lot of time and doesn't really provide much benefit. Learning is not about

much benefit. Learning is not about writing notes. Writing notes is a tool

writing notes. Writing notes is a tool to help you think so that you can do the learning. The learning happens in the

learning. The learning happens in the brain. And if you're learning in the

brain. And if you're learning in the right way, you're constantly comparing and contrasting the new things that you've learned with other new things you've learned or with existing knowledge you have. You're constantly

trying to make analogies. You're

constantly trying to simplify what you're learning. That is a constant

you're learning. That is a constant active process that should be going on in your brain. And it's hard to keep track of all of these thoughts if you

just do it mentally. That's why you use notetaking. It is a cognitive offload

notetaking. It is a cognitive offload mechanism. And so when you look at your

mechanism. And so when you look at your notes, it should be like a visual representation of your thought process.

And any adjustment you make to your note takingaking method that gets you closer to this onetoone match with your thought process and how your brain is trying to organize that information, the more

effective your learning is going to be.

And therefore, naturally, you'll feel that you need to write less notes. And

this logic also directly applies for the next tip which is don't memorize.

Learning through memorization is a losing game. You don't there's no way to

losing game. You don't there's no way to win this. The more you try to memorize

win this. The more you try to memorize and learn through repetition, the less efficient your learning is going to be overall. There is going to be some

overall. There is going to be some information that you do need to memorize. You can't avoid it. Especially

memorize. You can't avoid it. Especially

if you are in a lot of scientific disciplines or really technically uh heavy disciplines. So when I was a

heavy disciplines. So when I was a doctor, yes, there was lots of things that I had to memorize. But what you need to understand is that memorization is a method of learning when all other methods of learning are not applicable.

It is the process of your brain receiving information that it doesn't connect with, doesn't see the relevance of, doesn't know why it's important, doesn't know why it needs to keep it,

and therefore tries to remove it and prune it from your memory because that's what it's meant to do. and then you taking it and then ramming it back into your brain to say, "No, I need you to

hold on to this." And with enough repetition, it does actually work. You

can deepen this neural groove so that that information just stays there stickier. But this requires repetition

stickier. But this requires repetition and is very timeconuming if you're trying to do this at scale. In the first instance of learning new information, your primary objective should be how can

I learn this in such a way that I don't need to memorize it. How do I make it simpler, inherently more intuitive, more relevant? How can I find a way to apply

relevant? How can I find a way to apply it and consolidate it straight away? And

the biggest barrier I see when coaching people is that they are so used to learning through memorization that they're not even aware that they're trying to memorize it. Whenever you hear

something or you're reading something and you go into this loop of thinking, I'm going to forget this. So, let me repeat that again and again to try to

consolidate it into my memory. That

behavior, that thought process is you trying to memorize. So start building a a radar, an awareness of when you enter into that habit and then use that as an opportunity to say, okay, instead of

just repeating it again and again, maybe I just pause for a moment and just think about how I can connect it to something or simplify it so that it's easier to remember. Now, one thing I need to

remember. Now, one thing I need to mention is that even though I'm packaging this information as a bunch of tips, learning to learn is a messy process. Some people watch my videos and

process. Some people watch my videos and they assume that because they watched it, they will magically get better at learning. But if you are serious about

learning. But if you are serious about getting better, you cannot avoid putting in the time and effort to try things, make mistakes, and learn from them.

Personally, it took me over 7 years of constant trial and error and reading thousands of research articles. And

those years of experience are what have allowed me to make YouTube videos like this today. But if you're a busy

this today. But if you're a busy professional trying to become hyperefficient at learning, you probably don't have a spare seven years. This is

why I created the I can study program on YouTube. I try my best to give you

YouTube. I try my best to give you content and valuable information, but there is a lot to go through and if you want to improve quickly, you need to be

focused on what to do next rather than what video should I watch next. On the I can study program, I'm able to distill my years of experience into the ideal

order and structure. I can give you tasks and check your understanding and give you feedback. I can go into examples and walkthroughs for your specific goals. So, while I will keep

specific goals. So, while I will keep posting videos for free on YouTube, if you are interested in a faster, more guided, less confusing path to

improvement, you may be interested in checking out my program at iconstudy.com. If you'd like to explore

iconstudy.com. If you'd like to explore it, I'll leave a link to it in the description below. And we'll move on to

description below. And we'll move on to the next tip, which is actually one of the first lessons in the program as well, which is to prep everything. Think

about your brain's ability to learn like a physical muscle. If I give you like a potato to carry, that's not going to be very difficult. But if I'm constantly

very difficult. But if I'm constantly throwing potatoes at you and now you've got like you've got this sack of potatoes and you're constantly trying to catch more and hold this huge heavy sack

of potatoes, you're going to get very tired. And the exact same thing happens

tired. And the exact same thing happens with our learning except instead of muscular fatigue, we're going to enter into cognitive fatigue or cognitive overload. And so the trick to learning

overload. And so the trick to learning efficiently is to balance our cognitive resources. That's basically how much

resources. That's basically how much mental energy and strength that we have.

And so if you imagine that you are in some workshop or a seminar and you're listening to someone give you this large volume of very dense information that you have never been exposed to before.

Your brain is trying to process that, understand it, organize it in your brain while simultaneously receiving the next piece of information. And it's trying to juggle so many things at the same time.

And if that's the situation you're in, it's pretty much impossible to make your learning more efficient except using some very cognitively advanced techniques. So when I say prep

techniques. So when I say prep everything, what I mean is to take that big block of learning and to start chipping away and working at it in

advance. And you can spend just five to

advance. And you can spend just five to 10 minutes just generally familiarizing yourself with what the main ideas are going to be about what you're learning,

what some of the more complicated ideas might be, and just generally how it's all connected and why you need to know this, why it is important for you. and

how it's going to be relevant for you.

And it doesn't take very long to get a general familiarity and a sense of purpose with what you're about to learn.

And that means that when you learn that information, your brain isn't trying to process and understand it and then desperately try to figure out where it fits all at the same time. It has an

idea about where this information will fit. And so, it's easier and faster to

fit. And so, it's easier and faster to store it away. Spending just 10 minutes to prep yourself on what you're about to learn can save you literally 10 times

that amount of time and effort in the future. Having said that, one of the

future. Having said that, one of the most common ways that you can ruin the benefit of that preparation is to

overconume information. Which brings me

overconume information. Which brings me to the next tip. Don't overeat. Learning

is essentially this constant battle of consuming and digesting. You're

consuming new information and your brain is digesting it. Figuring out how to organize and store this into your memory. The figuring out and storing

memory. The figuring out and storing part of this process takes a lot of effort and there's a limit to how fast you can do this. This is the bottleneck.

It's very easy to consume a lot of very dense information very quickly just like how I actually realized in the last few years that I tend to stress binge eat

and I didn't even know what overeing actually meant. Uh and I'm working on

actually meant. Uh and I'm working on that now. You may also not know what it

that now. You may also not know what it actually means to over consume and overeat new information. So, here is the mental check that I use every time I'm

learning something new that makes sure I never overeat. There are two questions I

never overeat. There are two questions I am constantly asking myself while I'm learning new information. The first is, does this make sense to me? Not just do

I understand it, but do I actually feel like it makes sense? It makes sense because that pattern of connections is something that your brain feels comfortable and familiar with. The

second question is, do I feel like I'm about to forget this? This question is bringing our attention to a very similar and important cognitive phenomenon. When

we have too many things that don't make sense, where our brain doesn't know how to organize it and file it away, then it's going to prune that information out

of our memory. And so that feeling of I feel like I'm going to forget this means that your brain has not found a worthwhile and meaningful way of

organizing this information. And if

there's lots of information you've consumed in a in a short period of time, your brain will probably struggle to get meaning out of it because it's overloaded. It's holding a very big sack

overloaded. It's holding a very big sack of potatoes. And so in that situation

of potatoes. And so in that situation where you feel like either it doesn't make sense or you're about to forget it or both, the most important thing you can do is to stop eating. Put the potato

chip down. You don't have to, Justin.

chip down. You don't have to, Justin.

Just because you opened up a bag of chips doesn't mean you have to finish it. You need to give your brain the

it. You need to give your brain the space to just process what it's already consumed. This is where note-taking in a

consumed. This is where note-taking in a way that reflects your thinking process can really help. You write down what you're thinking. You track your thoughts

you're thinking. You track your thoughts and you use that note-taking to help you to organize, group and simplify this information. Now, how long it takes, how

information. Now, how long it takes, how long you need to pause for for this to be consolidated, this can be minutes, seconds, or even

hours or days depending on your skill level and the amount of practice you have as well as the complexity of the information and how much knowledge you already have about the subject. But I

can guarantee that if you keep overeing and it doesn't make sense and you feel like you're going to forget it, then you the only thing you'll be able to do when you overeat is vomit it back up. You

won't be able to use that information probably for the reasons you're trying to learn it in the first place. And like

I said, one of the things that really helps you with this is tip number eight, map everything. The human brain is

map everything. The human brain is vastly more efficient at processing visual information than written information. Some studies suggest 20 to

information. Some studies suggest 20 to 40,000 times faster. This is why you can look at a painting of something and understand what you're seeing in half a second when it might take you half an

hour to read a detailed description of everything that you saw. Well, if you want to get more efficient with learning, you have to develop the habit of visually representing what you are

thinking about in your notes. Like I've

mentioned, the brain works in connections. It forms networks of

connections. It forms networks of knowledge that are all connected to and influence each other. And when

information doesn't fit into this network somewhere, it is eventually lost and forgotten. It is your ability to put

and forgotten. It is your ability to put something into a network and connect that meaningfully that determines your attention and your depth of expertise

aka how you can apply that information.

As a professional, most of the things you are learning, you're expected to do something with. Everything you learn is

something with. Everything you learn is connected to something and it is your job as a learner to figure out what those connections are. and mapping

nonlinear notetaking. Actually

physically representing connections and flows and influences on paper as you learn is an incredibly powerful technique that can help your brain to

think of and see these connections. And

if you've tried mapping and note-taking before and you haven't found it very effective, then I can guarantee it's not because the map is not

effective. It's because the way you are

effective. It's because the way you are thinking as you make the map is not effective. And so one key tip to make

effective. And so one key tip to make this more effective is to judge everything. The value of each new piece

everything. The value of each new piece of information you learn is not always equal. Some things are more important

equal. Some things are more important than other things. Some things are important in one context and less important than another context. And the

reason something is important is usually because of the influence or impact it has on another piece of information.

This is the network. A great learner doesn't just organize information based on how someone tells them to organize it. They actively think about why this

it. They actively think about why this piece of information is important. They

judge and critique the information. And

sometimes this is how you gain a perspective on knowledge that is uncommon amongst your peers. Where your

peers can say, "Oh yeah, this thing is made up of A, B, and C." But you can talk about it as, "Yeah, this thing is made up of A, B, and C, but really the

most important thing is B because of the influence it has on A and C." And you can immediately tell that the second person has thought about it more and

understands the topic to a deeper level.

In fact, even if you don't make a map or create a network or do any of the other things, simply just asking yourself on a

scale of 1 to 10, how important do I think this piece of information I've just consumed is? Just asking yourself that question can have immediate impacts on your attention and your depth of

understanding. And one of the best parts

understanding. And one of the best parts about judging everything and getting into that habit is that allows you to do the next tip, which is to ask better

questions. There's no such thing as a

questions. There's no such thing as a stupid question. Sure. But there are

stupid question. Sure. But there are definitely some questions that are better than others for learning. And the

best questions that help you to hold on to information, make sense of information and use that information like an expert would that helps you to

be a leader and not a follower is when you are asking questions that help you to map and judge the information. Let's

say you learn two new facts and you're trying to decide which of these two facts are more important and in what situations and how do they connect to

each other? How can I map it? You can

each other? How can I map it? You can

see that trying to do that, trying to achieve that outcome of judging it and mapping it forces you to think about this information more deeply and in relation to another. You might have

understood each thing individually.

I understand what this concept means. I

understand what this concept means. But

when you start comparing, well, which one is more important? How does it influence each other? It's a whole new realm of thinking. And naturally, if it's a new topic, you may have

questions. You will have hypothesis.

questions. You will have hypothesis.

I think this is more important in this situation because I feel like it impacts this and this and you know whereas I feel like this one is more important in a different situation because I feel like it connects with this thing and

this thing but not this thing. You can

see these are hypotheses and to clarify those we ask questions and depending on your your situation you know where you ask that question might depend maybe you leave it on a separate notepad and you

go over it later in your in your own time in the evening. Maybe you do a Google search. Maybe you ask a

Google search. Maybe you ask a supervisor or a manager or a senior. And

not only does asking and then answering these questions help with your learning and help you reach that expert level, if you are in a situation where questions are welcomed and encouraged, then your

supervisor or your manager or even your client is going to be impressed at how deeply you're trying to think about this topic and the types of questions that you're asking. If I'm working with

you're asking. If I'm working with someone and I know it's complicated and it's new to them and they don't have any questions for me,

almost always that's a red flag. It

means that they're not even thinking about it at the level that they need to to have these questions pop up into their heads. And if I know there's a

their heads. And if I know there's a certain standard that they need to hit and they're also not even thinking at that standard, then there's almost no chance they're going to hit it. On the flip side, if

someone is asking me questions, that shows that they're thinking at this level. Then nine out of 10 times, I know

level. Then nine out of 10 times, I know that the outcome, the quality of the work that they produce is going to be excellent. By the way, if you're liking

excellent. By the way, if you're liking this and you want me to go even deeper and explore some of the nuances and variations of these techniques that took me over a decade to figure out, then I

want to mention that I also have a free weekly newsletter where I cover that.

You can find a link to that in the description below. Now, on to the next

description below. Now, on to the next tip. Number 11, tactically hit the

tip. Number 11, tactically hit the books. When you go from high school to

books. When you go from high school to university, there's a big shift in that you take a lot more independence and responsibility. You decide how to study,

responsibility. You decide how to study, when to study, or whether to study at all. When you go from uni to the

all. When you go from uni to the workforce, there's another transition in that you now decide what to study in the first place. And so when you think about

first place. And so when you think about studying and having dedicated study sessions, think about studying as your fourth optimal solution to a knowledge

problem. So if you need to know

problem. So if you need to know something for work or for an exam, the first option like the most ideal solution to that problem, the knowledge

gap that you have is that you just know it and you can just remember it. there

was a gap, you thought about a little bit more and it's like, oh yeah, now you filled it. The second option is that you

filled it. The second option is that you just quickly look it up. A quick Google search, looking through notes, looking at a reference piece of information and the knowledge is there. The third option is that you can't find the information

quickly, so you have to do a deeper search. It takes you a little bit longer

search. It takes you a little bit longer to find the answer. You're crawling

through reading like dozens of different uh Google results. You're reading

through articles trying to figure this out. And the fourth option is when you

out. And the fourth option is when you have to do that deeper finding. It's

timeconuming. You have to troll through things. However, it's not enough just to

things. However, it's not enough just to have found an answer. It's when you not only have to have an answer, but you also need to know how to think about the answer and how to think about the problem and all the other things that

are related to it. You actually have to have expertise on the topic. And in

order to achieve that, you need to do studying. And the reason this tip is

studying. And the reason this tip is called tactically hit the books is because a very common thing that I see is that people will have this general knowledge gap within their discipline.

And so they'll find like a book or a course that fills it and then they'll just go through it. And it is a very passive and inefficient and undirected

way of trying to fill that knowledge gap. Some of the information isn't even

gap. Some of the information isn't even relevant to what you need and then you have to sift through what is and isn't relevant. It's often very timeconuming

relevant. It's often very timeconuming and feels very boring and tedious like you know going back to school and then because it's not a targeted way of filling your knowledge gap. It's not

providing you value for your daily work straight away. You have to spend 3 weeks

straight away. You have to spend 3 weeks finishing this course before you then turn around and think okay did this help solve my problem? But if instead you think about the process of studying as

almost like this fourth option like this really slow Google search then it means you are much more deliberate about what you are trying to learn and why you're

trying to learn it. What information do you need to solve your knowledge gap and how do you need to think about it for this to be valuable? And if you start here in a more targeted way then it's

easier to make this knowledge relevant.

It's easier to make it make sense. It's

more memorable naturally. It provides

you value straight away. And even if you do go on and then study all the other little details that may be less relevant, it's easier to learn and

integrate that stuff later because you're building on this solid foundation of relevant material that makes sense to you. And one thing that you should do to

you. And one thing that you should do to try to make the knowledge that you gain from hitting the books more relevant more quickly is to delete the latent

learning period. If you studying in uni,

learning period. If you studying in uni, you might spend six weeks studying something and then have an exam and then in that exam you see how well you did.

Well, this is actually a very risky studying strategy because it means that if you've got gaps in your knowledge and you weren't hitting the level, you don't figure that out until the exam. So a

good student should be testing themselves very regularly. So it's their exam result is not a surprise to them.

Well, this is even more true if you're learning as a professional. Forget 6

weeks. If you spend 6 days learning about something, preparing some solution, some strategy, solving a certain problem at work, but the way that you've approached it and what you've learned has not been accurate,

hasn't been correct, then you've just wasted that entire week and that time and probably someone else's time and money. And so that period from when you

money. And so that period from when you start learning something through to the point at which you start getting feedback on the validity of what you have learned, that's called the latent

learning period. And as a professional,

learning period. And as a professional, we want to bring that as close to zero as possible. For a new and especially

as possible. For a new and especially complicated topic, it can be very difficult to know what even is the correct or right way of thinking about it. And so we want to test the validity

it. And so we want to test the validity of how we're thinking and structuring this information very frequently. Go

from learning about it, making sense of it, connecting it together, and then proposing, okay, this is how I think I should apply it. And try to do that

immediately. And then have that approach

immediately. And then have that approach or strategy checked by someone early and frequently. If there are major errors in

frequently. If there are major errors in the way that you're thinking about something or learning something, you want those to be signposted to you as early as possible so you don't have to then restructure your entire schema of

learning. But in reality, when I do

learning. But in reality, when I do these workshops and I talk to these professionals that I'm coaching, they'll spend weeks learning about something and

only weeks or months later when they actually apply it in a real world setting at work do they realize that the way they learned it isn't actually

helpful for their needs. And by having this weeks or months long latent learning period, we've just wasted all of that time. And speaking of wasting

time, one of the most important things that you can do to save time when learning is to actually learn more

slowly. Because tip number 13, slow is

slowly. Because tip number 13, slow is fast. This general manager of this

fast. This general manager of this company that I worked with once told me that good planning costs a lot, but not planning costs much more. And I find

that this is really true for learning.

When we don't have a lot of time and there's so much to learn, it's really easy to want to learn faster and just

cover more content and overeat and just just do whatever we can to get on top of this knowledge gap. So you end up reading a lot of books and attending

courses and and and workshops and you know listening to a bunch of different podcasts and audio books and all you have is just more things that you're

forgetting. And the trap is that it

forgetting. And the trap is that it becomes so easy to get caught up in just going through more material quickly

that we deprioritize actually spending the time to think and process and organize what we've consumed. the idea of learning in

consumed. the idea of learning in sprints and consuming and then just not consuming anything else, just applying

and consolidating and checking and and living through that. This is a very confronting suggestion to a lot of people who would say, well, if I do

that, I'm not going to be able to cover my knowledge requirements because I'm not getting through enough content quickly. And my answer is that if the

quickly. And my answer is that if the problem is with the knowledge you have in your brain, then flicking more pages

with your hands doesn't change that. And

sometimes what we need to think more is to give ourselves the space by flicking pages a little less. I would say that I

am a very efficient, fast learner.

You would hope so cuz it's my literal job. But when you watch me study,

job. But when you watch me study, it's not I'm not blazing fast. My pen

isn't catching fire, you know? I'm not

breaking through my keyboard every study session because I'm just like studying so fast. Most of the time when I'm

so fast. Most of the time when I'm learning something, I'm doing a lot of just looking, thinking, pondering, maybe a Google search. Mentally, there's a lot

going on and it's very quick. What I'm

focused on is fixing the biggest bottleneck, which is my ability to process and organize the information.

I'm acknowledging that it doesn't matter how fast I consume. The consuming

information part is never the bottleneck. I can always do that faster

bottleneck. I can always do that faster or slower. The thing that affects my

or slower. The thing that affects my speed of learning is how much time and effort I devote into the thinking and processing part. And sometimes that can

processing part. And sometimes that can make it feel like you're learning very slowly if you are used to measuring your speed of learning by how quickly you're

covering content. But if you are

covering content. But if you are learning correctly, thinking in the right ways, it should take more effort and it should take a little longer. And

that's what saves you time in the future. Going slow and doing it properly

future. Going slow and doing it properly is what makes your learning fast. And

the final tip I have for you is to bring everything to the table. One of my employees is also one of my former students. They joined my program. They

students. They joined my program. They

learned the skills. They did very well academically. We hired him and there was

academically. We hired him and there was this big difference between his ability to perform academically which was very high versus his ability to perform at

work. And what we eventually realized

work. And what we eventually realized was that these skills of thinking critically and connecting everything and judging everything and mapping

everything, he wasn't holding himself to that standard consistently with his work. He was only doing that when it

work. He was only doing that when it came to studying something. But the key to being an exceptional professional, to being a thought leader, to being someone

who's able to just learn and just adapt and tackle projects with confidence, is that your brain needs to get used to thinking at this higher standard. It has

to get used to it so that it can become a habit so that it can become easier and faster. You don't want to need to like

faster. You don't want to need to like take a quadruple shot of espresso every single time you sit down to do some work because your brain is just like having

to think so hard to think at this level.

With enough practice, it just becomes a habit. It becomes as easy to think in

habit. It becomes as easy to think in this way as whatever way you're currently thinking of. Now, it takes time and it takes effort to get to that point, but that's where your goal should

be. And if on a Monday you're thinking

be. And if on a Monday you're thinking at a lower level and then on a Tuesday you're thinking at a higher level and on a Wednesday you are back low, this tug of war is going to make it harder for

you to just consistently build this habit. So show up every day holding

habit. So show up every day holding yourself to this standard. Every meeting

you're a part of, every conversation, every problem you're solving, do your best to think and maintain this standard for yourself. become the person who's

for yourself. become the person who's valuable to involve in the conversation purely because the way they think about it is valuable. And when you bring everything you can to the table

consistently, not only does it help you to train your brain with these new habits, but you become someone who is more dependable, who is capable of more, is given more responsibilities and given

more opportunities. So that's the advice

more opportunities. So that's the advice and I can tell you that in the hundreds of professionals that I've done face tof face workshops for all around the world that the number of people that follow

even half of this advice is extremely rare. And if you do follow all of this

rare. And if you do follow all of this advice, your ability to learn, your growth trajectory, your career trajectory will tangibly improve. So I

hope you found this useful. If there are certain situations that you want me to cover or questions you want me to answer, leave a comment down below. So,

if you're interested in joining my program to get a fast track on developing these skills, there's also a link to that in the description below.

Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.