Book Summary: The Only Skill that Matters
Table of Contents
- Thesis
- Learning
- Knowles suggests the following:
- Learning Plan
- Why are we learning?
- What level of knowledge do we need?
- How to break into smaller chunks and how to recombine?
- What are the most important things to learn?
- What is the right order of learning?
- How is the information accessed?
- What is the study schedule and how can we compress it?
- How can we measure our progress?
- What happens if things don’t go according to plan?
- Levels of Learning
- Reading
- Testing
- Teaching
- Cross-pollination
- Brain fuel
- TL;DR
- Book Review
This is a summary of the book The Only Skill that Matters by Jonathan A. Levi.
Thesis
In today’s fast paced world - learning new things quickly is the most important skill. The book doesn’t delve deep into proving this but accepting it, it explains how somebody - especially an adult - can learn new things fast.
Learning
The book refers to the research of Malcolm Knowles on how adults learn. Children usually learn on demand. The whys and hows are not considered that important. But once we become adults, knowing why we learn becomes important. In adults, learning happens best through active practice and participation. We have to convince the brain that the knowledge is immediately useful.
Knowles suggests the following:
Start with a problem and work towards a solution
The usual way is starting from the basics (eg. “Hello World” in programming). We eventually reach a point where we can use it for a complicated task. Instead, go the other way round. Try to solve an interesting problem in the area of learning and then learn as and when required. This provides immediate feedback and at the same time keeps things interesting.
Customize the path to learning according to your requirements
Some things are necessary, some are not. While learning from a structured plan, try to figure out the most important things and learn them. Learn a few optional things, keep a few for later. Take different paths, don’t stick rigidly to an external plan.
Internal motivation is important
External motivation is not effective after a point. Instead, as adults we have to motivate ourselves to learn something. For this, we have to delve deep into why we want to learn it.
Plan ahead to structure the sequence of learning
Instead of just pushing ahead without a plan, first structure what and how we are learning.
Learning Plan
While planning ahead focus on the following:
Why are we learning?
Include why we are learning into the plan
What level of knowledge do we need?
Knowing enough to teach someone vs knowing enough to pass an exam
How to break into smaller chunks and how to recombine?
Learn the smallest chunks (eg. words in a language) and then combine them to form bigger useful chunks (eg. sentences)
What are the most important things to learn?
Pareto Principle: 20% of the information might cover 80% of our need
What is the right order of learning?
Structuring the order is important. The wrong order might have have permanent effect on our learning
How is the information accessed?
Organize access and information. The information we learn should be accessible in the most useful order (eg. remembering what an array before sorting an array)
What is the study schedule and how can we compress it?
Parkinson’s Principle suggests work expands to fill the schedule. Reverse this. Adding real world stakes might be helpful in compressing the schedule. Trick the brain (eg. a public lecture on a topic within 2 weeks for a topic that you think might take you 4 weeks)
How can we measure our progress?
Pick SMART goals. Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic and Timely (eg. learn 100 German verbs in 2 weeks is a SMART goal, learn German in 2 weeks is not)
What happens if things don’t go according to plan?
Things might not go according to plan. Our learning path should be tolerant to failure. A single missed study session should not result in the entire schedule getting thrown out.
Levels of Learning
Bloom’s taxonomy of learning indicates the following stages in which learning happens:
- Remembering
- Understanding
- Analysis
- Evaluation
- Creation.
Only at the last stage have we mastered something.
Memory
For learning anything, the memory is crucial. A blind devotion to memorisation is not useful. But we need to be able to recall the required chunks of information. The bigger the chunk that can be recalled, the more we have learnt.
Barring neurological disorders, anyone can memorise if it is done in the right manner. Neuroscience research indicates that brains of memory specialists and ours are identical. The only difference is in how the brain recalls information. The brain itself doesn’t change.
This is a positive because it means a majority of us can learn to memorise. This is in fact the subject of the book Moonwalking with Einstein. In it, a memory sceptic learns the so-called tricks of the trade. He becomes a memory expert (6th in an international competition) within a year.
Evolution
Our brains are really good at remembering smells, tastes and sights. These were crucial in determining whether our species survived to the next day or not. Avoiding poisonous food, predators and recognizing the social group were all crucial for survival. These instincts persist. Smells can trigger extremely detailed memories. We also remember locations to an almost absurd level of detail.
As an aside, while reading the book, I tried recalling different rooms I have been in. I was quite shocked to realise that I still remember some houses and their layouts.
We can leveraging these evolutionary instincts to learn new things and remember them.
Visual Memory
The trick to remembering is to master the visual memory. Use highly detailed visualisations - each detail can be used to represent something new. The images should be bizarre, absurd, violent or sexual. Our hippocampi (the part of the brain that acts as a memory filter and cleaner) loves the abnormal. Involve as many senses to that memory as possible - taste, smell, touch. The more vivid the visualisation, the stronger the connection.
This visualisation requires regular practice but it is something most people can do.
While visualising and learning, we should create connections with existing knowledge. As an example, while learning a word in a new language, connect it to a word in a language we already know.
Another important step is to always keep in mind what we are learning. Remembering vivid pictures are not useful by themselves. It should form a logical connection to our overall body of knowledge.
Memory palaces, also referred to as Method of Loci, are a very effective way of remembering. Our brains have an incredible ability to store locations/rooms we have been to. I am not going into the details here as it is a very popular method, in fiction and not. But remember that if you create a memory palace in an order, modifying it later could be very hard. So, plan ahead.
The next part of any discussion in memory is to ensure that the required memories are long term. Everyone forgets, it is an important part of being human. Remembering everything, whether it is important or not is not useful. Spaced Repetition - review just when you are about to forget - is a proven way to ensure that the required memories stick. There are software and physical systems for implementing spaced repetition.
Reading
To learn something new, we have to read. Effective reading is thus an important step in learning new things. To read effectively use the SQ3R method - Survey Question Read Recall Review.
While surveying, skim the material to prime the brain for receiving information. During this skimming, pick the important headings, key points, terminologies.
Then question yourself on why we are reading that part. This creates curiosity for reading. Use cognitive biases to trick the brain into interest.
The above two are together referred to as pre-reading. At this time, build a mental map of the material. Form markers and anchor points, get a general picture of the material and how it is structured.
Then read the section, it can either be speed reading or normal reading. At this time, create vivid visualisations at the anchor points.
After reading, recall to improve details of visualization and mnemonics. Depending on how dense the content is, this might be needed every paragraph or less.
Finally during review, analyze the content from multiple perspectives. Connect it to previous knowledge.
Speed reading
The following are the primary ways to improve the reading speed significantly: 1. Reduce subvocalisation - Completely removing subvocalisation is impossible. So attempt to reduce it such that we are subvocalising the most important words in a line. It is still very hard to do. 2. When we read, our eyes jump around and each jump results in a period of blindness. This is imperceptible and referred to as a saccade. These saccades affect our reading speed. So, to increase our reading speed, reduce the number of times spent in saccadic blindness. This can be done by training to reduce the number of fixations. The Schultz table is used for this. 3. Optimize fixations. Focus on optimally spaced words in a line. Use progressive workload to learn this. Read at speed we are barely comprehending. Then train to read at this speed and when it becomes comprehensible increase speed to next level. This is much like physical training, where as we are able to lift a particular weight, it is increased to the next level.
Once we learn to speed read, we are not going to jump to 5000 words per minute and zoom through War and Peace in an hour. But 600-800 words per minute while retaining 80-90% comprehension is possible. Like most skills, it is something that can rust without use. So practice it often. Pick and choose if something has to be speed read. Speed reading a very interesting novel might ruin the thrill.
Testing
Testing is an extremely important process in learning. It helps in differentiating between recognition and remembering. This could be a structured test by an authority. But tests are most useful when it involves applying what we learnt. There is research proving that learning improves from tests or quizzes involving analysis.
One way to test yourself is to use the material learnt from day one. Do not wait for an arbitrary threshold of learning. Instead, use it and then test if our usage was correct. Feedback loops are important. As an example, while learning a new language, practice speaking from day 1. Another way of testing our learning is to write blogs. A quality blogpost requires understanding.
Teaching
Teaching is one of the most effective ways of testing ourselves. It forces us to check our understanding due to the psychological effect. It also requires us to move up the Bloom’s taxonomy to teach well. It can result in identifying knowledge gaps as well as new insights from the other person. Only if you can explain something simply have you learnt something well.
Cross-pollination
An interesting idea that comes up here is brute-force learning. In brute-force hacking, a hacker gets into a system by trying out all possible passwords. We can hack our brains into learning something by learning from all possible options. A video lecture might add connections to a college lecture.
Learning many things together is also not bad. Learning anything helps in learning everything. Jump around and get ideas from everywhere. An insight in biology might help somewhere in computer science. If something is difficult to understand, approach it from another angle. Variety is important in learning.
Brain fuel
All the above are completely wasteful if our brain is not maintained properly. Thus the three most important things for learning are:
Sleep
Our brains need rest. While sleeping, the hippocampi strengthens connections and cleans clutter. Without proper sleep, learning is impossible
Right food
The brain consumes about 20% of our daily enery despite weighing only 0.2%. Keeping it chugging is thus a taxing activting. High quality fats provide best nutrition for the brain. Consuming lots of sugars can have a detrimental effect.
Exercise
There is a lot of research that exercise improves the neurochemistry.
TL;DR
Learning new things fast is the most important skill. Utilise the evolutionary traits to remember long-term. Convince or trick our brains that learning something new is immediately important. Plan ahead before learning. Memory is important and trainable. Read effectively (SQ3R). Learn in as many ways as possible. Test your learning, teaching is the most effective way to test it. Your brain needs sleep, right food and exercise for optimal functioning.
Book Review
I liked the book. The book doesn’t reveal any new tricks but does a survey of the learning landscape and provides a flow to learn. It touches upon all the usual suspects and I didn’t learn anything new from it. But it is structured well and is densely packed with information. A caveat is that I took most of the claims at face value. I did not do a review of the associated research (I am not qualified for that) but it felt sensible. I would recommend you to read it and incorporate parts into your life.
’Til Later