Book Summary: The Only Skill that Matters

While planning ahead focus on the following:

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.

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.

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.

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.

Our brains need rest. While sleeping, the hippocampi strengthens connections and cleans clutter. Without proper sleep, learning is impossible

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.

There is a lot of research that exercise improves the neurochemistry.