I believe most of my success is from learning to solve problems in a wide variety of fields from engineering to real estate. Though this ability was honed over hundreds of hours, I want to improve it in 2023. Everyone has skills they want to build, from learning a foreign language for fun to learning to code for work. In his book Ultralearning, Scott H. Young describes nine principles for learning quickly and effectively. The next series of posts will summarize his approach and may help you in your own learning journey.
Principle 1: First Draw a Map
With any project, the first step is planning how you will accomplish your goal. In your learning journey, this deconstruction is called metalearning. Scott explains metalearning in three components: why, what, and how. The “why” is your end goal for the learning project. Is it to acquire a new skill for a work promotion or simply for the fun of learning? The “what” is a well-defined list of knowledge and skills you will use to measure success. The “how” is methods you will implement in your learning project. These methods can be gleaned from experts who accomplished similar goals or though a google search to see common methods. For example, I wanted to learn how to code Python so I followed the CodeAcademy curriculum.
A goal of learning an entire language may initially seem daunting. This first step of metalearning is meant to make the why, what, and how of your learning project crystal clear. I often get so bogged down in the details of learning that I get frustrated. The metalearning components help refocus my efforts. Many methods you implement may not work for your learning style so you have to experiment. Once you find methods that work, you’ll be much more efficient in future learning projects. Next week, we will discuss the key to implementing your metalearning plan: focus.
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