5 Steps to Learning Anything Faster
If you are a learning junkie like myself, you probably had the following thought at some point in your life:
Wouldn’t life be a lot easier if there was a way to accelerate my learning speed?
Famous Swedish psychologist, Dr. Anders Ericsson, deduced that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill. What if I told you that yes, to master a skill, such as Computer Programming, will take you 10,000 hours, but to learn a new skill will probably take you 20 hours?
What’s the difference here?
If you want to become the best computer programmer in the world and build exceptional software that solves the most complex problems (e.g. a driverless car), then yes, Dr. Ericsson is right: you have to put in 10,000 hours.
However, if you want to learn the foundations of computer programming, so that you can create simple programs that solve simple problems (e.g. a program to remind you to stand up and stretch after every 45mins), then perhaps you don’t need to invest 10,000 hours. In fact, as little as 20 hours would suffice.
Now, the real question: How do we learn a new skill faster?
1. Know your motivation
Always start with the why.
If you know why you are learning the new skill, you are more motivated to learn. And motivation combined with information leads to faster learning & long-term retention.
The traditional classroom environment leads most students into a state of monotony instead of feeling motivated. Which is why most of us hardly remember what we learned in school.
Hence, when picking up a new skill to learn, spend some time writing down on a piece of paper: why this new skill is important for you and how you will benefit from it. So, the next time you feel demotivated, you can go back to this paper to reignite yourself.
2. Let it go
Just like Elsa from Disney’s Frozen, you have to let go of everything you already know about your chosen skill. The old information about the skill creates biases and resistance in our minds and slows down the learning speed. Our mind is like a tap: knowledge flows only when it is open.
3. Do not multitask
Our brains are not wired for multitasking. When we are learning something new the following happens in our brain:
A large number of neurons in the frontal cortex (the conscious part of our brain) get activated to help us learn the skill.
More and more neurons are recruited from other parts of the brain into the frontal cortex to accelerate the process of learning. As a result of the influx of additional neurons, the frontal cortex expands in size and becomes bigger.
With adequate practice and effort, the skill becomes hardwired and automatic in our brain.
The additional neurons that were recruited in the frontal cortex to learn this skill are then shifted farther down the cortex to the lesser conscious part of the brain. This frees up the frontal cortex to learn other new skills and solve newer problems.
In the end, an entirely new neuron network is created just to remember the newly mastered skill and this network now sits in other parts of the brain that require much less conscious control.
It is important to note that the process of hardwiring decelerates if we are constantly distracted and shift from one task to another. In doing so, we activate completely different sets of neurons for each task. Hence, it becomes very difficult for a new neural network to form dedicated to the new skill. Through constant multitasking, we sabotage our own learning and development. This is why experts recommend that we dedicate two to three hours of our focus learning a new skill instead of spending six to eight hours of dispersed concentration on multiple tasks.
4. Do and Be Curious
Traditional classroom environments encourage us to learn by observing and listening to teachers which is a passive form of learning. If you want to speed up your learning then you must become an active learner by:
Doing: Find creative ways to apply the skill you are learning. For example, if you learned 5 new words in Spanish today, then practice them and use them repeatedly with your family and friends throughout the day.
Being Curious: Always ask the why and how questions. The more questions you ask, the more you know. The more you know, the faster you learn.
5. Teach it
When you teach a topic or a skill, you get to learn it multiple times. For example, after learning 5 new Spanish words, teach your friend the 5 new words that you learned. The more you teach, the more you activate the neurons in the neural network dedicated to these 5 new words. The more activation, the stronger and long-term the connection becomes.
Try these 5 steps the next time you start learning a new skill and get ready to transform and accelerate your learning curve!