I wasn't ever a expert learner. I thought learning was all virtually the hours y'all pose in. Then I discovered something that changed my life.
The famous Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman understood the difference betwixt "knowing something" as well as "knowing the get upwardly of something," and it's 1 of the most of import reasons for his success.
Feynman stumbled upon a formula for learning that ensured he understood something amend than everyone else.
It's called the Feynman Technique and it volition attention y'all larn anything deeper, as well as faster. The topic, subject, or concept y'all desire to larn doesn't matter. Pick anything. The Feynman Technique plant for everything. Best of all, it's incredibly elementary to implement.
The catch: It's ridiculously humbling.
Not entirely is this a wonderful method of learning, but it's also a window into a dissimilar agency of thinking. Let me explain:
There are 3 steps to the Feynman Technique.
Step 1: Teach it to a child
Take out a blank canvass of newspaper as well as write the dependent acre y'all desire to larn at the top. Write out what y'all know virtually the dependent acre every bit if y'all were teaching it to a child. Not your smart adult friend but rather an eight-year-old who has precisely plenty vocabulary as well as attending bridge to sympathize basic concepts as well as relationships.
A lot of people tend to operate complicated vocabulary as well as jargon to mask when they don't sympathize something. The work is nosotros entirely fool ourselves because nosotros don't know that nosotros don't understand. In addition, using jargon conceals our misunderstanding from those to a greater extent than or less us.
When y'all write out an thought from get-go to complete inwards elementary linguistic communication that a kid tin strength out sympathize (tip: operate entirely the most mutual words), y'all strength yourself to sympathize the concept at a deeper degree as well as simplify relationships as well as connections betwixt ideas. If y'all struggle, y'all possess got a clear agreement of where y'all possess got some gaps. That tension is good—it heralds an chance to learn.
Step 2: Review
In stride one, y'all volition inevitably run across gaps inwards your noesis where you're forgetting something important, are non able to explicate it, or only possess got problem connecting an of import concept.
This is invaluable feedback because you've discovered the border of your knowledge. Competence is knowing the boundary of your abilities, as well as you've precisely identified one!
This is where the learning starts. Now y'all know where y'all got stuck, acquire dorsum to the source material as well as re-learn it until y'all tin strength out explicate it inwards basic terms.
Identifying the boundaries of your agreement also limits the mistakes you're liable to brand as well as increases your risk of success when applying knowledge.
Step 3: Organize as well as simplify
Now y'all possess got a laid of hand-crafted notes. Review them to brand certain y'all didn't mistakenly borrow whatever of the jargon from the source material. Organize them into a elementary storey that flows.
Read them out loud. If the explanation isn't elementary or sounds confusing that's a expert indication that your agreement inwards that expanse even then needs some work.
Step iv (optional): Transmit
If y'all actually desire to travel certain of your understanding, run it by someone (ideally who knows fiddling of the subject—or abide by that 8-year-old!). The ultimate exam of your noesis is your capacity to pick out it to another.
Feynman's approach intuitively believes that intelligence is a procedure of growth, which dovetails nicely amongst the piece of work of Carol Dweck, who beautifully describes the divergence betwixt a fixed as well as growth mindset.
This post originally appeared on Medium. If y'all desire to piece of work smarter as well as non harder, I recommend subscribing to The Brain Food Newsletter. You tin strength out follow Shane on Twitter and Facebook, as well as read to a greater extent than of his piece of work at Farnam Street.
