chapter-1
How To Learn
“Study the past if you would divine the future.”
— Confucius
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Since we are on the topic of learning, why should we not discuss the topic how to learn anything as fast as possible but not only as fast but learning in both quantity and quality.
Personally, I use the 80–20 method which was first observed by Vilfredo Pareto in 1906 who noticed that 80% of the property in Italy was owned by 20% of the people. This was later used in academics by Joseph M. Juran in 1941.
It implies that 80% of results come from 20% of the efforts, let’s take an example of learning a language, personally I know 4 and am fluent in 3. The best way to get full mastery/fluency in the language is to learn the 1000 most common words and constantly try to translate, because that’s the way our Brain’s learn. Let’s assume your first language is English and you are trying to learn French, what your brain does is that first it thinks in English and translates it into French, so if we practice translation that process of translating in your brain becomes shorter and you become fluent. Another method is The Scribble Method which suggests that you use your non-dominant hand to write notes while actively reading or watching a lecture, this improves memory retention and keeps the brain alert. Memory retention is important as the brain is trying to forget as much as possible.
You can also use the Feynman Technique which says that the best way to learn something is to explain it to someone dumber than you in the simplest words, something like explaining quantum immortality to a toddler.
