Ultralearning

As I went through this book it became clear how it overlaps with "Deep Work", "The Art of Learning" and many blog posts around deliberate practice and growth. While it might seem obvious, there is no simple way for you to grow without discipline. This book will give you many tools and ideas to succeed, but if you don't make the effort to pursue these learning techniques, you're just wasting your time. For many reasons I wish I read this before college, it would have had a pretty big impact

There is no secret sauce. You need to start a journey of discovery to understand which learning technique works best for you. It will take some trial and error but once you nail down what works, it should potentially unlock rapid learning techniques. I did pick a few things that I am planning on using which I will be mentioning in a bit.

At its core, ultralearning is about intensity and willingness to prioritize effectiveness. With how busy we are with life, work, and family, in the few hours we have in a day, we need to maximize our effort via experimentation. I believe that what helps stay disciplined is taking some time to plan what you want to learn and why. Is your goal to be a better writer? Better at drawing? Learning a language? Whatever that is, if you're lacking a true motive to seek proficiency in any field, staying disciplined can be hard.

Things I learned that I will carry with me

Having a clear plan and goal. I always made learning part of my life even after college, I crave it and consistently need it in my day-to-day. There are a few things I did well and a few I did poorly. I had moments of pure intensity where I wanted to absorb and learn JavaScript, this was very early in my career and I was relentless. Blog posts, online classes, books, and continuous practice made me incredibly comfortable with the language early on. That paid off handsomely as I carry some of those lessons with me to this day. In other cases I "wasted" some of my time pursuing tangential courses or learning paths that did not have an impact and of which I don't recall much, that's because I did not have a plan. While with Javascript I did not have a formal plan I had a specific focus on wanting to master the language.

Moving forward I want to make a more intentional effort on what I want to learn, why, and how. This is also presented in the book, an early investment in planning can help you tremendously. Let's take for example learning a new programming language. Which one should I go for? Why do I want to pursue this? Which resources do I plan on using? Which projects can help me master it?

I am currently on a meta-journey. As you will notice from my recent reviews I am trying to learn more about...learning! I have lined up a few books that I thoroughly review and hope they will help me come up with a plan on how to structure my learning moving forward. Things I want to focus on are planning, proficiency, and retention.

Planning

At least 10% of my time should be spent on planning, I can create a list of resources that I believe will carry me through this learning experience. It doesn't have to be perfect and I can review it every few weeks. This involves planning for projects that are in line with the goal of my learning, where do I expect to use this skill? This goes hand in hand with the principle of directness.

Directness is the idea of learning being tied closely to the situation or context you want to use it in.

Proficiency

I cannot expect myself to become proficient in anything without practice. As part of planning, I must take this into high consideration. Which projects can I work on to consolidate my learnings and get me closer to my proficiency goal? How can I measure proficiency? What does proficiency in this skill look like? I need to organize my time in a way that I can do the thing I want to get better at. The example of learning a programming language can translate into pet projects or copies of existing projects. Starting with smaller well-scoped projects and increasing difficulty will be fundamental. Smaller projects can be a rewarding experience that boosts motivation and can give you a clear idea of what went well and what didn't.

A feedback loop based on projects can help understand which areas need further studying, once those areas surface I can plan what the book calls "drills". When working on a project I must remember that the goal is learning not "getting it done", why do I say this? Sometimes in pet projects I just want to move forward and will instinctively look up anything that will bring me closer to the solution. From there it's a matter of reshaping someone else's effort to make it fit my case. This is terrible for my learning, it is by practicing and failing that I can grow not by sitting on the shoulders of others.

Retrieval

After I read a chapter of a book am I able to explain it? Would I be able to summarize it on a blank piece of paper? A good suggestion I picked up from the book is the strategy of rephrasing main concepts as questions to be answered later. This can be particularly useful if they become flashcards that you can review with Anki. Having a daily Anki routine has already become part of my day-to-day.

A cross-over between proficiency and retrieval is the ability to produce examples on a topic. If I'm unable to do so not only does it mean I don't have a deep understanding of it (which will inevitably move me away from proficiency) but I will also have a hard time remembering it. This might warrant a "drill" session until I feel confident and can easily produce examples and explain them to someone who has learned far less than I have.

How can I get better at learning?

As hinted earlier it will be a journey of experimentation. The first place to experiment is with the methods, materials, and resources I use to learn. Here is a list of questions extracted from the book to use as guidelines:

• Have I done research into what are the typical ways of learning this subject or skill?
• Am I focused when I spend time learning, or am I multitasking and distracted?
• Am I learning the skill in the way I’ll eventually be using it?
• Am I spending time focusing on the weakest points of my performance?
• Am I spending most of my time reading and reviewing, or am I solving problems and recalling things from memory without looking at my notes?
• Am I getting honest feedback about my performance early on?
• Do I have a plan in place to remember what I’m learning long-term? Am I spacing my exposure to information so it will stick longer?
• Do I deeply understand the things I’m learning, or am I just memorizing? Could I teach the ideas and procedures I’m studying to someone else?
• Am I getting stuck with my current resources and techniques? Do I need to branch out and try new approaches to reach my goal?
• After your project is finished (or if you end up putting it on pause for some reason), you should spend a little time analyzing it. What went right? What went wrong? What should you do next time to avoid making those same mistakes?

Conclusion

I highly recommend this book as I found it to be the most pragmatic of the ones I read this far to give you guidelines you can apply today. There are a lot of fillers and long-winded stories that could be easily condensed (and sometimes even removed). This can get tiring quickly but I believe that going through them was worth all the pointers I got along the way.

I liked it because it was very practical and I learned more here than I did with "Deep Work". For this reason, it deserves an additional star!