9 Steps of Ultralearning

Step 1: Research

  • Spend at least 10-15% of total project time on this to figure out details.

  • Answers three questions:

    1. What: Start looking into how knowledge is structured in that particular field.

    2. Why: Why do you want to learn it?

      • Find intrinsic motivation instead of extrensic.

      • Intrinsic motivation always beats extrensic.

      • Take help from people who already master it.

      • Ask for advice. Don’t be shy to ask the reason.

      • Ask for no more than 15 mins and do your research.

      • Don’t ask experts what but how question!

      • Start looking into facts, procedures, concepts:

        • Facts: Memorize.
        • Concepts: Learn.
        • Procedures: Practice / experience.

    3. How?

      • Use benchmarking & know how other people learned it.
      • Interact with the subject if you’re new to it.
      • Prefer direct learning/practice over theory.
      • Study real-world challenges that model the subject.

Step 2: Focus

“I have no special talent. I am passionately curious.”
— Albert Einstein

Problems with Focus

Start

  • Failing to start → kick-off!
  • Recognize you’re procrastinating.
  • Convince yourself to do task for the small time (like 5 minutes).
  • Dedicate specific time in day to work on it.

Sustain

  • Try to be in Flow.

    • Flow is an enjoyable state, between boredom & frustration.
    • You will not achieve flow all the time, so do not push it.

  • Maximum have 1 hour of focused session.

  • Take breaks if you’re studying multiple hours.

  • Find what distracts you & disconnect.

    1. Your environment

      • Avoid multitasking.
      • Avoid the phone.
      • Prepare your environment beforehand.

    2. Your tasks

      • Use sources that are easy for you.
      • Avoid less direct sources.

    3. Your Mind

      • Deal with negative emotion where possible.
      • If you get random thoughts:
        • Let emotion arise → note it → release it → go back to task.

Optimize

  • Continuous high focus is not always possible.
  • Complex tasks:
    • Break tasks into smaller chunks.
    • Have relaxed flow when solving analytical problems.
  • Let your mind wander sometimes (use active thinking).
  • Use whatever works for you—it’s not the same for everyone.

Step 3: Directness

Most learning methods suffer from the “transfer of knowledge” problem. Hence, try to learn the skill directly wherever possible.

  • Learning facts, concepts, and skills in a way that is removed from how they are actually used → Avoid them.

Overcoming the Problem of Transfer:

  • Spend a good amount of time just doing the thing you want to get better at!!

How to Learn Directly:

  • Opt for project-based learning instead of passive study.
  • Try to be in an environment where the skill is practiced.
  • Simulate environments & remain faithful to it When direct practices is not possible?.
  • Enhance Directness:
    • Try to raise a bar
    • Put yourself in situations where demand is going to be high.
    • Aim for just above your required skill level.

Step 4: Drill

Practice a specific skill in a highly deliberate & targeted way.

  • Attack the weakest point.

  • Practice by constructing something valuable.

  • Identify bottlenecks that control the speed at which you learn & practice them deliberately

  • Isolate the skill (if possible, practice it directly).

  • Determine if you’re facing challenges in anything specific.

    • If direct practice is difficult, develop a drill & practice that component separately until you get better.

  • Go back to direct practice & assess if you’ve improved.

Direct practice ⟷ Drill

Tactics

  1. Time slicing: Isolate hard skills, practice & then integrate.
  2. Cognitive components: Find a way to focus on a specific skill/component while practicing other parts.
  3. The copycat: Copy the high-quality part you don’t need to practice.
  4. Magnifying glass: Spend more time on task then other component.
  5. Prerequisite chaining:
    • Don’t plan too far ahead.
    • When you’re poorly performing, go back a step.
    • Find one of the foundational skills & Learn it & repeat exercises.

Be mindful about drilling.

Step 5: Retrieval

“It’s better to take time & recall than open a textbook.”
— William James

  • Recalling/practice beats repetition/reading in the long run (proven!)
  • Work on difficult problems or take an exam before class.
  • You don’t need to solve every problem that you aren’t aware of,
    • but it will help create mind maps & better connections when you learn concepts.

Tactics

  1. Flash cards:
    • Good old flash cards.
    • Doesn’t work well for variable subjects like programming.
  2. Free recall:
    • After reading—promptly write it down in your own words.
  3. Question-book method:
    • Instead of taking notes, write one question per section of text.
  4. Self-generated challenge:
    • Create an internal challenge for yourself as you learn material.
  5. Closed book learning:
    • Cut off from looking at books for answers.

Step 6: Feedback

  • Try to get quality feedback.
  • Learn to cut out noise from signal when taking feedback.
  • Be open-minded & don’t get discouraged.

Types of Feedback:

  1. Outcome Feedback:
    • Feedback on the result (good or bad?).
  2. Information Feedback:
    • What are you doing wrong?
    • (Doesn’t tell how to fix it).
  3. Corrective Feedback:
    • Tells you what you are doing wrong and suggests a way to fix it.

Focus on:

  1. Noise cancellation:
    • Eliminate what’s NOT useful.
  2. Hitting the difficulty sweet spot:
    • Adjust task difficulty.
    • Make it easy if you’re failing more.
    • Make it hard if you’re succeeding more.
  3. Meta feedback:
    • Feedback on strategy instead of result.
  4. High intensity, rapid feedback:
    • Get a lot more and frequent feedback.

Step 7: Retention

It’s difficult to retain what you learn for long time wihtout practice.

How to practice?

  1. Spacing: Repeat to remember. Use spaced repetition.
  2. Proceduralization:
    • Most skills start declarative and then become proceduralized.
    • Example:
      • Riding a bike → Procedural skill.
      • Solving a math problem → Declarative Skill.
  3. Overlearning: Practice beyond perfect.
  4. Mnemonics: Associate things to enhance mental maps.

Step 8: Intuition

  1. Learn most basic principles by example instead of memorizing them.
    • Build mental models/patterns.

Tactics:

  1. Don’t give up hard problems easily:
    • Struggle a little bit to build mental stamina.
  2. Prove things to understand them:
    • Instead of following the result, recreate things by following procedures.
  3. Always start with a concrete example:
    • Try to create an example in your head and follow it through.
  4. Don’t fool yourself.

Feynman Technique

  1. Write down the concept/problem you want to understand at the top of the paper.

  2. Explain the idea as if you’re teaching someone:

    • If concept: Explain it.
    • If problem: Explain how to solve it by critically thinking.

  3. When you get stuck, it means you don’t fully understand it.

  4. Go back to books, notes, teachers, or reference materials to find answers.

Step 9: Experimentation

As you master a skill, your ability to learn more from existing material slows down.
Many skills don’t reward proficiency but rather originality.

Three Types of Experimentation

  • Experimenting with learning resources.
  • Experimenting with techniques.
  • Experimenting with style.

How to Experiment

  1. Copy, then create.
  2. Compare methods side by side: Limit independent variables and compare results.
  3. Introduce new constraints: Challenge what you think you already know by applying restrictions.
  4. Find a superpower in the hybrid of unrelated skills:
    • If you have an engineering background combined with an MBA, you might excel at managing large-scale technical engineering projects.
  5. Explore the extremes.

Embrace experimentation, uncertainty, and trial and error.