A Practical Guide for an Efficient Learning
I wrote this post inspired by my experience pursuing the course “Learning How to Learn,” where I learned several techniques to boost my learning. I aim to provide an efficient pathway to handle your learning journey. In this way, I hope that this blog will be as helpful for you as it is for me. I will certainly go back to these notes when I need to remember how to tackle specific topics and not lose my way to happy learning.
There are many well-written reviews of this course, such as 5 Tips to Boost Your Learning by Aleksa Gordić. However, I intend to write a practical guide to remember the main concepts and techniques to boost your learning. I hope not to be so repetitive and give my perspective about learning.
Moreover, as I am a Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) person, I intend to approach this guide by giving examples and suggestions about learning Machine Learning topics. Nonetheless, I consider that these topics are helpful to learn any topic you may be interested in. So don’t regret it and give it a try!
Hi there! I’m Oscar👋
I am a young computer scientist who received an Information Technology degree at Yachay Tech, Ecuador. However, during my bachelor’s program, I had an unconventional formation in AI/ML. Specifically, I remembered an “Artificial Neural Networks” course, where I had the opportunity to write a scientific paper. This experience was a pivot in my life, which led me to research and work on more elaborated topics. Since that point, I have been studying AI/ML on my own. Still, I had always been digging into only specific knowledge ( in a focused mode, without considering the big picture). I have always felt that there is something more that I need, something to internalize information efficiently.
Don’t get me wrong, my journey so far has been very fruitful and has allowed me to accomplish several milestones. So far, I have been able to publish 4+ scientific articles. I have worked in the industry on projects for computer vision. I have done an internship at KAUST, Saudi Arabia, working on image generation projects. Last but not least, I recently co-founded DeepARC, a non-profit research group that I am most proud of. It was created by the cooperation of alumni, professors, and students in order to encourage AI/ML research among undergraduate students.
However, I have always felt that something is missing and does not fit well regarding my knowledge. The feeling that there are gaps in my knowledge that I cannot fill correctly always has overwhelmed me. For those reasons, I decided to take a step back and work on my methods for learning things.
“Sometimes taking a step back, looking at the thing from a broader perspective, can help you achieve your goals faster than if you were to start the journey immediately.” — Aleksa Gordić
My main inspiration to follow this path is the learning journey of Aleksa Gordić. He is AI/ML advocate who is currently working on DeepMind. He has achieved all his feats thanks to his strong commitment to self-education. If you have time, I really recommend reading his blog and following his YouTube Channel, The AI Epiphany. The information he provides is beneficial and practical, especially for someone inclined to AI/ML.
The Learning Map 🧠
As a way to condense my learning, I elaborated a mind map of the main ideas about “Learning How to Learn.” I called it the “Learning Map,” and you can find it here.
I don’t expect to talk about all these topics and ideas in this post, but I will go through the steps that I consider most important and work better for me. In my perspective, when I prepare for learning something new, I follow four steps:
- Include focused and diffuse mode in your learning
- Embrace an agile mindset
- Elaborate a goal and planning
- Support with learning techniques.
Note: take in mind that this learning plan works for me, but I frankly suggest you explore your way to learn new things, removing or adding steps to this plan.
“Not all the techniques are good for you.” — Barbara Oakley
Note: I also provided you with a reduced cheat sheet that encloses the main ideas of my learning plan. You can find it here.
1. Focused and Diffuse Mode 🌗
In the beginning, it is essential to understand how we, as human beings, learn. How a concept or idea can be internalized so profoundly in our brains that we can use it whatever is needed with little effort. It is here where the focused and diffuse mode takes place.
- The focused mode can be understood as the moments of concentration, where we fully pay attention to a particular topic or task. It is supported by a clean environment that is free of any distractions.
- The diffuse mode is when you have random thoughts without paying attention to anything in particular, just contemplating the bigger picture. This is the status where great creative ideas are born when you think out of the box.
You always have to interleave these two modes in your daily routine for learning something new. It is in the moment when you switch from one mode to another when you are actually acquiring knowledge. For this reason, it is paramount to give equal importance to both focused and diffuse modes. What does this mean?
You have to allocate time for your study as well to your diffuse activities in your daily routine. Some examples of diffuse activities are:
- Taking a shower
- Sleep or a short nap
- Walking or running
- Lucid dreams
- Micro dreams
- Talking with people who motivate you (I also recommend following people who inspired you in social media.)
Commonly, the moment you feel stuck is when you should switch to a diffuse mode and take it easy. For example, in my field of machine learning, it is common to find problems where I get stuck. Sometimes, I get stuck when I don’t understand a specific formula, concept, or article. So, I mostly take a short nap (10–20 min) with my eyes covered to avoid the light of day. After that, I can understand it better and with other perspectives. However, be careful not to oversleep; it is crucial to set the alarm.
2. Embrace an Agile Mindset 💭
In general, you have to include focused and diffuse activities, but it is just as important to change your mindset to an open learning (or an agile mindset).
Be a person who is open to learning, who thinks it is possible to learn anything. Doesn’t matter the age, or economic limitations.
In the world, there are two kinds of people. Some of them with fixed minds believe in innate talent, limiting its capabilities. While others with an agile mind think that whatever can be learned, no matter the obstacles.
Try to avoid concerns like “I can not learn a new language because I am too old”, “I can not learn mathematics because I am not good”, or “My education level is low because I lived in a developing country”.
People think they don’t have the ideal situations as others with unfair advantages. But remember, others have their own challenges. You just need to learn how to overcome yours.
If you feel a failure someday, watch this video; it’s worthwhile to recover your learning journey. The cover seems kind of sad, but I assure you that it will serve you.
3. Goals and Planning 📋
Once you have already changed your mindset and understood how your brain internalizes information. It is important to start defining a goal and planning in such a way.
“A dream becomes a goal by setting a date. A goal divided into steps becomes a plan. A plan supported by actions becomes a reality.”
I based this section on the ideas of Aleksa Gordić with few differences according to my personality and purposes.
- Define a goal: it’s imperative to define a goal about what you want to accomplish with your learning in the short, middle, and long term. This goal will keep you motivated and will always be your impulse to continue your learning journey. Make a habit and remain your goal every day.
- Do your research: before starting your learning, spend a little time researching what you want to learn. It helps you explore the bigger picture and understand the complexity of what you want to learn.
You can spend 1–2 days exploring reviews of courses, YouTube summaries, books summaries, or blog posts like this. Try to understand the authors’ perspective and other people about the study material. Research the best materials to learn your topics, and don’t jump directly into the water.
In my case, I realized that I need to understand and refresh some fundamentals about math and machine learning. In such a way, I started taking some courses and reviewing my notes. - Keep updated notebooks: I recommend following this step to maintain a log of your progress and ponder about your learning journey. Once you see in the future how many you have already completed, you will be motivated to continue. You can have the following notebooks:
– Write a Deadline Notebook for tracking the main milestones in your learning. In this notebook, you have to write down a route map of the precise dates you want to start and finish specific activities. Of course, inevitable common mishaps may occur along the way, so use this notebook as a reference. The idea of setting deadlines is to help you meet commitments to yourself but not stress you out. An example can be found here.
– Write a To-do List for the next day at night. I recommend writing these tasks focusing on the process, not the product. I mean, you have to define tasks you can accomplish in one day (not the whole task, instead write mini-tasks). For example, don’t put read a given book; instead, read 5 pages of that book. The Pomodoro technique is handy for this notebook (I will explain this technique later). Also, try to mix your to-do list with diffuse daily activities like a workout for 1 hour. A to-do list example can be found here.
– A Learning Journal where you write the techniques you are currently using in your daily learning. You can write what works for you and what doesn’t.
– Write a Fleeting Journal, a small notebook to take fleeting ideas. It can help you not forget crazy-creative ideas, which can be born during diffuse moments, such as celebrating in a party or taking a beer with your friends.
Although keeping these notebooks could be difficult, I only recommend keeping what you need. Mainly, I recommend keeping Deadline Notebook and the ToDo List. - Prioritize and Execute: as any person, your time can be limited by other activities that you are doing, such as working or pursuing a degree. For that reason, it is crucial to decide the more important activities you have to do first according to their complexity. You already have a sense of their complexity because of the research step. So, prioritize those activities and take advantage of your free time for doing them.
Bellow, you can find an example of my current plan for getting my goals.
4. Learning Techniques 📚
Last but not least, you will find out that you have to support on robust learning techniques, so you don’t forget what you’ve already learned.
The following techniques can be chosen according to your needs. Focus on what you think is better for you and your current learning journey. For example, sometimes, you will prefer to use mnemonics for learning languages but recall and spaced repetition for learning math.
- Recall consists of remembering what you already learn without exploring your notes or material. You can perform this activity in several ways. Here, go into place your creativity. You have to look for unusual ways to remember this information and practice your knowledge in original ways. Be a proactive learning person.
Some examples are:
– Testing yourself with mock test.
– Writing a blog
– Teaching to others
– Making YouTube videos
– Making Main Maps/Short Summaries
Bad examples of this technique are:
– Re-reading the content/book
– Abusing the highlight (more than one sentence per paragraph)
– Looking constantly at the solutions ( just check sometimes) - Spaced Repetition: the repetition in learning is not all bad, but it must be carried out cunningly (in a spaced-out way). This technique consists of rehearsing your learning in spaced time intervals during a convenient period. In this way, knowledge is built little by little and internalized over time. In turn, it is necessary to divide your learning into pieces and attend to those pieces little by little. It is a huge mistake to try to consume a lot of information in a single study session.
“Learning doesn’t progress logically, so each day just add an additional neat package to your knowledge shelve.” — Barbara Oakley
One of the ways to study in a spaced repetition fashion is through flashcards, where you write relevant ideas and concepts. Try to create these flashcards as questions for a test, mainly formulate WHY, HOW, and WHEN questions. These questions will be attended in time intervals, prioritizing wrong-answered questions. The app Anki has an excellent algorithm to help you with this process.
If you want to know more about spaced repetition, I recommend the following video.
- Pomodoro consists of studying with interval times of 25 minutes of hard-focused mode and 5 minutes of break. You have to clean your environment for any distractions (cellphones, noises, social media, etc.). In your break time, you can reward yourself with any activity you enjoy. The idea is that you can interleave your modes so that you feel rewarded for your concentration and hard work. This technique is beneficial for dealing with procrastination problems because it is easier to concentrate for 25 minutes than a full hour. However, you can adapt the timer with your pace; the interval could be 50–10 or 100–20.
As an additional recommendation, try to use apps to organize your Pomodoro intervals daily; for example, Focus To-Do. When writing this to-do list, I recommend focusing on the process, not the product. You have to visualize small victories that can help you complete a task. For example, “spend 3–4 Pomodoro times doing the thesis project” instead of “complete the thesis.” - Mnemonics consists of creating memorable analogies about a concept that you want to remember. The idea is to associate that concept with a mnemonic. In that way, if you the mnemonic, you can easily remember the concept. Some examples of mnemonics are:
– Acronyms, where each letter corresponds to a word that you want to remember.
– Memorable visual picture, where the content is associated with a concept you want to remember.
– Analogies and metaphors, where you use similar situations in another context to explain a concept you want to remember.
Mnemonics are particularly useful for remembering vocabulary in languages, formulas in math, or complex/abstract concepts in machine learning.
Final Thoughts
If you want to know more about learning techniques for boosting your learning, I recommend the following sources:
Spanish Speakers
- Aprende rápido y recuerda TODO — YouTube (For programming people)
- Pablo Lomeli — YouTube
English Speakers
- Ali Abdaal — YouTube
- Ruri Ohama — YouTube
- How I take notes — Tips for efficient note taking that speeds up learning
Books
- A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra) by Oakley, Barbara
- How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking — for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers eBook by Ahrens, Sönke
Note: I don’t want to recommend resources that I have not previously read or watched. So for the moment, I just lead with these recommendations. I intend to update this list.
With that all being said, it’s your time. Get organized, define your goal, make a plan and start your apprenticeship.
In the beginning, adapting these techniques to your daily routine could be difficult, but don’t give up. Enjoy your small victories. Remember the following:
It’s perfectly normal to start with a few negative feelings about beginning a learning session, even when it’s a subject you’re ordinarily like. It’s how you handle those feelings that matters. — Barbara Oakley
Happy learning! :D
