- The Secret Behind Learning ANY New Skill Quickly
- Learning Mastery 2 – Post-Practice Improvement
- Learning Mastery 3 – Fail Early, Fail Often
- Learning Mastery 5 – Back to the Basics
Enjoy!
Teach it
“Take 10 people who are worse than you [at Othello], and teach them what you know. I can guarantee you that you will improve far more than any single one of them.”
- Ben Seeley, world champion in Othello
Teaching someone what you know has some amazing effects. Firstly, it forces you to organize the knowledge in your brain. It’s one thing being sort of able to use your insights. It’s completely different being able to explain them to someone else.
You’ll develop new and better ways to use your ideas, or you’ll describe them in a way that you never realized before. You’ll learn yourself as you explain.
Also, when you’re teaching someone, they’ll have lots of questions about what you’re explaining. As you think of answers to those questions, it’ll open your horizons. You’ll consider things you never thought about before. You’ll learn a lot in the process.
My favorite example of this comes from the book Robinson Crusoe. Robinson starts explaining Christianity to his servant Friday. And Friday asks him all sorts of questions that nobody from a Christian environment really thinks about. Like if God is almighty, why doesn’t he just smite the Devil. (Robinson figured out it’s because God is also forgiving, and wants to give Devil a chance for redemption)
I’ve followed the world champion’s advice and started teaching others what I know. And it works.
Want a proof instead of promises? Try it yourself! Pick any skill in your life, and go teach it to several people who are slightly worse than you. You’ll be amazed at the results.
Hypothesise
Hypothesising is a natural process, and we all use it every day. Then again, breathing is a natural process, but most people breath shallowly and sub-optimally for their health. Walking is a natural process, but if you take a stroll through city streets, you’ll see people hunched over, staring at their feet, hurting their spines and their mood.
Similarly, as we get older, we fall into habits and routines, and slowly forget how to hypothesise.
Okay, enough prep-talk. What do I mean by hypothesising?
Let’s say you’re practicing basketball. You might say “Ok, for the next ten shots, I’ll try giving the ball a lot of backward spin, and see what happens.” Then you watch the feedback and learn.
Or you’re a writer, and say “In my next three articles, I’ll use plenty of quotes to support my point, and see if my writing becomes more persuasive.”
Hypothesising is basically saying “I’ll do this one thing differently, and see what happens.”
(btw. I’m doing it myself in this article. I decided to put all quotes in italics (“like this”), to see if it looks clearer. (Update: Yes, it does.))
One characteristic of top achievers is that they never do a thing the same way for long. They’re always slightly changing it, and looking for a better way to do things.
This mindset is what regularly brings us faster processors, longer lasting batteries and more efficient cars. If the companies simply made a good product, and then stopped, we’d still be living in the middle ages.
You too can use this to improve your life. The obvious way to start hypothesising more is just doing whatever you do a bit differently. For example if you type a lot, try moving your hands less, and use as many fingers as possible.
Then there are some not-so-obvious effects related to hypothesising. One of them is breaking routine (see the article for full explanation of how and why this is a great thing to do). Here are a few things you might want to try. Breaking the routine and testing out new things is the key:
- take a different route to work
- eat unusual foods (unusual for you, that is)
- shuffle around your morning/evening routine (do you always have coffee? Try having tea instead. Do you shower before breakfast? Try it the other way around.)
And remember, whenever you’re learning something new, hypothesise. Just say “I wonder what will happen if…”, and do it!
Previous: Learning Mastery 3 – Fail Early, Fail Often
Next: Learning Mastery 5 – Back to the Basics
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News about my blog:
Great news! From now on, I’ll post to my blog twice a week instead of once. And the next article, coming this Wednesday, is something you won’t want to miss. It’s about an awesome mind state you can experience (no drugs involved). It’s something that truly justifies you having “an amazing mind”.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
One thing to add: make summaries. That helps a lot too. I even have a website devoted to that!
I’ll hypothetise a little more now.
@tedel: Hmm, summaries. You’re the second person this week who I hear talking about the usefulness of summaries (the first one was a blog post I read).
I think I’ll give it a try, in the spirit of hypothesising
Expect a summary at the end of my next blog post. And at the beginning of the post after that. And maybe some more later
Now that tedel has suggested “make summaries”, the scientific method has been recreated
. To wit: Hypothesize -> Try it (Experiment) -> Collect data (Feedback) -> Conclusion (Summary).
The scientific method has a venerable history, and I can’t think of any area of one’s life where it doesn’t seem worth trying. But for some reason, maybe because it has that “scientific” connotation, most people think it’s only relevant when they have a white coat and a laboratory. But all of life is a laboratory!
I think it’s cool that the author has “reinvented the wheel” (wheels have actually been reinvented countless times throughout history, with frequent useful variations), regarding the scientific method. It’s a lot like what he was explaining about teaching- by arriving at the scientific method organically, and then explaining his insights to the rest of us, the scientific method got an entirely different spin, adapting the scientific method to human potential.
The way he frames feedback (actively collect as much data as possible, and focus on specific and positive feedback), discussing post-practice improvement (which is basically the brain’s automatic form of summarization- which is probably why the last bit of practicing makes the biggest difference), emphasizing the value of failure (which is the full embrace of the value of experimentation, since an experiment can be a success even if it fails within itself, as long as the scientific method is followed), and the adaptation of hypothesis to one’s personal life- isn’t the scientific method so much more attractive and useful now?
I had known how to play chess my whole life; that is, I knew how to move the pieces. Then about 10 years ago a colleague and I started a chess club for our 5th grade students.
That’s when I REALLY learned how to play chess. I had to learn opening theory, middle game principles and end-game patterns, quickly.
I must have been a pretty good teacher, because generally kids who started from scratch in August were kicking my a** by Christmas time.
Enjoying your site very much and putting in my bloglines list; just found it via Hedrik’s Positivity blog.
At Full Embrace, just don’t forget that the scientific method is not the only way to get knowledge. Actually, Jesus Christ (leaving any religious discussion veeeeery apart) was a master of common sense.
I completely agree with you, Tedel, on both counts
.