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Learn, Apply, Teach, Repeat: Guidelines for Technical Learning
I’m very interested in improving my ability to learn technical concepts efficiently. In this article, I’ll go over the heuristics I’ve found that work well for me: Read actively, use multiple sources/formats, work at memorizing, apply the concepts, and finally teach.
It all started with the observation (one I’m sure many of you are familiar with) that I have an interest in learning many things, but only some of those things stick after trying to learning them. I’d read a book, or watch a video lecture, only to then run into roadblocks. Some of the content I would be able to pick up easily, only to forget it later. Other content would be too opaque for me to make much progress with. The worst was content I thought I had learned, but would then struggle with when it came time to write down my thoughts on the subject or to talk about it with others. This is all extremely discouraging: what’s the point of learning in the face of all these issues?
Before getting into it, a couple of notes:
- The following heuristics represent my current personal strategy, and I have no idea if they’ll work for you. I think they’re all pretty useful, but I’m sure they’ll continue to change as I learn more.
- Where applicable I’ll link to the resources that have inspired these points or…
