Young - Ultralearning [4cad369e]

Tags: books, episteme

• Notions of memory:

  • 3 types:

    • Degredation

      • Memory degrades as time goes on

    • Lock and Key

      • Memory stays, but the key to it disappears, which is why it requires certain cues

    • Overwritten

      • Memory stays, but is overwritten by others

• Carefully design drills

  • Choose for direct practice
• Take notes as questions instead of answers to practice retrival

• Best feedback is informative and usable, but any feedback is better than none

  • Important to know which parts of feedback is useful for signals
  • Carefully and tune learning environment

• Procedural skills, such as biking, are more easily remembered

  • Turning rote learning into procedural learning is one fo the best ways to remember
  • Same with overlearning, keeps the memory for longer

• Steps for a project:

  • Metalearning:

    • Research into typical ways of learning this skill
    • Make sure to set realistic, achievable goals

  • Focus:

    • Block aside time to actually work on the skill a la Newport - Deep Work

  • Directness:

    • Directly tackle the skill in the format you'll be using it in with similar environments

  • Retrival:

    • Is time being spent passively or actively retriving it? Can things be recalled from memory without looking at notes?

  • Feedback:

    • Is feedback honest? Is performance being improved as part of the feedback?

  • Intuition:

    • Do I understand the things I'm learning or is it rote memorization?

  • Experimentation:

    • Are new techniques being tried beyond the current resources?