Contrasting with Jonathon Levi’s course on SuperLearning reviewed here, this book written by Scott Young is more grounded in the scientific literature and state of knowledge in the field of learning rather than a collection of tricks. I thought the book was well-written and offered practical advice on how to learn more efficiently. But don’t expect to be a super human after reading about the 9 main concepts covered by the book:
- Metalearning
- Focus
- Directness
- Drill
- Retrieval
- Feedback
- Retention
- Intuition
- Experimentation
The most interesting and useful tidbits for me were the sections on directness and feedback. The directness section suggested that you make sure your practice and study time closely resembles the skills you actually want to acquire. If you want to be able to converse in a foreign language, your practice time should be spent trying to converse in that language. Sounds obvious but it’s surprising how easy it is to get off track and lose sight of your goal. The feedback section underscored the importance of frequent testing and opportunities for feedback to more quickly improve at something. Try to go for little goals instead of big gargantuan ones. For example, if your goal is to improve public speaking skills, take advantage of little speaking opportunities, and follow that up with requesting feedback.
I don’t think this is an Earth-shattering booking but I do believe it’s definitely worth a read if you’re looking to improve your learning skills.