{"id":880,"date":"2020-01-19T02:09:41","date_gmt":"2020-01-19T02:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/?p=880"},"modified":"2020-01-19T02:09:50","modified_gmt":"2020-01-19T02:09:50","slug":"ultralearning-book-summary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/19\/ultralearning-book-summary\/","title":{"rendered":"Ultralearning (Book Summary)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Ultralearning by Scott Young<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreword<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
  • The phrases learning something new and\npracticing something new may seem similar, but these two methods can produce\nprofoundly different results. Passive learning creates knowledge. Active\npractice creates skill.<\/li>
  • Principle # 1: Metalearning \u2014 I started by\nexamining other popular bloggers and authors. Their methods helped me to create\na map for what I needed to do to become a successful writer. <\/li>
  • Principle # 2: Focus \u2014 I went full-time as a\nwriter nearly from the start.<\/li>
  • Principle # 3: Directness \u2014 I learned writing by\nwriting.<\/li>
  • Principle # 4: Drill \u2014 I systematically broke\ndown each aspect of writing articles<\/li>
  • Principle #5: Retrieval \u2013 I test to learn.<\/li>
  • Principle # 6: Feedback \u2014 I personally emailed\nnearly all of my first ten thousand subscribers to say hello and to ask for\nfeedback on my writing.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Chapter I Can You Get an MIT Education Without Going to\nMIT<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    • \u201cAlways have a challenge, \u201cLewis told me as he\ncontinued with his life advice,<\/li>
    • What if, instead of just hoping you\u2019d practice\nenough, you don\u2019t give yourself an escape route?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      Chapter II Why Ultralearning Matters<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
      • Rapidly learning hard skills can have a greater\nimpact than years of mediocre striving on the job.<\/li>
      • Your deepest moments of happiness don\u2019t come\nfrom doing easy things; they come from realizing your potential and overcoming\nyour own limiting beliefs about yourself.<\/li>
      • You need to move into the higher-skilled\ncategory, where learning is constant, or you\u2019ll be pushed into the lower-skilled\ncategory at the bottom.<\/li>
      • The core of the ultralearning strategy is\nintensity and a willingness to prioritize effectiveness.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

        Chapter III How to Become an Ultralearner<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
        • It was his obsessive work ethic. His goal wasn\u2019t\nto reach some predetermined extreme but to see how far he could go.<\/li>
        • Ultralearning isn\u2019t a cookie-cutter method.\nEvery project is unique, and so are the methods needed to master it.<\/li>
        • There are nine universal principles that\nunderlie the ultralearning projects
          • Metalearning: First Draw a Map. Start by\nlearning how to learn the subject or skill you want to tackle. Discover how to\ndo good research and how to draw on your past competencies to learn new skills\nmore easily. <\/li><\/ul>
            • Focus: Sharpen Your Knife. Cultivate the ability\nto concentrate. Carve out chunks of time when you can focus on learning, and\nmake it easy to just do it. <\/li><\/ul>
              • Directness: Go Straight Ahead. Learn by doing\nthe thing you want to become good at. Don\u2019t trade it off for other tasks, just\nbecause those are more convenient or comfortable. <\/li><\/ul>
                • Drill: Attack Your Weakest Point. Be ruthless in\nimproving your weakest points. Break down complex skills into small parts; then\nmaster those parts and build them back together again. <\/li><\/ul>
                  • Retrieval: Test to Learn. Testing isn\u2019t simply a\nway of assessing knowledge but a way of creating it. Test yourself before you\nfeel confident, and push yourself to actively recall information rather than\npassively review it. <\/li><\/ul>
                    • Feedback: Don\u2019t Dodge the Punches. Feedback is\nharsh and uncomfortable. Know how to use it without letting your ego get in the\nway. Extract the signal from the noise, so you know what to pay attention to\nand what to ignore. <\/li><\/ul>
                      • Retention: Don\u2019t Fill a Leaky Bucket. Understand\nwhat you forget and why. Learn to remember things not just for now but forever.\n<\/li><\/ul>
                        • Intuition: Dig Deep Before Building Up. Develop\nyour intuition through play and exploration of concepts and skills. Understand\nhow understanding works, and don\u2019t recourse to cheap tricks of memorization to\navoid deeply knowing things. <\/li><\/ul>
                          • Experimentation: Explore Outside Your Comfort\nZone. All of these principles are only starting points. True mastery comes not\njust from following the path trodden by others but from exploring possibilities\nthey haven\u2019t yet imagined.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                            Chapter IV Principle 1 Metalearning First Draw a Map<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                            • The way to start any learning project is by\nfinding the common ways in which people learn the skill or subject.<\/li>
                            • Start looking at how the knowledge in your\nsubject is structured. A good way to do this is to write down on a sheet of\npaper three columns with the headings \u201cConcepts, \u201c\u201cFacts, \u201cand \u201cProcedures. \u201d<\/li>
                            • Over the short term, you can do research to\nfocus on improving your metalearning before and during a learning project.<\/li>
                            • Over the long term, the more ultralearning\nprojects you do, the larger your set of general metalearning skills will be.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                              Chapter V Principle 2 Focus Sharpen Your Knife<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                              • The struggles with focus that people have\ngenerally come in three broad varieties: starting, sustaining, and optimizing\nthe quality of one\u2019s focus. Ultralearners are relentless in coming up with\nsolutions to handle these three problems,<\/li>
                              • The Pomodoro Technique: twenty-five minutes of\nfocus followed by a five-minute break.<\/li>
                              • Carve out specific hours of your day in advance\nto work on the project.<\/li>
                              • The psychologist K. Anders Ericsson, the\nresearcher behind deliberate practice, argues that flow has characteristics\nthat are \u201cinconsistent with the demands of deliberate practice for monitoring\nexplicit goals and feedback and opportunities for error correction.<\/li>
                              • My advice? Don\u2019t worry about flow.<\/li>
                              • Taking a break from the problem can widen the\nspace of focus enough that possibilities that were not in your consciousness\nearlier can conjoin and you can make new discoveries.<\/li>
                              • You may want to consider optimizing your arousal\nlevels to sustain the ideal level of focus. Complex tasks may benefit from\nlower arousal, so working in a quiet room at home might be the right idea for\nmath problems. Simpler tasks might benefit from a noisier environment, say\nworking at a coffee shop.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                                Chapter VI Principle 3 Directness Go Straight Ahead<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                                • Directness is the idea of learning being tied\nclosely to the situation or context you want to use it in.<\/li>
                                • Directly learning the thing we want feels too\nuncomfortable, boring, or frustrating, so we settle for some book, lecture, or\napp, hoping it will eventually make us better at the real thing.<\/li>
                                • Learning activities are always done with a\nconnection to the context in which the skills learned will eventually be used.<\/li>
                                • The structures of our knowledge start out\nbrittle, welded to the environments and contexts we learn them in, with more\nwork and time they can become flexible and can be applied more broadly.<\/li>
                                • Tactic 1: Project-Based Learning Many\nultralearners opt for projects rather than classes to learn the skills they\nneed. The rationale is simple: if you organize your learning around producing\nsomething, you\u2019re guaranteed to at least learn how to produce that thing.<\/li>
                                • Tactic 2: Immersive Learning<\/li>
                                • Tactic 3: The Flight Simulator Method – When\ndirect practice is impossible, a simulation of the environment will work to the\ndegree to which it remains faithful to the cognitive elements of the task in\nquestion.<\/li>
                                • Tactic 4: The Overkill Approach – Increase the\nchallenge, so that the skill level required is wholly contained within the goal\nthat is set.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                                  Chapter VII Principle 4 Drill Attack Your Weakest Point<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                                  • The first step is to try to practice the skill\ndirectly. This means figuring out where and how the skill will be used and then\ntrying to match that situation as close as is feasible when practicing.<\/li>
                                  • The next step is to analyze the direct skill and\ntry to isolate components that are either rate-determining steps in your\nperformance or subskills you find difficult to improve because there are too\nmany other things going on for you to focus on them. From here you can develop\ndrills and practice those components separately until you get better at them.<\/li>
                                  • The final step is to go back to direct practice\nand integrate what you\u2019ve learned.<\/li>
                                  • Drill 1: Time Slicing – The easiest way to\ncreate a drill is to isolate a slice in time of a longer sequence of actions.<\/li>
                                  • Drill 2: Cognitive Components<\/li>
                                  • Drill 3: The Copycat  – Copying the parts of the skill you don\u2019t\nwant to drill ( either from someone else or your past work ), you can focus\nexclusively on the component you want to practice.<\/li>
                                  • Drill 4: The Magnifying Glass Method – The\nMagnifying Glass Method is to spend more time on one component of the skill\nthan you would otherwise.<\/li>
                                  • Drill 5: Prerequisite Chaining – This practice\nof starting too hard and learning prerequisites as they are needed can be\nfrustrating, but it saves a lot of time learning subskills that don\u2019t actually\ndrive performance much.<\/li>
                                  • Something mentally strenuous provides a greater\nbenefit to learning than something easy.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                                    Chapter VIII Principle 5 Retrieval Test to Learn<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                                    • When you review something passively, you don\u2019t\nget any feedback about what you know and don\u2019t know. Since tests usually come\nwith feedback, that might explain why students who practiced self-testing beat\nthe concept mappers or passive reviewers.<\/li>
                                    • More difficult retrieval leads to better\nlearning, provided the act of retrieval is itself successful.<\/li>
                                    • Giving someone a test immediately after they\nlearn something improves retention less than giving them a slight delay, long\nenough so that answers aren\u2019t in mind when they need them.<\/li>
                                    • Tactic 1: Flash Cards<\/li>
                                    • Tactic 2: Free Recall – After reading a section\nfrom a book or sitting through a lecture, to try to write down everything you\ncan remember on a blank piece of paper.<\/li>
                                    • Tactic 3: The Question-Book Method – Restate the\nbig idea of a chapter or section as a question. One rule I\u2019ve found helpful for\nthis is to restrict myself to one question per section of a text,<\/li>
                                    • Tactic 4: Self-Generated Challenges<\/li>
                                    • Tactic 5: Closed-Book Learning – Nearly any\nlearning activity can become an opportunity for retrieval if you cut off the\nability to search for hints.<\/li>
                                    • Ramanujan\u2019s genius was aided immeasurably by two\nhallmarks of the ultralearner\u2019s tool kit: obsessive intensity and retrieval\npractice.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                                      Chapter IX Principle 6 Feedback Don\u2019t Dodge the Punches<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                                      • What often separated the ultralearning strategy\nfrom more conventional approaches was the immediacy, accuracy, and intensity of\nthe feedback being provided.<\/li>
                                      • The ability to gain immediate feedback on one\u2019s\nperformance is an essential ingredient in reaching expert levels of performance.<\/li>
                                      • More isn\u2019t always better. Crucially, what\nmatters is the type of feedback being given.<\/li>
                                      • Feedback works well when it provides useful\ninformation that can guide future learning. If feedback tells you what you\u2019re\ndoing wrong or how to fix it, it can be a potent tool. But feedback often\nbackfires when it is aimed at a person\u2019s ego. Praise, a common type of feedback\nthat teachers often use ( and students enjoy ), is usually harmful to further\nlearning.<\/li>
                                      • Ultralearners need to be sensitive to what\nfeedback is actually useful and tune out the rest.<\/li>
                                      • Fear of feedback often feels more uncomfortable\nthan experiencing the feedback itself.<\/li>
                                      • Three types of feedback: outcome feedback,\ninformational feedback, and corrective feedback.
                                        • Outcome Feedback: Are You Doing It Wrong?<\/li><\/ul>
                                          • Informational Feedback: What Are You Doing Wrong?<\/li><\/ul>
                                            • Corrective Feedback: How Can You Fix What You\u2019re\nDoing Wrong?<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                                            • The main challenge with corrective feedback is\nthat it typically requires access to a teacher, expert, or mentor who can\npinpoint your mistakes and correct them for you.<\/li>
                                            • The self-directed nature of ultralearning\nshouldn\u2019t convince you that learning is best done as an entirely solitary\npursuit.<\/li>
                                            • Ultralearning isn\u2019t simply about maximizing\nfeedback but also knowing when to selectively ignore elements of it to extract\nthe useful information.<\/li>
                                            • In general, research has pointed to immediate\nfeedback being superior in settings outside of the laboratory.<\/li>
                                            • Ultralearners carefully adjust their environment\nso that they\u2019re not able to predict whether they\u2019ll succeed or fail.<\/li>
                                            • If your learning rate is slowing to a trickle,\nthat might mean you\u2019re hitting diminishing returns with your current approach\nand could benefit from different kinds of drills, difficulties, or environments.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                                              Chapter X Principle 7 Retention Don\u2019t Fill a Leaky Bucket<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                                              • If you care about long-term retention, don\u2019t\ncram.<\/li>
                                              • Space your study sessions too closely, and you\nlose efficiency; space them too far apart, and you forget what you\u2019ve already\nlearned.<\/li>
                                              • Procedural skills, such as the ever-remembered\nbicycling, are much less susceptible to being forgotten than knowledge that\nrequires explicit recall to retrieve. 11<\/li>
                                              • Additional practice, beyond what is required to\nperform adequately, can increase the length of time that memories are stored.<\/li>
                                              • There seem to be two main methods I\u2019ve\nencountered for applying overlearning.
                                                • The first is core practice, continually\npracticing and refining the core elements of a skill.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                  • The second strategy is advanced practice, going\none level above a certain set of skills so that core parts of the lower-level\nskills are overlearned as one applies them in a more difficult domain.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                                                    Chapter XI Principle 8 Intuition Dig Deep Before Building\nUp<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                                                    • Whereas beginners tended to look at superficial\nfeatures of the problem \u2014 such as whether the problem was about pulleys or\ninclined planes \u2014 experts focused on the deeper principles at work.<\/li>
                                                    • Rule 1: Don\u2019t Give Up on Hard Problems Easily<\/li>
                                                    • Rule 2: Prove Things to Understand Them<\/li>
                                                    • Rule 3: Always Start with a Concrete Example<\/li>
                                                    • Flesh out a general principles<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                                                      Chapter XII Principle 9 Experimentation Explore Outside\nYour Comfort Zone<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                                                      • Experiments, however, needn\u2019t always be\nsuccessful to have value, and van Gogh had many opportunities for trying new\ntechniques.<\/li>
                                                      • Although virtuoso talents might be able to latch\non to the first style of instruction they are presented with and follow it to\ncompletion, others require a great deal of experimentation before the right\nmethod sticks.<\/li>
                                                      • Three Types of Experimentation
                                                        • 1. Experimenting with Learning Resources<\/li><\/ul>
                                                          • 2. Experimenting with Technique<\/li><\/ul>
                                                            • 3. Experimenting with Style<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                                                            • The experimental mindset doesn\u2019t just assume\nthat growth is possible but creates an active strategy for exploring all the\npossible ways to reach it.<\/li>
                                                            • How to Experiment
                                                              • Tactic 1: Copy, Then Create<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                • Tactic 2: Compare Methods Side-by-Side<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                  • Tactic 3: Introduce New Constraints<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                    • Tactic 4: Find Your Superpower in the Hybrid of\nUnrelated Skills –  For many areas of\ncreative or professional skills, another, more accessible, path is to combine\ntwo skills that don\u2019t necessarily overlap to bring about a distinct advantage\nthat those who specialize in only one of those skills do not have.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                      • Tactic 5: Explore the Extremes<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                                                                        Chapter XIII Your First Ultralearning Project<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                                                                        • Shorter, spaced time chunks are better for\nmemory than crammed chunks are. However, some types of tasks, such as writing\nand programming, have a long warm-up time that may benefit from longer\nuninterrupted time chunks. <\/li>
                                                                        • None of the ultralearners I encountered\napproaches learning the same way for every kind of learning they do.<\/li>
                                                                        • Sometimes what\u2019s the most fun isn\u2019t very\neffective, and what\u2019s effective isn\u2019t easy.<\/li>
                                                                        • The message of this book isn\u2019t that you should\ndrop out of school to learn on your own but that you should take control over\nyour own learning, wherever that may be.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                                                                          Chapter XIV An Unconventional Education<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                                                                          • In contrast to the stereotypical \u201ctiger \u201cparent,\ntheir parents encouraged their unusual specialization through play and positive\nfeedback, not authority and punishment.<\/li>
                                                                          • L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Polg\u00e1r wrote a book entitled Raise a\nGenius!, documenting his unorthodox approach to education.
                                                                            • The first step is to start early. The child\u2019s\neducation should begin no later than three, and specialization should begin no\nlater than six.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                              • The second step is to specialize.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                • The third step was to make practice into play.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                  • Fourth, L\u00e1szl\u00f3 was careful to create positive\nreinforcement to make chess a pleasant, rather than frustrating, experience.<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                                                                                  • \u201cWe should make sure not to always win against\nthe child; we should let them win sometimes so that they feel they are also\ncapable of thinking.\u201d<\/li>
                                                                                  • \u201cOne can never achieve serious pedagogical\nresults, especially at a high level, through coercion.\u201d<\/li>
                                                                                  • L\u00e1szl\u00f3 encouraged considerable play with real\nopponents but was careful to select \u201csuitable partners, who have a generally\nsimilar playing ability.\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                                                                                    Ultralearning by Scott Young Foreword The phrases learning something new and practicing something new may seem similar, but these two methods can produce profoundly different results. Passive learning creates knowledge. Active practice creates skill. Principle # 1: Metalearning \u2014 I started by examining other popular bloggers and authors. Their methods helped me to create a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t