How To Learn Anything Faster

this video is sponsored by brilliant but more about them later in the video hey guys how's it going welcome back to another video so in this video i'm going to talk about how to learn things faster which is a skill that i have honed over the years as i went from pre-med and pharmacology to bioinformatics to computer science software engineering and then finally to data science because i jumped around so much during my career it really forced me to learn things very quickly just so that i can keep up get a job and like not get fired on the job so in this video i'm going to talk about my top systems and tips to learn things faster and so that you can actually remember the things that you learn and apply them in the real world it is not however cramming because if you did that you would just learn things at a very shallow level and then probably forget everything anyway but here we want to learn things properly but quickly before we get started i also need to give a shout out and a lot of credit to ultra learning um as well as learning how to learn a lot of my techniques are based off the concepts that they talk about in these resources so i highly recommend you check them out which i'll link in the description all right let's go technique number one to learn things

faster is to have a compass and a map what i mean by this is first you need to have a goal destination and then you spend some time building up your map on how to get there let's talk about the goal first i find that a lot of people learn stuff without having a goal they're just like i want to learn sql like python i want to learn guitar like something like that they just want to learn like a really broad skill but without any like particular goal in mind so the issue with this is that if you don't have a goal in mind how do you know where it is that you should be heading that's the equivalent of just like randomly running around and then hoping that one day you arrive at this mysterious place where you have now mastered sql japanese or something like that that's pretty vague isn't it and how do you even know that you actually learned it so instead you should have a specific goal in mind for example i want to learn python so i can build a web app i want to learn sql so that i can get a job or i want to learn japanese so that i can watch more anime and become a true otaku and after you determine your goal then you should make a map for yourself so do some research on what's the best way of learning this skill there's this quote by isaac newton which is if i have seen further it is by standing on the shoulder of giants you should take advantage of the people who learned the skill before you and figure out what's the best way of approaching this and then construct a map that is most efficient to take you to a place where you want to be do some upfront research and don't go about reinventing the wheel again for example i wanted to learn sql so i can get a data science job so my destination was passing the interview being able to ace the interview questions that were going to be asked so with that in mind i started constructing my map i broke down the different components that i would need to learn in order to ace that interview and this is with the help of subreddits towards data science and different articles to figure out what are the things that i need to learn in this way i have a clear goal in mind and all the steps that i need to do in order to go towards that goal i would know to steer myself straight forward and not be distracted by different rabble holes or different tangents that would make my learning slower so in other words you should be like naruto who clearly knew that he wanted to be hokage and then he diligently studied the past of the other hokages so that he was able to follow in their footsteps number two technique to learn things

faster is straight to the bullseye this basically means that whatever it is that you're trying to master you should practice that as closely as possible don't dilly dally learning things that are only tangential were not necessary at all for example when i was learning sql for that data science interview i did not go and read an entire book about sql and then do like a course on sql or do by practice problems that have multiple choice which is completely different from what my interview questions would be like instead i practice real sequel interview questions and specifically the questions that were being asked for the specific position at the specific company that i was interviewing for what i did was i went through glassdoor and literally wrote down all the different questions that were being asked and then did them with the priority of the ones that showed up the most i also did these questions in the style that was as close to the interview as possible so i wasn't like looking up syntax or like writing pseudocode that didn't actually work i was like very strict with myself and followed procedures of exactly what would happen during my interview and this was the shortest path because i was practicing exactly what it was that i wanted to master straight to the bullseye this in total took me 11 days starting from absolutely nothing to being able to pass my interview by the way if you're interested in my sequel for data science interviews guys with 10 realistic mock interviews you can check it out in the descriptions so before we move on to the next tip i want to address a little bit why it is that people generally go on this longer path like this indirect path and that's because doing it directly is so much harder so much more frustrating and you also have to face the reality very clearly that you absolutely suck at this skill it's so much easier just earning stars in a course like passively consuming information um or like you know doing multiple choice questions that are not at all reflective of reality because it's easier but this is a huge waste of time and you really need to start working on things directly if you want to learn things faster like beat sasuke you need to keep fighting sasuke not fight a bunch of easy people so it makes you feel better and think that you're progressing the third technique for learning things

faster is by strengthening the weakest link have you guys heard of the saying that the chain is as strong as its weakest link so in order to strengthen the chain as a whole you need to strengthen that weakest part for example when i was learning to make youtube videos i was making video after video and my goal at that time was to create a video that had a thousand views like a thousand people wanted to watch that video as i practiced making videos i quickly realized that my weakest link was my editing my scripting skills my speaking skills my titles and thumbnails they were not the best but they were all right but my editing was absolutely atrocious so i doubled down exactly on that area i took parts of an editing course and then also looked at a lot of youtube videos that i liked and noticed how it is that they did their editing and then transfer that to what i was doing i also learned to be much more efficient and be able to cut down my whole editing time by like twenty thirty percent by doubling down on the editing portion i was able to learn more quickly on how to produce a good video and reach my goal of getting a thousand views faster so in the future it's good to do the entire skill but also start picking out where it is that your weakest at and then just really focusing on that to maximize your efforts like if you keep challenging sasuke and you keep losing over and over again it's probably because you have poor chakra control and you're just kind of like excluding all the nine hills powers and not being able to focus it precisely so that it attacks sasley strategically now let's talk a little bit about today's sponsor brilliant berlin is an interactive online platform that teaches you fun hands-on lessons in math science computer science for all abilities and levels the key word here is interactive because the best way to learn is by actually doing it yourself brilliant teaches you to problem solve and gives clear intuitive ways to approach questions the brilliant platform itself actually has a lot of these different techniques and tips that we talked about today um baked right into that platform so it helps you learn stem subjects much quicker in particular right now for me i'm learning about blockchain i'm taking an applied course in blockchain but i'm also supplementing it with brilliance cryptocurrency course because it goes in so much more depth about the math behind the technology you can get started for free and join in millions of people already learning on brilliant head on over to the link over here and also in description the first 200 people who sign up using my link will get 20 off the annual membership right back to the video my fourth tip on how to learn things faster is to view notes as a

framework i know so many people who spend like ages and ages perfecting their notes writing them beautifully copying diagrams painstakingly color coding everything and sorry to break it to you very beautiful i truly you know appreciate the inspiration but that is not at all efficient and you're wasting so much time doing that in my opinion notes have two purposes the first one is to keep yourself concentrated so your mind doesn't wander off when you're learning something and the second is to create a framework of references i made a video which i'll link over here somewhere um about how exactly i take notes the entire full system basically i take notes of the structure or the framework of how information is being organized and then i put references in that framework so i can quickly look up things when i need more details about it i don't sit there and try to like write down all the details because we're in the information age guys like we don't need to remember every single little detail you can just look it up what you're really learning here is the high level understanding and like what are the terms that you're even looking up like what are the concepts that you need to find more details on within the framework i also often write down page numbers or like specific places to reference so that in the future i can always go back to that material i'll give you guys an example like i'm currently learning about the blockchain and it's pretty technical course where you actually have to implement your own personal blockchain and there is a section called consensus mechanisms so i did not go and write down every single consensus mechanism and then write down exactly how every single thing works no instead i just wrote down for example consensus mechanism proof of stake and i wrote very briefly it's a validation that is proportional to holdings and then another consensus mechanism is proof of work which then i briefly wrote makes use of significant effort in mining and because i brought down these two terms and quickly what they mean i can quickly just go and google it when i want to know the details the fifth

technique for how to learn things faster is retrieval take a look at this graph it is called the forgetting curve quite alarming isn't it you're learning all this stuff and then you're basically forgetting most of it um and then you have to relearn it again in the future but worry not there is a good way of combating this called retrieval and retrieval is just a fancy way of saying of testing yourself and being able to answer questions with your own words for example in my undergrad when i was studying pharmacology there were so many drug pathways that we had to memorize like i swear it was like 200 drug pathways or something like that it was just like ridiculous it was so easy to forget because there were so many steps in between as well so what i did was that after reviewing each of these drug mechanisms i would then force myself to say the entire mechanism from memory and then only if i just absolutely cannot figure out a step then i would look at the answers and by doing that i was able to retain the information so much better in fact i still remember a lot of these drug pathways they're like ingrained in my brain now the reason why this works is that every time by dredging the information from your brain cells you're actually strengthening the connections between the neurons the brain cells that are encoding that information into your brain and the stronger it is then the more likely it is that you'll remember and there's a lot of scientific evidence for this like look at this graph over here if you do retrieval it makes a huge difference on the forgetting curve and you don't have to sit there and relearn stuff and waste time for those of you who understand things better naruto terms it's like making sure that you don't forget your rasam gun so you should keep throwing your sun gun at sasuke and everybody around you the sixth technique to learn things faster

is to solicit feedback is often scary and it hurts your feelings but feedback is a gift it helps you identify where exactly it is that you need to focus on because sometimes it's really hard to see them yourself the book ultra learning categories feedback into three different categories outcome based informational and correctional to illustrate these let's take an example in which you code a thing but the thing does not work and you are very sad outcome feedback is basically you have a really shitty interpreter um that only tells you that your thing doesn't work i mean it's like good to know that it doesn't work but it's not very helpful because you don't know like where it is that you should even be looking at so that you can try to make it work secondary feedback is informational and this is like a modern-day compiler it would tell you which lines it is that it thinks is causing issues but it will not tell you how to fix these issues this is better than outcome based because at least you now know where it is that you should be looking at the third time of feedback which is also the best type of feedback is correctional feedback and this is like having a friend who can point out why it is that it's not working and also offers suggestions for how to fix it or like i guess if you don't have any friends a relatively good substitute is that you copy paste the error put it into stack overflow hopefully someone there has a solution and you can learn how to fix it and maybe even how to optimize things further so throughout your learning process if you want to learn things faster solicit feedback as much as you can especially correctional if you can but even correctional and outcome based can be useful trust me it can fast track you so much and can help you save so much time go find your giraya okay so the next technique in order to learn things faster is

experimentation and experimentation is the difference between good and great when you're learning things the best mindset is by trying to understand that concept deeply and you do this by experimenting and playing around with the thing that you're trying to learn this method may seem like it would actually waste more time but not at all you're able to develop intuition and a deeper understanding of that skill so when you have to solve complex problems you're able to do so faster this is a technique where a habit a lot of famous people do like albert einstein nicholas tesla and feynman with his fineman technique an example of when i use this technique is for example i'm learning how to code in a new language i actually purposely break parts of that code to understand how it is that it functions and i also always try to come up with multiple solutions to the problem that i'm facing and i think this has helped me a lot in gaining a deeper understanding and mastering the skill faster in the long run like for example when i was studying computer science and my master's degree dynamic programming was a concept that was really hard for me to wrap my head around so in order to understand it better what i would do is take the dp equation and start changing parts of it trying to understand how each component fit into each other in the entire logic i would also try to tackle the problem using different dp solutions as well as non-dp solutions to understand better the differences between them overall this helped a lot in my grasp with ap final naruto reference to drive home the point say you want to master kage bonchen in order to learn and master the technique better you should start experimenting and doing different variations of it for example alternating the different amount of shadow clones you have or doing sexy jitsu this helps you really master the skill and comes in quite handy sometimes alright that's all i have for you guys today i hope this video was helpful let me know which of these techniques that you've used personally or which ones you think would be the most helpful for you and i will see you guys in the next video or livestream