🐇 How to Learn Things Faster

Hey there! Welcome back to The Flow by Flocus. If you’re new around here, welcome! 👋 If you’re new here, you can catch up on our previous editions right here.

For this week’s edition: We’re going to dive into the most effective ways to learn and lock in knowledge.

As we roll back into the back-to-routine and back-to-school season for many, here’s how you can learn things more effectively and quickly — with the Learning Pyramid as our guiding light:

📚️ What’s the Learning Pyramid? and why should I care?

Whether you’re a student, working professional, or hobbyist, being able to learn effectively gives you an edge in our fast-paced world.

It can also save you time, stress, and money. No more ineffective cramming, last minute project rushes, or wasted courses.

The Learning Pyramid is a straightforward framework we’ll use to unpack knowledge retention — and will ultimately help you learn better, and quicker.

Broken up into passive learning and active learning, each level of the pyramid correlates with how effectively you'll lock in what you're learning.

📊 Here’s the Breakdown

The Learning Pyramid is grounded in experiential learning. The more you get your hands dirty with the material, the more you're likely to remember. No magic, just science.

Here’s a breakdown of the pyramid — from the least to most effective ways to learn:

🐢 Passive Learning — Lower Retention

Your gateway to new subjects, but might not offer deep understanding:

• 🎤 Lecture: Provides broad overviews and foundational info, but lacks interaction to reinforce learning. Think university lectures or corporate seminars.

• 📚 Reading: Enriches your vocabulary and conceptual understanding, but misses real life application to cement any knowledge.

• 🎧 Audio & Video: Perfect for multitaskers and will help you absorb knowledge on the go, but don’t force you to process things deeply. Examples include podcasts, YouTube videos, or audiobooks.

• 🖥️ Demo: A step up from listening or watching, demos (e.g. a live seminar or cooking show) provide visual cues and context, but still lack hands-on practice.

🐇 Active Learning — Higher Retention

Most effective and will deepen your grasp on any subject:

• 📣 Group Discussion: Group settings like study groups, book clubs, or team meetings provide different perspectives and fill gaps you might not know you had.

• 🤾 Practice by Doing: Embeds knowledge by engaging multiple senses. Whether you're painting, coding, or presenting, there's no substitute for hands-on experience!

• 🧑‍🏫 Teaching Others: Finally, the most effective way for you to learn something. It forces you to understand a topic deeply and confront gaps in your own knowledge. Whether you’re tutoring a peer, presenting a topic to a group, or training your team — this is hands down the best way to learn and master any topic.

🎭 Mix & Match

It's not always possible to leisurely explore each tier of the pyramid — especially if you're on a deadline. The pyramid's not about a one-size-fits-all approach.

Pick, mix, and combine different methods that best suit your learning goals, in your timeframe.

⌨️ Example Walkthrough

🐢 = Passive | 🐇 = Active

Let’s pretend you're a student aspiring to master the Python coding language by building a simple weather app.

Here are the steps to apply a healthy mix of learning methods from start to finish:

1. 🐢 Read: Go through online articles and docs about Python's libraries that are essential for app development.

2. 🐢 Listen: Plug into a podcast episode that discusses Python's role in app development.

3. 🐢 Watch: Attend an online workshop or find a YouTube video where an experienced developer builds a weather app in Python or demos how APIs are used.

4. 🐇 Engage in Group Discussion: Join a Python-focused Discord community or subreddit to discuss your project, ask questions, and get tips on how to optimize your weather app.

5. 🐇 Practice: Roll up your sleeves and start coding your weather app — implementing all that you've learned. Make it a goal to have a working version in two weeks.

6. 🐇 Teach Others: Once you've built your app and debugged it, take the time to teach a friend or family member what you’ve learned. You can even create a YouTube tutorial video or Reddit post for other aspiring coders in the community.

We hope these tips help you learn smarter, not harder this upcoming season! If you’re interested in more hacks and frameworks to work more wisely, check out our guide on how to work less and get more done.

Until next Sunday,
Flocus Team