If you have ever tried to learn something new, you know the feeling, you are super hyped up at the beginning & then you try to consume all the information that’s out there, then you feel like you THE “Shi*t” only to give up on the after a week later.
Fear no more, we, uhh I mean, Santiago, a popular Machine Learning engineer has figured out 5 steps to learning & mastering whatever you want.
Choosing what not to learn
Instead of learning everything that you can get your hands on, Santiago prefers choosing to learn things that are immediately relevant. For example, Instead of learning everything, you need to master a topic, learn something that can be proven useful right now.
Avoiding “schedules” to learn
If you force yourself to have a “learning time” every day or at a certain time of the week, eventually you will give up on it because it will seem like a “chore”. Instead, your learning should be a byproduct of your work and something that you actually enjoy.
Choosing to do the “uncomfortable”
Santiago says that he chooses to do the uncomfortable or things that he knows he will have a little hard time doing instead of taking the easy way out. This will force your brain to create new connections and figure out creative solutions. Do something that you know will have difficulty doing, even if you know you are going to have hard time attempting it.
Teach what you learn
If you re-teach the information that you have learned to someone else, it will help you explore new pathways for the topic & master it. When you have to teach the things you have learned to someone else, it usually requires you to do little more research and it could lead to you solving a problem that you did not know existed.
Reinforce what you have learned
It’s all fun and games to learn new things but if you don’t reinforce it, you will forget or lose that information. So, in order to keep you sharp, you will have to go back and revisit some of the information. A simple trick “BJ Foggs” the author of “Tiny Habits” talks about in his book is to associate what you have learned to another thing that you are already used to. This could mean making a list of keywords to remember.
You can follow Santiago on Twitter @svpino
