Strategies for Learning - by Andy Masley
Learning a lot of actually useful information is drastically important. It’s maybe the most important thing you can do with your time to improve your life and become more able to act in the world. It’s easy to let a lot of time slip away without actually learning a lot, even if you’re at an elite school or in a cognitively demanding job. Actual consistent learning requires a lot of vigilance, self-reflection, mental fortitude, useful strategies and tools, and accountability systems.
In my experience, people everywhere are deeply excited about finding anyone who’s actually put a lot of time and thought into learning about something and thinking seriously about it, rather than just learning surface level knowledge and knowing the right “passwords” to say at the right time. I experience some people as having a uniquely warm glow of aliveness to them. A sense of presence. Just being in the room with them makes me feel like I have deep company. These people come from very different parts of my life and have very different background and beliefs. The thing they have in common is that they’ve put effort into actually learning a lot about the world, but are still radically open to new ideas and haven’t walled themselves off from unfamiliar situations and ways of thinking and living. I think putting a lot of careful effort into authentic learning can give you that same glow and can make your personal life (as well as your career) much better.
I’ve collected some useful ways of learning and thinking about learning. These mostly come from ridiculously knowledgeable friends I’ve tried to imitate, authors I like who have written about learning, and my own experiences with my own learning and as a teacher.
