Important Links:

Learning how to learn | Barbara Oakley | TEDxOaklandUniversity

https://www.ucop.edu/local-human-resources/_files/performance-appraisal/How%20to
%20write%20SMART%20Goals%20v2.pdf
https://ncase.me/remember/
Why Boredom is Good For You
Why New Years Resolutions Fail & How To Succeed
Your Theme
Map of Computer Science - an example of chunking the subject
https://coggle.it/
https://zerotomastery.io/blog/learn-to-code-for-free
https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVK0kL06w=/
https://www.wikihow.com/Solve-the-Water-Jug-Riddle-from-Die-Hard-3 - Einstellung
riddle
Your Theme- new year's resolutions suck, so instead, implement a theme for the
current year

30.06.2024

You can learn hard things by relating them to stories.

Everything is a game. We should have a growth mindset.

We have control over our lives. We should make mistakes internally �it�s our
fault�, and not externalize them, making mistakes on external factors where we do
not have control, for example the weather is guilty about this.. so we do not have
any ways to improve..

One failure doesn�t count. 50 failures don�t mean anything. Each time we get right
back up and continue on with our game till we will be successful.

Feynman Technique implies that you can explain ideas in simple terms that anybody
can understand.

You have to see the obstacles, the problems as challenges to pass over. You have to
be a learner, a student. They understood that their abilities could be developed.
They had what I call a growth mindset. But other students felt it was tragic,
catastrophic. From their more fixed mindset perspective, their intelligence had
been up for judgment and they failed. Instead of luxuriating in the power of yet,
they were gripped in the tyranny of now.
They run from the error. They don�t engage with it. The students with the growth
mindset, the idea that abilities can be developed. They engage deeply. Their brain
is on fire with yet. They engage deeply. They process the error. They learn from it
and they correct it.

Emphasize the focus, the strategy, the process, the effort, the perseverance and
not the talent and the intelligence.

Efficiency trumps grit. Smart learning aka efficiency is better than grit because
you can use the time wiser. And.. we don�t have endless resources. So.. time is
very precious.

The world is constantly evolving. So we should focus on developing knowledge based

on the fundamentals,on roots and the trunk and not on the leaves which will change
pretty fast.

01.07.2024

The way we learn can be focus or diffuse.

Focus mode is using Cortex and it means for example that you are studying for an
exam and you are isolated in a room, you are putting intense work in that subject
and you are not distracted from the subject.
Diffuse mode is using all the regions in the brain and is more like daydreaming.
You are letting your brain wander while you walk, jog.
The best way to learn is to transition from one mode to another, to let your brain
rest and assimilate the information.
When you are in diffuse mode you are creating myelin sheaths. These create faster
signals, faster synapses so are making greater connections.
You can be in only one mode at a time. We want to avoid multitasking.
When people do 2 cognitive tasks that require brain power at once their cognitive
capacity can drop from academic level to that of a scholar, an 8 years old.
Dual-task interference - Essentially it�s a fancy way of saying doing 2 things at
once is a surefire way to do nothing well.

Sleep is important for having a greater brain. Brain may flush out toxins during
sleep.A good night�s rest may literally clear the mind. Your energy is focused on
intense activity of cleaning during the night, so it�s important to not eat late in
the night to don�t shift the blood circulation for digestion instead of brain
activities.

Science shows that during sleep a plumbing system called the glymphatic system may
open, letting fluid flow rapidly through the brain. Dr. Nedergaard�s lab recently
discovered the glymphatic system helps control the flow of cerebrospinal fluid
(CSF), a clear liquid surrounding the brain and spinal cord.

Initially the researchers studied the system by injecting dye into the CSF of mice
and watching it flow through their brains while simultaneously monitoring
electrical brain activity. The dye flowed rapidly when the mice were unconscious,
either asleep or anesthetized. In contrast, the dye barely flowed when the same
mice were awake.

�We were surprised by how little flow there was into the brain when the mice were
awake,� said Dr. Nedergaard. �It suggested that the space between brain cells
changed greatly between conscious and unconscious states.�

To test this idea, the researchers inserted electrodes into the brain to directly
measure the space between brain cells. They found that the space inside the brains
increased by 60 percent when the mice were asleep or anesthetized.

�These are some dramatic changes in extracellular space,� said Charles Nicholson,
Ph.D., a professor at New York University�s Langone Medical Center and an expert in
measuring the dynamics of brain fluid flow and how it influences nerve cell
communication.

Certain brain cells, called glia, control flow through the glymphatic system by
shrinking or swelling. Noradrenaline is an arousing hormone that is also known to
control cell volume. Similar to using anesthesia, treating awake mice with drugs
that block noradrenaline induced unconsciousness and increased brain fluid flow and
the space between cells, further supporting the link between the glymphatic system
and consciousness.

Feedback is important to accelerate the learning process. If you are a beginner,

positive feedback, for example, rewards are great to motivate you to keep on the
track. If you are advanced, stick to negative feedback for tracing and correcting
the mistakes you do and you are not aware of and it also saves you time.

Also, without feedback, you can not figure out what you need to improve on or how
close you are to achieving your goals.

Procrastination - You need to realize that you are making a sacrifice of short term
positivity(Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, TV) versus a long term
gratification(learning something new, hard) and the idea that it is a delayed
gratification.
Methods to avoid procrastination:
1.Is it time to go "screw it, let's do it"?
2.Could a deliberately sloppy start help you move forward?
3.Or what's the smallest step you can take right now?
To add things in Long Term Memory from Short Term Memory we should practice
something called Spaced Repetition. This implies that you repeat for a few days and
not repeat for example 20 times in the same day. We should see long term benefits.
We don't wanna cram for an exam. Within an hour of what we have learned if nothing
is done with the information we will lose up to 50% of what we have learned. After
24 hours we can lose up to 70% and if a week passes without that information being
used up to 90% of it could be lost.

Active learning is a process where students engage in classroom activities that

promote critical engagement with course materials. Activities may include text
analysis, collaborative writing, various forms of discussion or problem solving.
Although active learning transfers, in part, the responsibility of learning to the
student, the course must also be designed to make student activities meaningful and
goal-oriented.
In one definition, when done well, �active learning engages students in two aspects
� doing things and thinking about the things they are doing.
Critical thinking and argument-making rely upon a synthetic process that requires
practice and experience.
Active learning is when you are involved, when you take down notes, ask questions,
and try to solve problems yourself. Practice is key here to connect the dots, to
create a mind map.
Illusion of competence when you look at a solution, you understand it but, when it
comes to do it from scratch you don�t have the ability to do it, even if you
understand the concepts very clearly and that�s because you don�t own the ideas.

Recalling is a lot better than re-reading materials because it means that you�ve
got the ideas behind.
Passive learning is when you are listening to a podcast, see a video on youtube, or
watching TV.
1 hour of study vs 1 hour of tests are different things. Testing is better because
you engage actively and it is hard work for the brain to remember from your current
knowledge.

02.07.2024

Motivation is of 2 types: intrinsic and extrinsic.

Intrinsic motivation is the motivation that comes from inside. You need intrinsic
motivation to learn efficient.
There are 3 intrinsic drives to learn:
Autonomy - have control
Mastery - to be good at something and to be recognised good by others
Purpose - how does this benefit myself and others around you, what is my destiny
Extrinsic motivation comes from outside. Things like money, wages, gifts, prizes
are external factors.
Overjustification effect - appears when external rewards are given for actions that
people find intrinsically motivated and becomes less internally motivated to pursue
those activities in the future.
When we are just starting off to acquire a new skill or a new piece of knowledge,
extrinsic motivation and rewards are really good.
Put yourself in a situation where you can be praised for your learning. If you are
surrounded by people who praise you for learning and getting better, having good
friends, having good social connections, having a community of people that support
each other, that will help you with intrinsic motivation.

03.07.2024

Without goals we are blind and we don�t know where we are going. We need some sort
of a roadmap.
Setting big goals is exciting, but it�s also scary.
There is a region of our brain called amygdala which actually controls our emotions
and detects fear.
It is what triggers our fight/flight response.
When we suddenly feel something strong emotionally, like being scared or uncertain,
the amygdala response by immediately trying to seek out comfort and finding
something that can help us avoid this feeling which actually hinders our
learning.It�s hard to concentrate and it destroys our long term goals.
Kaizen - Japanese word for continuous, small, incremental improvement. Taking small
steps, we ensure that we avoid triggering the amygdala fear detection system.
Small goals, small steps each day that over a long term is going to compound.
Create SMART Goal:
Specific - Make your goal specific and narrow for more effective planning
Measurable - Make sure your goal and progress are measurable
Achievable - Make sure you can reasonably accomplish your goal within a certain
time frame
Relevant - Your goal should align with your values and long-term objectives
Time-based - Set a realistic but ambitious end date to clarify task prioritization
and increase motivation

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

Remember, goals are intended to focus attention and resources on what is most
important so that you can be successful in achieving your priorities. SMART Goals
are goals for your day-to-day job.

But no. Research has shown that, generally speaking, once a person reaches that
level of �acceptable� performance and automaticity, the additional years of
�practice� don�t lead to improvement. If anything, the doctor or the teacher or the
driver who�s been at it for 20 years is likely to be a bit worse than the one who�s
been doing it for only five, and the reason is that these automated abilities
gradually deteriorate in the absence of deliberate efforts to improve.

Purposeful practice has several characteristics that set it apart from what we
might call �naive practice,� which is essentially just doing something repeatedly,
and expecting that the repetition alone will improve one�s performance.

Purposeful practice has well-defined, specific goals.

Generally speaking, no matter what you�re trying to do, you need feedback to
identify exactly where and how you are falling short. Without feedback�either from
yourself or from outside observers�you cannot figure out what you need to improve
on or how close you are to achieving your goals.
Purposeful practice requires getting out of one�s comfort zone.

The best way to get past any barrier is to come at it from a different direction,
which is one reason it is useful to work with a teacher or coach. Someone who is
already familiar with the sorts of obstacles you�re likely to encounter can suggest
ways to overcome them.

Hard work is deliberate practice. It�s not fun while you�re doing it, but you don�t
have to do too much of it in any one day (the elite players spent, on average, 3.5
hours per day engaged in deliberate practice, broken into two sessions). It also
provides you measurable progress in a skill, which generates a strong sense of
contentment and motivation. Therefore, although hard work is hard, it�s not
draining and it can fit nicely into a relaxed and enjoyable day.
Hard to do work, by contrast, is draining. It has you running around all day in a
state of false busyness that leaves you, like the average players from the Berlin
study, feeling tired and stressed. It also, as we just learned, has very little to
do with real accomplishment.
If your goal is to build a remarkable life, then busyness and exhaustion should be
your enemy.
Do less. But do what you do with complete and hard focus. Then when you�re done, be
done, and go enjoy the rest of the day.

04.07.2024

It pays not to be busy. If you are busy, it shows that you have a lack of time
management.
New neurons are born in the hippocampus everyday. Because new neurons are created
we need to nurture our brain, we need to use our brain, to train our brain to make
sure those neurons don�t deteriorate.
One of the things we can actually improve these neurons in our hippocampus is to be
surrounded by people, by others.
There�s been studies where if you put an animal by itself it weakens the strength
of the neurons.
You want to be surrounded by other people who are stimulating you.
If you find yourself constantly busy, you realize that isn�t a badge of honor and
you are actually doing a disservice to your brain.
When we focus on something, we create chunks of knowledge.
The idea of learning from chunks is called bottom up learning.
We combine different chunks of knowledge and we connect the dots between these, we
create a mind map.
Top down learning is when we start with the big picture.
The idea is to gradually build chunks in our minds and these chunked mental
libraries will create different patterns and when we learn how to connect them, how
to relate concepts to different things using diffuse mode to connect far distant
chunks it�s what create knowledge, the idea of connecting the dots is instrumental
to long term learning.

Solving problems is the most demanding skill. You can solve problems in focus mode.
Solving problems in diffused mode is by intuition, by ideas of creating solutions,
when solutions become less intuitive and more creative, harder to grasp.

Deliberate practice - the learning process should be tough.

Temporary frustrations when learning is a good thing.
All the masters in different topics can visualize things,they can visualize all
their moves ahead of time.
They are able to create experiences in their mind to make accurate predictions and
keep a lot of information in their mind.
First when we are starting to learn something we gain fast progression. Then, we
always had what we called a perceived limit where we start to plateau and because
we don�t get that immediate progress when we were beginners, we start to get a
little bit of frustration. There we should use deliberate practice. We want to be
just in this area. We are on the edge of our limits. We are trying to push through
to suddenly get a breakthrough and go back to rapid progress and repeat that cycle
where you hit a limit, a flat area and then we practice the practice at this edge,
at this uncomfortable edge of our limits and then move past that.
In order to have deliberate practice we will need the following:
specific goals
intense focus
immediate feedback
frequent discomfort by being at the edge of our abilities

Deliberate practice is when you go out of your comfort zone, when you struggle, it
is the area where you feel you are not good enough, it�s pushing yourself to your
limits.
You want to make sure you cycle between comfort and discomfort.
Push your limits, then seek immediate feedback and mentorship.
The better you become at something, the more enjoyment you will have.

Sometimes you fail. In fact, most times you fail. But, you have to keep trying and
trying to achieve those dreams.
You shouldn't do everything for money. Focus on improving yourself, and surround
yourself with like-minded people.
What is perfection? I have no idea. Will I ever be able to do perfect kendo?
Definitely not. So, why do I keep doing kendo? I have no idea. For some reason,
though, the thought that my kendo will never be perfect is awesome. It means
there's always something to improve on.
If you're passionate about what you do, you'll never be able to make it perfect.
You can either let that drive you insane, or you can let that drive you for your
entire life. This is what people call "purpose." If you get one, you'll feel a lot
happier.

05.07.2024

Spread your learning on multiple times, after a few days, use the spaced repetition
technique which implies revisiting and practicing what you learn .
Don�t cram learning in one long, big session. The law of diminishing return applies
here.

Bedtime worry, including worrying about incomplete future tasks, is a significant

contributor to difficulty falling asleep. Previous research showed that writing
about one's worries can help individuals fall asleep. We investigated whether the
temporal focus of bedtime writing-writing a to-do list versus journaling about
completed activities-affected sleep onset latency. Fifty-seven healthy young adults
(18-30) completed a writing assignment for 5 min prior to overnight polysomnography
recording in a controlled sleep laboratory. They were randomly assigned to write
about tasks that they needed to remember to complete the next few days (to-do list)
or about tasks they had completed the previous few days (completed list).
Participants in the to-do list condition fell asleep significantly faster than
those in the completed-list condition. The more specifically participants wrote
their to-do list, the faster they subsequently fell asleep, whereas the opposite
trend was observed when participants wrote about completed activities. Therefore,
to facilitate falling asleep, individuals may derive benefit from writing a very
specific to-do list for 5 min at bedtime rather than journaling about completed
activities.

Habits - energy savers for your brain, commute the actions to be much more
effortless, unconscious efforts, mindless actions.
Writing your daily list the evening before such as your goals actually helps
accomplish your goals the next day because we are saving energy in our brain. So,
when we wake up we already have something written down that saves our brain from
using up valuable memory slots.
The key takeaway, habits are energy savers to save our brain from specific tasks
that require our attention.

In 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus performed an act of scientific masochism.

The German psychologist memorized thousands of nonsense words, recorded how much he
forgot over time, and discovered..

THE FORGETTING CURVE

He found that you forget most of what you learn in the first 24 hours, then � if
you don�t practice recall � your remaining memories decay almost exponentially.
Hermann Ebbinghaus is known as the pioneer of the science of memory.
the less the decay, the flatter the curve � that is, the longer the memory lasts.
How fast a person�s memory decays depends on the person and the memory�
But in general, a memory�s �rate of decay� slows down each time you actively recall
it. (versus passively re-reading it)
(although, when you stop practicing, it still decays.)
The gaps between recalls increase in length.Why must the gaps increase? Because:
each time you do a recall at the sweet spot of forgetting, the memory�s decay slows
down...
Therefore: to best learn something, you need to recall it..

Therefore: to best learn something, you need to recall it...

...just as you�re about to forget it.. The sweet spot
Memory isn't a bookshelf where you collect random giant tomes to impress others.
That's to say: Spaced Repetition will fail if your cards feel bloated, disconnected
or meaningless.
Instead, memory is like a jigsaw puzzle: full of small, connected pieces. (This is
also how neurons work: lots of small, connected things)
It's not about collection, it's about connection.
Thus, to get the most out of Spaced Repetition, you must make your cards...
SMALL
CONNECTED
& MEANINGFUL
But you know what would make it stick in memory better?
If you connected it to pictures, sounds, context, and/or personal details!
But the most important connection of all, is to connect your learning to something
that is...
MEANINGFUL
That, I believe, is the best way to keep yourself motivated while learning:
By making sure your learning is in service of doing something you care about.

Neuroplasticity is defined as the selective organizing of connections between

neurons in our brains.
This means that when people repeatedly practice an activity or access a memory,
their neural networks -- groups of neurons that fire together, creating
electrochemical pathways -- shape themselves according to that activity or memory.
When people stop practicing new things, the brain will eventually eliminate, or
"prune," the connecting cells that formed the pathways. Like in a system of
freeways connecting various cities, the more cars going to a certain destination,
the wider the road that carries them needs to be. The fewer cars traveling that
way, however, the fewer lanes are needed.
You should be adventurous. You should avoid monotony and try new things to be able
to strengthen the neural pathways. We remember things more clearly when we
experience new things, explore new locations.
The world is a playground. When you are a kid you are able to be creative, think of
different games, stories and ideas. When we grow up we are less and less creative.
We start to experience less and less because we start to experience the same things
over and over and it becomes monotonous. If you want to be an efficient learner
don�t shy away from new experiences. It also could be about traveling to new
locations, taking a different path to work than you usually do, learning a skill
unrelated to what your job is. The idea is to experience new things, avoid monotony
and treat the world like when you were a child because these help your brain grow.
You should have an endpoint when you are performing unpleasant tasks. Regardless of
whether you did your task or not, you should end the process of doing that thing by
the time you are established to stop.
Planning the finishing time and the working time.
06.07.2024
Now that we learned that having an endpoint is important to learning, decide for
yourself when your daily end time is. For example, I am a morning person and my
most productive hours are between 7am and 12pm. I also sometimes like to work in
the afternoon, but I have a cutoff of 5pm. No matter how much work I need to do,
how many deadlines I have, at 5pm I have an endpoint that I always follow.
Combining your productivity time, with your endpoint time, you now give your brain
a rest for worrying and planning. Your productivity time may change day to day.
Maybe you have small endpoints throughout the day for small tasks. But no matter
what, you have an absolute work/learning endpoint at 5pm (or whatever time you
decide).
Boredom is very important. It may actually spur you to action.
Boredom is a warning that we are not doing what we want to be doing and also, it is
a push that motivates us to switch goals and projects.
Boredom is great for goal settings.
If your brain is always consumed by other stimuli, you rarely ponder the bigger
picture and set long term goals for yourself and consider how to tackle them.
Everytime you are waiting for something, you have a decision to make which seems
like a tiny one. So try to resist the temptation to use the phone to check any app
because this way you are alleviating a moment of boredom and become less creative,
less altruistic, less likely to assess your current state and less likely to set
goals for your future.
Lack of boredom is bad for us.
Pomodoro Technique is about interchange from one mode of thinking to another one to
help avoid procrastination. You will switch from a 25 minutes of focus mode to 5
minutes of diffused mode. You can change the interval time to 30 minutes or make it
smaller like 15, 10 minutes. One sequential of these modes represents a pomodoro.
Chunking is related to habits. We save energy by automise different actions. Break
down something and then chunk it and go on autopilot with it saving energy.
We can hold 4 chunks of knowledge in our working memory.
We can use the Divide and Conquer strategy to chunk a subject.
07.07.2024
The forgetting curve hypothesizes the decline of memory retention in time. This
curve shows how information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain
it. A related concept is the strength of memory that refers to the durability that
memory traces in the brain. The stronger the memory, the longer period of time that
a person is able to recall it. A typical graph of the forgetting curve purports to
show that humans tend to halve their memory of newly learned knowledge in a matter
of days or weeks unless they consciously review the learned material.
From 1880 to 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus ran a limited, incomplete study on himself
and published his hypothesis in 1885 as �ber das Ged�chtnis (later translated into
English as Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology).Ebbinghaus studied
the memorisation of nonsense syllables, such as "WID" and "ZOF" (CVCs or
Consonant�Vowel�Consonant) by repeatedly testing himself after various time periods
and recording the results. He plotted these results on a graph creating what is now
known as the "forgetting curve". Ebbinghaus investigated the rate of forgetting,
but not the effect of spaced repetition on the increase in retrievability of
memories.
Ebbinghaus's publication also included an equation to approximate his forgetting
curve:
b = 100K:((log(t))c + k)
Here,
b - represents 'Savings' expressed as a percentage, and
t -represents time in minutes, counting from one minute before the end of learning.
The constants c and k are 1.25 and 1.84 respectively. Savings is defined as the
relative amount of time saved on the second learning trial as a result of having
had the first. A savings of 100% would indicate that all items were still known
from the first trial. A 75% savings would mean that relearning missed items
required 25% as long as the original learning session (to learn all items).
'Savings' is thus, analogous to retention rate.
In 2015, an attempt to replicate the forgetting curve with one study subject showed
experimental results similar to Ebbinghaus' original data.
Overlearning is not good. Investing long learning sessions, focusing on a subject
for multiple hours will get you to burnout.
Learning has to be enjoyable and not a painful process.
The act of creating diagrams of what you have learned is one of the best ways to
recall information and avoid that forgetting curve. This is why I created a roadmap
for this course. A diagram for you to be able to recall the lessons, the orders,
and the sections.
One of the best tools to repeat what you have learned the day prior, is to write it
down in a notebook, or diagram the main concept you learned. This is why journaling
was used so often before people had computers. Great inventors used the act of
writing down what they were learning so that they can recall it in the future and
be reminded in case they forget.
Deliberate practice - work hard and smart determines efficiency.
Avoid easy stuff
Engage in challenging projects
Carve out a period of undistracted focus
Push yourself during the focus time to be uncomfortable
Always seek immediate feedback or mentorship (right things, or wrong things,
community, mentor or a teacher)
You feel those butterfly in the stomach, make doubt yourself - uncomfort zone

08.07.2024

Create a roadmap. You don�t wanna go straight into studies without a plan.
Mastering a subject is not simply just learning things and creating chunks. But how
you use those chunks together. It is important to know how to apply it to the real
world, how to solve problems with it, how things are connected, and what is the
context.
You want to know what path you need to take in order to get to where you want to
be. By having a plan you won�t get overwhelmed by all the things you need to learn
because humans are notorious at overestimating what we can do in the short term but
underestimating what we can do in the long term.
We always miss deadlines because we think we can get things done faster, but we
look back to our lives 2 years from now you are going to say wow I can�t believe
I�ve accomplished this much.
When you are creating a roadmap you also want to focus on what topic is the most
important.
You should answer questions like these:
What will make me feel good?
What will make me feel accomplished?
What type of results do I want to feel recognized and respected?
However, once you create a diagram and a roadmap, I like to write things down in a
notebook and the exact plan of attack. What do I mean by that? Well, in my 20s I
taught myself to code, and I created for myself a roadmap.
You will notice 2 key things here:
1. I chunked the subjects to the important parts
2. I had a clear end goal in mind and a timeline

10.07.2024

Interleaving - use different problems and sessions to learn something.

Variety is important. When you are learning a subject, don�t use only one
technique, one method to do it. You need to mix up your learning by being creative
and flexible.
You don�t want to trust just one person. You want to have different perspectives.
You want to form knowledge from multiple sources, books, mentors. Here comes the
idea of interleaving.
Instead of practicing the same skill over and over you want to shift between 3 or
more different skills. If you want to be an excellent cook don�t just learn to cook
one meal, learn to cook different recipes. If you want to learn a new language
don�t write down only the new words, try to speak, try to watch movies in that
language. Try different techniques over different periods of time to interleave
your knowledge and create different connections in your brain.
This technique applies on the grander scale such as skill stacking. We can combine
different skills to make ourselves valuable. We can also connect different chunks
in long term memory that are unique and nobody else has thought of because problem
solving is crucial skill.
People who will solve problems in unique ways are very valuable.
People who have an engineering degree can use skills from engineering in software
development. It�s important to think about what you are doing to change things up.
Interleaving is a very powerful concept. It is the reason as we age, we tend to
become smarter. We are able to interleave different experiences in our lives and
all sorts of knowledge to connect different ideas. The goal is to "mix it up".
Try to answer the question: "how am I going to mix up my learning?" in your notes
based on the topic you are trying to learn.
Researchers are now working to understand why interleaving yields such impressive
results.
One prominent explanation is that it improves the brain�s ability to tell apart, or
discriminate, between concepts.
Blocking is focusing on one subject. It�s opposed to interleaving.
With blocking, once you know what solution to use, or movement to execute, the hard
part is over.
With interleaving, each practice attempt is different from the last, so rote
responses don�t work.
Instead, your brain must continuously focus on searching for different solutions.
That process can improve your ability to learn critical features of skills and
concepts, which then better enables you to select and execute the correct response.
A second explanation is that interleaving strengthens memory associations.
With blocking, a single strategy, temporarily held in short-term memory, is
sufficient. That�s not the case with interleaving�the correct solution changes from
one practice attempt to the next. As a result, your brain is continually engaged at
retrieving different responses and bringing them into short-term memory. Repeating
that process can reinforce neural connections between different tasks and correct
responses, which enhances learning.
Both of these accounts imply that increased effort during training, either to
discriminate correct responses or to strengthen them, is needed when interleaving
is used. This corresponds to a potential drawback of the technique, namely that the
learning process often feels more gradual and difficult at the outset. However,
that added effort can generate better, longer-lasting results.

Practically we can exemplify the following:

For instance, are you studying statistics? Learning to play an instrument? Taking
up a new sport? In all of these areas, you are faced with a series of skills or
concepts to learn. The typical response would be to practice each of these, one at
a time, over and over. Another option would be to mix it up. As it turns out, your
brain may prefer doing exactly that.
Viewing complexity as a stable personality trait proved too confining. Researchers
began to realize that the level of complexity may not be as stable as once thought.
Rather, it can also be affected by a variety of situational and environmental
factors. Two lines of research emerged. One area of work focused on the impact of
environmental stressors on the complexity of thinking. Some stressors, such as time
pressure, information overload, and threat, were found to reduce level of
complexity, whereas other stressors, such as moderately negative life events, were
found to elevate complexity. A second line of research focused on the effects of
value conflict, accountability demands, and audience characteristics on complexity.
For example, it was shown that when confronted with a conflict between two values
(e.g., social equality vs. economic efficiency), individuals who viewed both values
as equally important resolved the conflict in more complex ways than did
individuals who believed more strongly in one value than the other. This work also
found that individuals could think in complex ways on certain topics but think in
simple ways on others. By treating integrative complexity as a domain-specific and
situation-specific construct, research was able to shed light on the conditions
under which people can be motivated to think complexly as well as increase their
understanding of when complexity is likely to prove adaptive.
Complex individuals tend to get bogged down in insignificant details, rendering
them less capable of making a decision and less willing to take risks.
They are also more likely to procrastinate, pass responsibility to others, or both,
in the face of difficult decisions.

11.07.2024

Einstellung effect - our brain develops in a way to mechanize the state of mind.
The most breakthroughs are made by younger people or people from different fields
that come in because they don�t have Einstellung.
Einstellung is what we call a rigid mindset.
If we have a rigid mindset we aren't too willing to see novel or different or new
ideas.
It is almost like a mind�s way of creating a roadblock where your intuition
actually becomes wrong.
You can become a master of a topic, but, often what happens when you consider
yourself no longer a beginner you stop taking advice, opinions and feedback from
other people, from other masters, from other colleagues or even people that are not
as smart as you.
And that�s a bad thing because you start creating this rigidity in your mind that
doesn�t allow for new ideas, maybe ideas that weren't available when you first
started learning are now available and changes things.
For example, you are a doctor, you go to medical school, you graduate and
congratulations you are a doctor now.
But over the years new studies, new findings, are going to be discovered in health.
If you don�t keep up with the trends, if you don�t continue to learn, if you don�t
go to conferences and find out new things that scientists discovered you are going
to have this rigid mindset.
You are set in your ways and you are not going to achieve new heights.
For solving this problem you have to use integrative complexity.
Integrative complexity - willingness to accept multiple perspectives.
You want to get different opinions, perspectives on a topic and then integrate them
into a bigger more coherent picture.
In painting you keep evolving, your understanding, your picture of something over
and over and over. Your knowledge of something is never going to be complete. You
have this beginner mindset where you are alway ready to integrate new points, new
ideas, new chunks into your knowledge.
One of the greatest learners in the world is Bill Gates. Bill Gates is known to
have an incredible knowledge base and that�s because he doesn't have this rigid
mindset.
He is constantly reading new books, constantly getting experts to teach him
different things, constantly asks questions and he is never set in his ways. He is
always willing to be told that he might be wrong or his ideas might be wrong.
That�s true intelligence.

All prolific learners have this idea of a cup, where your cup is always half empty.
Instead of having the cup full where as new knowledge gets poured into your cup it
just overflows and spills over, your cup is half full. And as new knowledge water
flows in you are still containing that knowledge and accepting that knowledge to
keep your brain happy.
And that�s why Einstellung is important. Sometimes you need to on learn, sometimes
why you learned previously might be wrong or might become wrong and you need to be
willing to say hey I was wrong and I�m going to learn something new. This also goes
back to the idea of growth mindset where you need to understand that your brain can
grow, your learning can grow and it�s always adjusting and everything is a game.
We are always constantly evolving, constantly adapting to different situations,
playing a game of life and stronger people that have strong opinions are usually
those that don�t know enough.
We should ask ourselves what is option C. You taught about option A and you taught
about option B. Maybe those are the most obvious but there is an option C.
Is there an option that you didn�t think of?
Always understand that there�s pros and cons for everything and that strong
opinions are usually covering insecurities.
Einstellung refers to a person's predisposition to solve a given problem in a
specific manner even though better or more appropriate methods of solving the
problem exist.
Einstellung literally means "setting" or "installation" as well as a person's
"attitude" in German. Related to Einstellung is what is referred to as an Aufgabe
("task" in German). The Aufgabe is the situation which could potentially invoke the
Einstellung effect. It is a task which creates a tendency to execute a previously
applicable behavior. In the Luchins and Luchins experiment a water jar problem
served as the Aufgabe, or task.
You are at a disadvantage if you don�t have a community. You want to be part of a
group. You want to build a community of support. You have to start as soon as
possible to be open to communities to get feedback, on having a team that can
correct you when you're wrong, that can cheer you when you do something right.
You are always going to have blind spots or things that maybe you won�t know that
you learn from others, too, so that you get immediate feedback. When you are
working on something or learning something, maybe you want to showcase what you�ve
learned to others. They can give you feedback, you can overcome obstacles, you can
get motivated because others are doing the same thing you are.
You can have accountability - how can I make sure that I�m being held accountable.
If I am learning to play the guitar by myself and I don�t succeed, nobody knows
about it and nobody cares. I just go on with my life. But if I have a group of 5
friends that we are all learning how to play the guitar I am less likely to quit.
So ask yourself, are you doing this by yourself? If not, then be part of the
community.
Learning is a lifelong skill. Those who are efficient learners are going to succeed
in their life.
Community helps to uplift each other, to be influenced by the people around you.
You are the average of the 5 people you hang out with most.
Be surrounded by people that you want to be like. Don�t be surrounded by people
that drag you down. Be surrounded by people that excel you that propel you to be
better.

12.07.2024

Forming the habits need 4 things:

cue - something that triggers us and puts us in habit mode, automatic pilot
routine - the response to the cue, the ritual
reward - habits should give us something that make us feel good, if is a negative
feel we will not keep doing it
belief - internal feeling that is something which is great for us or make us feel
good
A lot of people use willpower to learn or practice something. That�s a terrible
strategy to get you to a goal, to get you to be an efficient learner.
Habits are a better strategy, and are energy savers.
4 laws of behavior changes:
it has to be obvious, a roadmap, a clear goal, what is the exact thing you want to
accomplish
it has to be easy, within reach
it has to be attractive, the outcome should be attractive to us, does it make us
feel good, does it lead to a better paying job, does it make us more respected in
our community
it has to be satisfying, does this habit reward us, does it give us external,
internal motivation, it�s more likely to repeat over and over when it�s satisfying
to us
Techniques to implement habits:
don�t break the chain/streak
If you have 2 tasks to accomplish, start with the hardest, biggest and the most
important first to avoid procrastination. Take action immediately. The key to
reaching high levels of performance and productivity is to develop the lifelong
habit of tackling your major task first thing each morning.
If you have a big dream and want to change your job, none of those things will
happen until you change your desire from a dream to a goal.
Goals are good, but systems are even better.
Success = Luck X Skills that you obtain.
Part of luck can be genetics, where you are borned.
We have control over the skills that we obtain.
A system is when you put 20 minutes into learning each day, the goal is when you
have to build a project.
Systems and processes come in handy when you find yourself being that type of
person that doesn�t accomplish their goals or finds procrastinations easy.
Systems eventually become habits.
Goals are rigid objectives.
For example, our goals is to lose weight, let's say 25 pounds.
Goal - lose 25 pounds - person who doesn�t procrastinate, that can actually be
motivated by a specific goal
System - start eating healthier, avoid junk food
Systems give us flexibility to adapt to new situations and this luck equation.
If something comes up and we can�t accomplish our goals we feel bad. We feel like
losers.
But instead, if we have a system in place where the focus is on eating healthy,
once a week if I eat junk food that might still be better than what I used to do
before which was to eat junk food 2x a week.
Goals are really good for short, small tasks, things that you can easily do in a
day.
But, if you have to do something that you want to accomplish over the year, over
your life instead of goals you want to have a system. Career goals are really good
to have a system versus a specific goal.
I want to work remotely - it is a goal.
What is the reason you want to work remotely?
You want to be location independent
You want to not have to commute to work
A system maybe is better. Instead of saying I want to work remotely you can say I
want to reduce my commute. I want to commute less, have more autonomy over my work.

14.07.2024

Involve as many senses as possible to be able to build powerful, unforgettable

knowledge and also to help the recall.
Power of the senses is important. Imagery in our mind really helps. This is why
handwriting helps you learn better versus typing something. This is why when you go
on a big travel adventure you remember those experiences. You don�t remember your
monotonous boring days. You remember the days when you did something exciting. When
all of the senses were firing.
As humans, metaphors, analogies and stories are important because we use what we
call the mind�s eye.
Mind�s eye - we imagine things in our brain, we visualize things in our brain, we
hear things in our brain, the more memorable the better it is.
People learn by making sense of the information that we receive. We rarely learn
something complex by just being simply told. For example, in history class it�s
pretty hard to learn dates.
We should use our visual memory and our sensual memory to remember things.
Stories are usually visual, we use our visual memory to remember things. The
stories from childhood like Snow White, we remember them because we are able to
envision them. They are memorable pictures, memorable ideas, and novel things. It�s
not often that we see someone dressed like Spiderman, Batman. It makes us feel
things and makes us feel emotions.
That�s why images, diagrams and infographics help us remember things. It helps us
encapsulate the very hard to remember concepts and uses our visual memory to help
us remember things.
Adding an emotional element to your study hooks in even more neurons to strengthen
your memory.
Before the internet, before Gutenberg invented the printing press and we had any
books, the way knowledge was passed down through humans was through oral
storytelling.
Humans are bad at remembering facts, but they are good at remembering stories that
invoke those emotions, those senses.
That�s why movies are memorable, that�s why you feel good when you watch a movie.
Being adventurous is also very helpful for your memory. When we have new
experiences and new things our brain is stimulated.
Seek out new experiences outside of learning to stimulate your brain.
You can learn in places that stimulate your senses. Some people learn really well
in front of a fire. Some people learn really well in the garden where they can
smell the flowers. The more senses you can involve, the better. Often if you are
learning in your bedroom on your bed where you spend every single night that�s not
stimulating, it�s not exciting and it�s not going to make whatever you learn
memorable.
You can have a dedicated study area. Not in your bedroom. You can have an office
where you can have flowers, a big window to look outside, you can hear the birds
chirping, you can have music in the background, maybe you should have paintings
around yourself. Everything stimulates your senses.
Engaging your emotions and thinking about how you will apply the knowledge that you
just gained and how it will impact your learning is a proven way to enhance memory.
You should also make analogies. Learn something complex by using what you already
know. For example, how a computer works, a computer is like a brain, your blood
vessels are like highways.
Funny notes technique - reading a book and you are taking notes - make your notes
super funny, maybe not for anybody else, but to yourself.
You joke around with your notes and you laugh or howl like a crazy person while you
are reading and taking notes because you are making jokes about what you are
learning and you make funny notes. These notes are more memorable to you because
they invoked that emotion.

For thousands of years, humans have relied on storytelling to engage, to share

emotions and to relate personal experiences.
Psychologists are exploring the mechanisms deep within the brain to better
understand just what happens when we communicate.
New research published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, suggests that no
matter how a narrative is expressed -- through words, gestures or drawings -- our
brains relate best to the characters, focusing on the thoughts and feelings of the
protagonist of each story.
We tell stories in conversation each and every day.
Very much like literary stories, we engage with the characters and are wired to
make stories people-oriented.
Aristotle proposed 2,300 years ago that plot is the most important aspect of
narrative, and that character is secondary.
Our brain results show that people approach narrative in a strongly character-
centered and psychological manner, focused on the mental states of the protagonist
of the story.
The method of loci is a mnemonic device, a trick to aid in memory storage and
retrieval. Loci means locations in Latin. The method of loci uses imagined physical
locations to aid memory. This works because human beings are very good at
remembering places, but not so good at remembering words, numbers and lists.