“Life hacking”, “smart learning” and the “80/20 rule” have become popular learning concepts in recent years.
All of them essentially describe the idea that by using smart learning strategies you can get more results in less time.
While there is some truth to it, this type of thinking can become an easy excuse to procrastinate.
I fell into that trap when I started blogging.
I thought: “I’ll read a few books on writing and marketing and find the most efficient process to write high quality articles fast. Then I’ll build my blog in no time with minimal time investment”
The result?
I ended up spending hours analyzing my writing process and reading about writing. But I never actually wrote.
The 80/20 rule became more of a 10/1 rule: with 1 % of the effort I got maybe 10% of the results.
So here’s my point:
Trying to “learn smart” can make you forget about a simple truth:
A sure way to improve at something fast is to do it every day. Ideally for at least 2 hours.
There are many advantages to working on something for 2 hours a day consistently:
- You’ll get fast results over a period of 2-3 months as you gain so much experience so rapidly.
- Your motivation and self-esteem go up as each day you poof to yourself that you have the discipline and work ethic to take action.
- You stop overthinking how to get good at the skill and instead get good at the skill in real life. Investing 2 hours every day drastically reduces mental masturbation on “what’s the smartest way to learn”, and actually makes you learn.
- You learn to trust your own opinion and solve problems in real time. It builds self-reliance.
- You’ll build the habit of working on that skill every day. Once it’s ingrained in your routine taking action consistently in the long-term becomes effortless.
Don’t Over-read, Don’t Overthink
Many “smart learners” love thinking and reading.
They love spending hours researching the perfect way to learn something in a month.
The result:
Whenever they encounter the slightest challenge in the learning process their immediate reaction is:
“Let’s find a book on that.” Or: “Let me take out my notebook and analyze what happened here.”
It would be much better for them to think:
“Let me work through that challenge for 2 hours and see what I can figure out myself.”
The Bottom Line
In the end if you don’t do something you don’t do it. And if you don’t do it you won’t get better at it.
And the 80/20 rule quickly becomes the 10/1 rule in disguise.
So whenever you start a skill that is new to you don’t fall into the smart learning trap. You should worry most about consistency and putting in the hours on a daily basis.
Maybe spend a day doing some research on how you can get started.
But then quickly decide on what you’ll do for 2 hours every day for the next month.
Then go and do it.
You’ll achieve way more in that month than if you tried to hack yourself there.
And after that month of everyday work…
…well then it’s time to analyze what you’re doing in more detail and go down the smart learning route.
But this time you’ve already built the habit of taking action. You’ve gained 60 hours of real world experience. You are able to distinguish good advice from bad advice.
So the basic message of this article is this:
Don’t worry about “the perfect way to learn something” until you took action for a month.
Pick something, work on it for 2-hours every day, reevaluate in a month.
Peace out and until next time!
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