How to become an expert in ANYTHING FAST (Ultralearning by Scott Young)

Summary

Scott Young shares his system for accelerated learning to master new skills quickly. It involves pre-learning to map out what to learn and how, focused and directed practice to transfer knowledge to real situations, and drilling weaknesses to avoid bottlenecks. This cycle ultimately leads to intuitive expertise where you can think effortlessly and originally about the subject, innovating and expanding boundaries. But reaching this next level requires diligent application of his rigorous methods.

Takeaways

• 😀 Scott Young's system for faster learning involves pre-learning (planning), focused learning, and drilling weaknesses.
• 🧭 Pre-learning involves researching what to learn and the best order and methods to learn it.
• ⏱️ Set a deadline for pre-learning to avoid procrastination.
• 🎯 Focused learning eliminates distractions and trains focus through meditation etc.
• 🎯🎯 Directedness tailors learning techniques to the context you need to use your new skills.
• 🔧 Drilling isolates and corrects weaknesses that are exposed during practice.
• 😎 True mastery leads to intuitive, effortless thinking and innovation.
• 📈 The combination of focus, directed work and drilling boosts expertise.
• 🥅 Reaching the next level requires hard work following Scott Young's system.
• 🤓 Subscribe for more tips on thinking to improve your life.

Q & A

What is the first step in Scott Young's learning system?

The first step is pre-learning, which involves planning out what you are going to learn, the order you will learn it in, and how you will learn it.

What is the danger of spending too much time on pre-learning?

The danger is that pre-learning can lead to procrastination. Planning and fantasizing about learning is more enjoyable than actually sitting down to study, so it's important to set a deadline for finishing the pre-learning phase.

What are the three main principles of Young's learning approach?

The three main principles are: focus - eliminating distractions and training your focus, directedness - gearing practice towards the context you want to use your knowledge, and drilling - identifying and correcting weaknesses.

Why is transferring learning from one situation to another difficult?

Humans are not very good at transferring learning between different contexts. For example, statistics students may not have better intuitive probability estimations despite taking classes.

What does Young mean by drilling?

Drilling involves first identifying a weakness during practice, then spending targeted time correcting that weakness with specific practice before returning to direct practice.

What level of mastery does Young's system aim for?

The goal is to hone skills to an intuitive level where you can think effortlessly and originally about the subject, innovate, and potentially expand the boundaries of the field.

Why is focus important in learning?

Focus eliminates distractions, allowing you to fully utilize your limited study time. Focused learning is more effective, efficient, and enjoyable than unfocused learning.

What technique helps gear study towards a specific context?

Directed practice that approximates as closely as possible the actual situation you want to apply your knowledge to. For example, writing practice essays for a history exam.

How can intuition aid mastery?

Intuition is the sum of our distilled knowledge and observations. It allows us to cut through information overload and make strong, original claims about our field.

How can Young's system lead to innovation?

By honing abilities to an intuitive level, we can think effortlessly about our subject and have the expertise to expand the boundaries of the field through innovation.

Outlines

00:00

📝 Pre-learning is key preparation before starting to learn

The first step in Scott Young's learning system is pre-learning or preparation. This involves research to map out what you will learn, the order, and how you will learn it. For example, if learning a language, determine the most vital things to learn and efficient ways to learn them. Pre-learning makes the overall project more efficient but guard against procrastinating on actually starting. Set a deadline for ending the pre-learning phase at no more than 10% of the total project time.

05:01

🧠 Use focus, directedness and drilling for effective learning

Young's learning approach involves three main principles: focus to eliminate distractions and train concentration skills; directedness to gear practice towards the specific context you want to use your knowledge; and drilling to identify and strengthen weaknesses. This cycle of directed practice, isolated drilling of problem areas, and returning to practice helps build expertise efficiently in each sub-topic until mastery is achieved.

Keywords

💡pre-learning

Pre-learning refers to the preparation and planning phase before beginning to learn a new subject or skill. The script advises doing in-depth research and mapping out how you will learn, ensuring you don't procrastinate or spend too much time in this planning stage.

💡focus

Focus is emphasized in the script as a critical component of effective learning. It means eliminating distractions, training your focus through methods like meditation, and retaining concentrated attention on the subject you are learning.

💡directedness

Directedness means tailoring your learning techniques directly to the context where you need to apply the knowledge, rather than learning abstract concepts. For example, practicing writing sample essays rather than just memorizing facts.

💡drilling

Drilling refers to intensively practicing specific weak areas of understanding that are holding back your learning. For example, drilling vocabulary memorization if that is limiting your ability to speak a language.

💡intuition

Intuition is described as an expert-level grasp of a subject, where you can easily innovate, develop ideas, and think creatively. It emerges after deep learning through the methods outlined.

💡procrastination

The danger of procrastination is discussed regarding pre-learning/planning. The script advises limiting this planning phase to avoid procrastinating on actually starting the learning.

💡bottleneck

A bottleneck is a weakness in one area of understanding that holds back learning progress despite strengths in other areas. Targeted drilling helps correct these bottlenecks.

💡innovation

Innovation means creating new ideas, techniques, and expanding knowledge. The script proposes that intuitive expertise gained from focused learning can lead to innovation breakthroughs.

💡efficiency

Efficiency refers to optimizing the use of limited study time and learning faster. Methods like pre-learning, focus, and drilling aim to improve efficiency.

💡goals

Goals mean identifying specific targets for what knowledge level or skills you want to attain. Directed learning involves tailoring techniques directly to practice for your goals.

Highlights

Pre-learning involves researching and planning out what and how you will learn before starting

Set a deadline for ending the pre-learning phase to avoid procrastination

Focus eliminates distractions and trains focus as a skill through meditation and practice

Direct your learning towards the specific context you want to use your new skills in

Drilling isolates weaknesses identified during practice and corrects them through targeted repetition

The learning cycle moves from practice to identifying weaknesses to drilling improvements and back to practice

Focus, directed work, and drilling together speed up mastery of skills and subjects

Extreme expertise leads to intuitive, effortless, and original thinking in a subject

Intuition is a distillation of knowledge and observations into instant gut feelings

Ultra learning hones abilities to an innovative level beyond most people

Hard work is still needed to reach innovative expertise through this system

Preparing properly before starting prevents wasted effort later

Isolate weaknesses in fundamentals to avoid bottlenecks later

Practice skills in the context you need them to transfer learning

Intuition allows instant pattern recognition beyond logic

Transcripts

Scott young is an extraordinary man he

speaks multiple languages learned the

MIT computer science course from scratch

in a year and so so much more today

we'll explore his system for learning

new subjects and skills quicker than

anyone else and how you can use it to

get ahead in your studies one

pre-learning if you wanted to hike

Across America that would require

planning you would need to know what

route you were going to take whether you

had enough food and have contingency

plans for if something went wrong

mastering a new subject is just like a

long hike we need need to know what

route we're going to take long before we

first set out this is Young's First Step

preparation or pre-learning this is

where we do some research and sketch out

a road map of what we're going to learn

the order we're going to learn it in and

how we're going to learn it if you

wanted to learn a language you would

both ask what the most vital things to

learn are and what the most efficient

way of learning them is for languages

this is almost always how to speak the

language and speaking to people in the

language respectively for maths or

engineering it's almost always how to

solve problems and solving problems and

on a WI scale you must know which topics

provide prior knowledge for other topics

if you don't know high school algebra

then there's no point learning calculus

just yet and if you can't string a

sentence together in Welsh then

composing Bic poetry is perhaps a little

bit ambitious but there is also a danger

here while pre-learning can make your

study project more efficient it can also

lead to procrastination planning your

study course and fantasizing about

already being a world-renowned expert is

a lot more fun than actually sitting

down and getting started so set yourself

a hard deadline for when your

pre-learning will end when this deadline

should be set depends on the size of the

project be young recommends no more than

10% of your entire project should be

taken up by this research phase so use

that as a hard and fast line this will

ensure the research prepares you for

your project without giving you an

opportunity to procrastinate on actually

starting for more study tips subscribe

to my email list the link is in the

description two the learning as I've

discussed before the way you learn can

make all the difference between being a

successful student in a seemingly

impossible span of time and wasting

Years Learning learning nothing at all

young has three main principles behind

his learning approach focus directedness

and Drilling and these are the pillars

upon which the entire learning project

rests I will never stop talking about

Focus because it will never stop being

important the difference between focused

learning and unfocused learning is the

difference between having perfect vision

and having cataracts without focused

learning everything will take more time

everything will be less effective and

everything will be less enjoyable in a

nutshell focusing comes down to just

three things eliminating external

distractions like your phone your TV and

your younger brother eliminating

internal distractions like stress

anxiety and perfectionism and training

Focus specifically as a skill through

meditation consistency and continual

reflection and Improvement these will

all link together to make your focus

laser sharp and this will be key to your

Ultra learning project this is even more

important if you're fitting this project

around a job or other studies then you

must ensure that your limited time is

utilized to its maximum capabilities

next we look at directedness and

confront a disheartening fact about the

human brain we are just not not very

good at transferring learning from one

situation to another very bright

statistics students often have no better

intuitive probability estimations than

those who've never taken a statistics

course and it doesn't matter how much

Shakespeare you've read if you never

perform your debut as Hamlet will be a

total disaster for anything we learn

there is a specific scenario or set of

scenarios that we are trading for we

might be looking to Ace an exam or hold

a conversation with a native speaker we

might want to write a truly spectacular

research essay or just look clever at

dinner by knowing Lots about Napoleon

whatever situation are learning is

directed towards we need to gear a huge

proportion of our study time towards

practicing in that exact situation or as

close an approximation as we can get

sure you could prepare for your History

exam by just revising from flashcards

but why do that when writing an essay

from memory is going to practice both

your historical knowledge and your

ability to use it in an exam context so

for whatever you're learning make sure

your study techniques never steer too

far from the context you wish to use

your newfound understanding in if you

don't do this you'll end up wasting a

lot of time and you won't get as close

to your goals anyway anyway finally we

must talk about drilling this is where

we first identify weakness during our

practice perhaps our vocabulary is

letting us down during our conversations

and our target language or our grasp of

the fundamentals of python is so weak

it's actively affecting our coding

projects next we isolate the weakness

and we put specific practice into

bringing it up to the same level as the

rest of our studies learning something

new is in fact bringing a variety of

different aspects of a subject together

towards a particular goal if there's one

aspect you are particularly weak on it

can form a bottleneck where the goal

cannot be achieve despite the strengths

of the other aspects this is where more

isolated practice comes into play you

might spend a few hours drilling vocab

memorization or revising the

fundamentals of your coding language

before returning to your direct practice

this process forms a kind of cycle where

you begin with direct practice identify

a weakness spend time correcting it with

specific Drilling and then return to

direct practice rinse and repeat until

you've mastered your desired skill if

you use this combination of focus direct

work and focus drilling you will reach

your desired skill level much more

quickly and if you do this for each

subtopic of your chosen subject it will

ensure that your expertise only grows

three the next level I've had the

privilege of speaking to a number of

people who I consider Geniuses I've met

a mathematician who used to be able to

tell just by looking at most

mathematical statements whether they

would be provable or not and a musician

who could tell just from looking at a

bar of sheet music which composer wrote

the piece in question these people were

brilliant not just because of their

learning but because they did not even

actively need to think about their area

to make brilliant discoveries and bold

proclamations a lot of people demonize

intuition as a collection of prejudices

and biases and it can sometimes be that

but it's also the sum total of our

knowledge and observations about the

world distilled into a feeling it is the

ability to cut through the noise and

make a strong claim in the face of so

much information that no one could

consciously process it at all this is

the level that awaits us if we use Scot

Young's system we'll hone our abilities

to such an extent that we'll be able to

think effortlessly and originally about

our chosen subjects we will be able to

innovate to develop and potentially to

expand the very boundaries of the field

but this Promised Land lies behind a lot

of hard work but you'll have your best

shot at getting there by using Scott

Young's system subscribe to my email

list and my channel for more on thinking

to improve your life