4 Ways to Ruin Your Studying Efficiency

Summary

In this video, Dr. Justin Sung humorously reveals four ways to ruin your learning efficiency. He explains the importance of aligning study methods with different types of knowledge, avoiding irrelevant memorization, and the pitfalls of not improving and choosing comfort over progress. Dr. Sung shares insights from his experience as a learning coach and former medical doctor, emphasizing the need for meaningful metrics in measuring learning success. Viewers are encouraged to stick to ineffective habits to ensure they never improve their learning efficiency.

Takeaways

• 📚 Studying methods should align with the way knowledge needs to be used, emphasizing the importance of understanding interconnected concepts rather than just memorizing isolated facts.
• 🔍 Prioritize learning material that is most relevant to your existing knowledge to build a strong foundation and facilitate deeper understanding and better memory retention.
• 🕰 Time is precious; avoid wasting it by learning in a way that doesn't contribute to building a robust understanding of the subject matter.
• 🧩 Start learning by identifying the most relevant information first, similar to solving a jigsaw puzzle from the edges inwards, to progressively build a comprehensive picture.
• 🚫 Avoid learning in the order given without considering relevance, as this can lead to inefficient learning and difficulty in forming a coherent understanding of the material.
• 🤯 Never improve by always choosing comfort over challenging your current methods, which can hinder growth and keep you stuck in inefficient learning habits.
• 🤔 Encourage self-awareness and critical reflection to assess the effectiveness of your learning methods and be open to making necessary changes for improvement.
• 📉 Use meaningful metrics to measure learning success that reflect the quality of knowledge acquired and its retention, rather than just the quantity of material covered.
• 📉 Avoid metrics that don't necessarily correlate with learning success, such as the number of notes written or lectures covered, which can be misleading.
• 🔑 Recognize that not seeing a problem in your learning process means you won't address it, leading to perpetual inefficiency.
• 🔄 Commit to practicing and applying new learning techniques to truly experience their benefits, rather than just dipping your toes in without full immersion.

Q & A

Who is the speaker in the video and what are his credentials?

The speaker is Dr. Justin Sung, a learning coach, learning researcher, and head of learning at I Can Study. He is a former medical doctor with a decade of experience teaching people to learn more efficiently.

What is the main purpose of the video?

The main purpose of the video is to explain four ways to ruin learning efficiency, framed humorously as a guide on how to avoid studying effectively.

What is the first method mentioned to ruin learning efficiency?

The first method is to make sure the way you study is completely irrelevant to how you will be tested or need to use the knowledge, focusing only on memorization and isolated fact recall.

Why is studying using only memorization and isolated fact recall considered inefficient?

It is considered inefficient because it does not help in understanding the interconnectedness of concepts, which is necessary for solving complex problems and applying knowledge in real-world scenarios.

What is 'order control' and why is it important for effective learning?

'Order control' is a method where you control the order in which you learn new information based on its relevance to what you already know. This method helps in building a stronger and more interconnected memory, making learning more efficient.

What happens if you ignore relevance and order in your study methods?

Ignoring relevance and order leads to learning information in a fragmented and isolated manner, making it difficult to form connections and retain knowledge, thereby wasting more time and effort.

What is the third method mentioned to avoid improvement in learning?

The third method is to always choose comfort over challenging oneself, avoiding critical reflection and self-awareness that are essential for growth and improvement.

What example is given to illustrate the importance of challenging oneself in learning?

An example given is of a medical student who spent a year using inefficient study methods due to fear of change, resulting in wasted time and minimal improvement until she committed to better techniques.

Why are meaningful metrics important in measuring learning success?

Meaningful metrics are important because they provide insight into the quality of learning and retention. Metrics like the number of notes written or lectures covered do not necessarily reflect true understanding or ability to use the knowledge.

What is the speaker's favorite method to ensure poor learning efficiency?

The speaker's favorite method is using metrics that mean nothing, as it ensures that any problems in the learning process remain unseen and unaddressed, perpetuating inefficiency.

Outlines

00:00

😱 How to Ruin Your Learning Efficiency

In this video, Dr. Justin Sung, a learning coach and researcher, shares four methods to ensure you learn inefficiently. These tips are meant to help you avoid becoming too efficient in your studies. Dr. Sung highlights the importance of understanding how different study methods align with the types of knowledge you need to retrieve, and stresses the importance of using irrelevant methods to waste time and learn less effectively.

05:02

🚫 Learning the Wrong Way

This section emphasizes the importance of learning the wrong things in the wrong way to ensure inefficiency. Dr. Sung explains that the brain builds knowledge by connecting new information to what we already know. To waste time, he advises against scanning material for relevance and suggests learning in the same order as presented, without considering connections. This approach guarantees poor retention and constant relearning.

10:02

🛋️ Choosing Comfort Over Improvement

Dr. Sung discusses the dangers of choosing comfort over growth. He uses the example of a medical student who wasted a year due to fear of changing ineffective study methods. He highlights the importance of self-awareness and critical reflection for improvement, and warns that sticking to comfortable but inefficient methods prevents real progress.

15:04

📊 Misleading Metrics for Learning Success

The final section covers the pitfalls of using meaningless metrics to measure learning success. Dr. Sung explains that metrics like the number of notes taken or lectures covered don't reflect the quality of learning. He stresses the need to use meaningful metrics that actually measure understanding and retention. Ignoring this advice will ensure long-term inefficiency in learning.

Keywords

💡Learning Efficiency

Learning efficiency refers to the effectiveness and speed with which an individual can acquire knowledge and skills. In the video's context, it is the main theme, where the speaker discusses ways to inadvertently reduce this efficiency. The script uses this term to highlight the importance of studying methods that align with the way knowledge needs to be applied, for example, using interconnected study methods for complex questions that require synthesis of various concepts.

💡Retrieval Practice

Retrieval practice is a learning technique where the act of recalling information from memory is used to strengthen memory and understanding. The video mentions this in the context of using flashcards as a method of direct fact recall, which is less efficient than relational, non-linear methods when dealing with complex, interconnected knowledge.

💡Interconnected Knowledge

Interconnected knowledge is the understanding of concepts and the relationships between them, allowing for a more holistic understanding of a subject. The script discusses the importance of studying in a way that reflects how knowledge is interconnected, as opposed to memorizing isolated facts, to improve learning efficiency and application of knowledge.

💡Prior Knowledge

Prior knowledge is the existing information or understanding that a learner has before encountering new information. The video script explains how the brain uses prior knowledge to integrate new information more effectively, forming stronger memories and enabling the application of knowledge in various ways.

💡Order Control

Order control, as mentioned in the script, is the method of learning where one chooses the order of studying based on relevance to existing knowledge. This strategy helps in building a strong foundation of understanding, making subsequent learning more efficient and meaningful. However, the video ironically suggests avoiding this method to 'ruin' learning efficiency.

💡Relevance

Relevance, in the context of the video, is the degree to which new information connects with what the learner already knows. The script emphasizes the importance of starting learning with information that feels more relevant to the learner's prior knowledge, as it helps in building a stronger and more interconnected understanding of the subject.

💡Self-Awareness

Self-awareness, in the learning context, is the ability to recognize one's own learning methods, their effectiveness, and areas for improvement. The video uses the term to illustrate the importance of reflecting on one's learning strategies and being willing to change them for better efficiency, rather than sticking to ineffective habits for the sake of comfort.

💡Critical Reflection

Critical reflection involves thoughtfully analyzing one's actions, decisions, and experiences to gain insights and understanding. The script mentions it as a key component of growth and self-development, where learners should critically reflect on their study methods to ensure they are effective and to make necessary adjustments.

💡Comfort Zone

Comfort zone refers to a state of minimal stress and risk where one feels at ease. In the video, the term is used to describe the preference for sticking to familiar and comfortable learning methods, even if they are inefficient, over trying new strategies that may lead to better outcomes but also involve stepping out of one's comfort zone.

💡Metrics

Metrics are measurements used to assess, compare, and track performance or production. The video discusses the importance of using meaningful metrics to evaluate learning success, rather than focusing on superficial measures like the number of lectures covered or notes taken, which do not reflect the quality of knowledge retained or the ability to apply it effectively.

💡Flashcards

Flashcards are a study tool consisting of a set of cards, each containing a question or a piece of information on one side and the corresponding answer or explanation on the other. The script uses flashcards as an example of a method that may be less effective for complex, interconnected knowledge compared to more holistic study techniques.

Highlights

Four ways to ruin your learning efficiency are discussed.

Align study methods with different knowledge retrieval needs for a robust study system.

Avoid studying in a way that is too relevant to ensure time is wasted.

The human brain builds knowledge by relating new information to existing knowledge.

Order control in learning can lead to high-quality memory and understanding.

Learning in the order given without considering relevance can be inefficient.

Choosing comfort over challenging oneself can prevent improvement.

Self-awareness and critical reflection are key to growth and self-development.

A student's story illustrates the consequences of sticking to inefficient methods.

Measuring learning success with meaningless metrics can hide problems.

Metrics should reflect the quality of knowledge and retention.

Not seeing the problem means not being ready to improve.

Asking if someone could perform better with lower metrics can reveal ineffective measures.

The importance of using meaningful metrics for true learning progress.

A call to action to subscribe for more efficient learning strategies.

A suggestion to watch another video for creating a personal development plan.

An offer to check out a playlist for learning the basics of efficient studying.

Transcripts

are you sick and tired of being Elite do

you wish you could spend more time

studying and remember less are you

looking to feel overwhelmed with more

content look no further in this video

I'm gonna tell you four ways that you

can absolutely ruin your learning

efficiency and for some of you you may

already even be doing some of these make

sure to stick around to the end because

number four is my personal favorite way

to learn absolutely nothing even if I

study for hours if you're new to the

channel welcome I'm Dr Justin sung I'm a

learning coach learning researcher and

head of learning at I can study I'm a

former medical doctor and for the last

decade I have worked with tens of

thousands of people to teach them to

learn more efficiently which also means

that I have a lot of experience seeing

how people can work inefficiently before

we jump in I'd appreciate if you give

this video a like it really does help

with the YouTube algorithm so coming in

at number one make sure the way you

study is completely relevant what does

this mean you know how there are

different ways that you can be tested

for example you can get a very direct

fact recall kind of question for example

name the parts of this animal cell but

you can also get a question that's like

this medication affects the cell's TRNA

function in this way what is the

potential impact it could have on

protein synthesis so you can see it's a

lot more interconnected it requires us

to draw on lots of different concepts

and how they influence each other it's

different from just like an isolated

factorical there's different types of

knowledge even in the workplace that's

exactly the same we might have problems

that we're trying to solve that's like

what's the process for cleaning this

data set again versus using your

knowledge in a really interconnected way

like if the data set is this small then

what are still some relevant analyzes

that I can do that give me an insight

into the businesses recent performance

so you can see that the latter requires

a lot more of that high level synthesis

drawing on your understanding of lots of

different concepts so if you make sure

that the methods that you're using to

study are aligned with the different

types of ways that you need to retrieve

that knowledge for example if you need

to retrieve the knowledge in these

interconnected ways using a non-linear

relational method of studying that

allows you to see the big picture and

the connections and figure out the

influence and relationship between them

and then you can pad up and supplement

that with direct Factor recall isolated

methods for example like flashcards if

you do that then you'd have a robust and

comprehensive study system that means

that when you are studying the type of

knowledge that you're developing is

going to be high quality and as a result

you'll be able to use that knowledge in

the right way for whatever your needs

are but obviously if you do that then

you're running into the risk where you

might actually spend a lot of time

studying and then you'd actually also

learn a lot too which we don't want that

now so we have to make sure that we

don't do that instead make sure that

your methods of studying are just purely

memorization and isolated fact recall

don't think at all about how you need to

use knowledge in different ways and how

the method of studying might actually

influence that so make sure you're

wasting as much time as possible you

have to make sure that the methods

you're using are as irrelevant to the

way you need to use your knowledge as

possible something that you definitely

should do is you really should like this

video

secondly as time is precious and like

we've already talked about it's

important that you waste as much of that

time as possible one great way to waste

hours and hours of time in fact like

almost all of the time that you've spent

studying is to make sure that you learn

the wrong thing in the wrong way this

one's a little bit more complicated so

let me explain the human brain builds

knowledge and memory in a very specific

way

we all start off with a set of prior

knowledge either from previously

studying the topic or just general

knowledge you may have picked up

throughout life now when new information

enters into the brain then our brain

tries to see how it's related to what we

already know when that new information

is related to a lot of our existing

knowledge then our brain knows how to

think about it it's more easily

integrated and Consolidated which is

what forms a stronger more robust memory

and because it's connected to lots of

other things we can use that knowledge

in many different ways it's kind of like

a town that is connected by lots of

different highways versus let's say a

town that you can only reach you know by

boat because it's on an island now the

thing is though that when we're learning

things in the normal kind of real world

we can't really control all the time

whether the information that we're

learning is going to be relevant or not

and especially this is the case in

formal education where the information

is actually being fed to you in a very

specific order and this could be reading

it through a book or it could be someone

speaking to you but the idea is that new

information is actually scattered all

around and that information isn't always

going to be something that your brain

finds relevant it's not always going to

see that there's lots of different

connections and so in order to make sure

that the time that we spend studying

creates the highest quality memory and

depth of understanding possible what we

need to do is we need to scan through

the material to pick out the parts that

our brain would find the most relevant

in other words what in the new

information feels like it is the most

related to and connected to what you

already know and that could be a lot or

it could be very little but by starting

in this way we're able to extract out

new parts of information maybe not at

the same usually actually not in the

same order as what's given to us and

then as we do that our knowledge is

going to grow and grow and grow and that

means that as we learn more new

information we have more and more more

points of reference so for example if

this piece of information was new and

previously it would have had nothing to

really connect to well now that we've

got a better Foundation we can actually

form some new connections with it that

we might not have been able to do one or

two hours ago and this is the benefit of

going by relevance when you start with

what your brain feels like it's better

at holding on to and what feels more

relevant it allows you to build

relevance on top of relevance and as we

learn it starts to make more and more

sense it's actually getting

progressively easier to deal with it's

kind of like completing a jigsaw puzzle

when you start with a jigsaw puzzle if

you just start from like a random part

of the middle that looks the same as any

other part of the puzzle it's actually

really hard to solve it because you have

to dig through all the you know hundreds

of different pieces to find the right

one what you should do is just to start

with the edge pieces the one that's got

a flat Edge on one side and then as you

complete the edge pieces then you start

getting more to work with and you can

fill in from the edge edges towards the

middle and this means that as you go it

gets easier and easier because you're

building that bigger picture and also

because there's more stuff that's

Consolidated there's less pieces in the

Box for you to scatter through to figure

out how to make sense of it all it

becomes more a matter of finding the

right thing and just fitting it into the

Gap that is still in your puzzle so if

you're controlling the order in which

you are learning the information based

on relevance and this is a method that I

call order control then this means that

you have a very very high chance of

learning a lot and having really great

depths of understanding as well as

really high quality memory after a

single study session which would be

terrible in this case so to avoid doing

that we need to make sure that we are

learning things in just the same order

as what was given to us and we're never

really thinking about whether it's

relevant or not and we're never really

looking for things that are more

relevant instead what we should do is

just take each piece of information one

by one try to memorize and completely

understand each individual piece of

information so that one day hopefully we

form that big picture it would be kind

of like trying to serve a jigsaw puzzle

by just staring at a box full of pieces

and then individually try to memorize

each piece until somehow you can

magically see how it all fits together

and forms the bigger picture

which is incredibly inefficient and

maybe even impossible

perfect but what's even better is that

if we do that then our brain is going to

have no idea what to do with all of

these individual isolated pieces of

information and so it's not going to

hold on to it very strongly either for

example if you're trying to memorize

each individual jigsaw piece one by one

then you probably get through five or

six pieces before you start forgetting

what the first one looked like and so in

that case you now need to spend more

time to go back and relearn the stuff

that you already covered but now you're

forgotten and in doing so you create a

never-ending backlog of things for you

to constantly repeatedly learn because

you didn't learn it the right way the

first time and by doing that we can

waste even more time and as long as

every time we're trying to relearn

something that we forgot we're just

relearning it in the same way that we

learned it the first time then we can

guarantee that we're going to forget

like half of it again so we never really

able to get on top of the material that

we're constantly forgetting so if you

wanted to be really overwhelmed with

work all the time and as you study more

and more it just gets harder and more

overwhelming then this is going to be

perfect for you thirdly and this is

critical we have to never actually

improve every year of Our Lives

challenges are just going to get

continually harder so imagine if your

abilities and skills grew faster in the

challenges got harder imagine how

efficient you would become if every week

you're getting 5 or 10 watts even one

percent more efficient than you are now

yes it may not be enough for an

immediate short-term goal like in the

next few months but over time your

ability to handle challenges would grow

massively and we can't have that

happening so to make sure that we never

really improve or grow we have to always

choose Comfort the key components to

growth and self-development is

self-awareness and critical reflection

which sound like kind of fluffy words

but it's actually very logical it just

means that we know what we are doing why

we are doing it and whether we think

it's working or not for example most

people learn a certain way because they

just picked it up from their friends or

it's just a habit of learning that they

picked up over time and a lot of people

feel very insecure about changing their

methods and so as a result they choose

Comfort let me give you an example one

of my students is finishing their second

year of medical school at King's College

London and they started off studying

four or five hours a day but we found

that a lot of the time the issue of

spending was wasted there was a lot of

inefficient methods being used she was

relearning a lot of what she'd already

forgotten in fact of the four or five

hours a day of studying like three or

four of those hours were spent on just

kind of re-learning and recapping the

stuff that she had already covered

before and also the myth is that she was

using was not really a line and so even

though she was studying it she wasn't

really able to use the knowledge very

well for her needs either she'd kind of

resigned herself to the fact that there

are some difficult curvier questions in

the exam that are going to come up that

she's just not going to be able to

answer so she actually ended up joining

my programming and after a whole year

she sent me this big long email and she

was like the techniques aren't working

I'm not getting any better I'm my

results aren't any better and she was

getting really stressed out because she

was about to enter into her second year

which is you know even harder so I

jumped on a call with her to see what

was going on and it turns out that for

the whole year she had been so afraid of

making any real and meaningful changes

to her methods because you know just in

case she screws up that she had never

even tried practicing the techniques for

more than a few hours she had

effectively spent her whole year just

dipping her toes

in and out rather than starting with

dipping her toes and then eventually

kind of like submerging herself more and

more and so for her the comfort of

holding on to and keeping with her

current methods and habits was well

worthwhile then the discomfort

associated with making a change so

here's the learning point from the story

is that instead of actually challenging

ourselves and asking ourselves is this

really working or do I just want to

believe that it's working because if

it's not that means that there's too

much uncertainty and discomfort

associated with accepting it and then

having to make a change instead of

asking ourselves that by choosing

Comfort instead of making changes we can

guarantee that nothing will change and

so will never improve by choosing

comfort and doubling down on methods

that weren't working for her she managed

to spend the whole year on trying to

improve without actually ever improving

now unfortunately that was was a year

ago and then I had that call in the

meeting with her and I sort of told her

you know this is what's going on and

then she decided to really commit

herself and so now apparently in her

recent email she said that she's down to

studying only two or three hours a day

so you know that's unfortunate it's

really amazing how much people can

change when they stay open-minded and

commit to making wild thought out

strategic decisions so yeah we can't

have that no but that doesn't have to be

you as long as you follow the tips in

this video don't worry I promise you

will not improve finally number four my

favorite way to learn absolutely nothing

even if my eyes bleed from studying so

much measure your learning success with

metrics that mean nothing a metric is

something that you use to measure

something else for example a metric for

how fast your traveling might be

kilometers an hour a metric for how well

a YouTube video is performing could be

views or likes and metrics really matter

because it tells us what we care about

it gives us insight into the problem

back when I was still working as a

doctor one of the things that I hated

was that there weren't any metrics on

the doctor's well-being or their job

satisfaction or the efficiency of the

system the hospital management didn't

really care and if there were any

problems they would never know because

they're not measuring it so no matter

how bad things got there was probably

not any action that was gonna arise out

of it because the problem doesn't exist

and it's the same thing with learning

that student from before she measured

her success with learning based on how

many notes she was able to write

lectures for in a single day or the

number of lectures she was able to cover

should be really happy if she was able

to cover five lectures in a single day

or do four years worth of past papers

but since learning is something that

happens in our brain and that's where we

need the knowledge not on Hafer those

metrics are actually kind of meaningless

how many no to be rain or how many

lectures we cover are how many papers we

do it doesn't actually tell us about the

quality of the knowledge that's in our

brain our brain's ability to hold on to

it or use it in the way that we need to

use it for example even if she was happy

to cover five lectures in a day she

didn't really think about the fact that

she would be forgetting half of it a

week later anyway so the total amount of

time it would take for her to reach the

level of knowledge that she actually

needs at the retention level she

actually needs was way longer than just

a single study session but she wasn't

measuring any of that so the problem

didn't really exist and that's the key

if you don't see the problem you never

fix it even when she learned better

techniques and better methods she wasn't

willing to commit to it because of the

fact that it might mean that Chief

covers fewer lectures in a single study

session even though her retention and

quality of learning was higher and so it

should be saving more time overall and

even after she'd learned about how to

measure learning more effectively she

didn't actually apply that because it

wasn't as convenient to measure as her

normal ways of measuring things and

that's how she managed to leave it for a

whole year without even realizing what

the problem was which led to her sending

me a big long email like everything is

broken nothing is working and then I

looked at it and I was like

that's not where the problem is so if

you want to make sure that you are blind

to any problems then make sure that you

don't think about things too deeply do

not measure things in a way that is

Meaningful now you might be wondering

how can I know if my metric makes a

difference or not and a few good

questions that you can ask yourself are

is there someone that would do better

than me even if they were to score lower

on the metric so for example in a single

study session is it possible that

someone could study and cover less

lectures than me but still perform

better or you could even make it is it

possible that this metric doesn't

necessarily lead to success is it

possible that the more flash cards I

cover or the more past papers I do it

doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to do

well if the answer is yes then it

probably means that the Metro trick that

you're using is not going to make the

biggest difference

which is excellent now the reason that

this is my personal favorite way to ruin

your learning efficiency is because it's

fundamental if you don't even see the

problem in the first place you are not

even ready to start improving which is

one of the most efficient ways to

Forever stay inefficient use all four of

these methods and I guarantee you will

struggle with learning your whole life

don't worry if you enjoyed this video

make sure to subscribe so you don't miss

my future uploads and if for some reason

you're interested in learning to be more

efficient rather than less for some

reason then you might be interested in

this video here around how you can

create the perfect safest fastest

personal development plan it's a method

that I've been using for years or if

you're looking for a single place to

start with my videos that you can cover

the basics as quickly as possible then

check out this playlist here thank you

so much for watching and I'll see you

next time

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