Quickest path to learning anything

I've been reading a lot of books lately (mostly on my Kindle). I also got myself Audible membership 12 months ago and completed tens of personal development books. Filled my head with tons of ideas. So much so, it's got to a stage that completely overwhelmed me.

Taking notes also leads to a mess. So much to write. So much to go through. So much to try.

In hindsight, 30 or so books after, I decided to calm my kindle and headphones down a little. Learning requires a different approach.

TLDR; Best way to learn is by doing.

This is how I do it. It works!

• Read & come up with an idea.
• Freeze that idea and think to write it down in your own words.
• Then set it up. Go ahead and try. Just do it.

That's it. That's all there is to quickly learn anything.

I will share an example. I had a problem. I decided to learn and find solutions. I've then gone through these three stages I listed above. You don't learn if you don't do it. I will share how I did it from reading solutions to making it work for me to properly learning something I will not forget.

Dealing with weight gain & drop in physical activity

I've been into sports all my childhood. Then something happened and I slowed down a lot. Started putting on weight. From my good days at around being 70kg, I started hitting 90kg at some point. Obviously there is wrong lifestyle, age, having a desk job and many other aspects all contributing to a drop in activity and eating the wrong food was not helping either.

So, I had to refresh my knowledge about nutrition and wanted to learn more about food in a little more depth and practice. Started following some top YouTube content creators (in particular, Dr Eric Berg and Dr Sten Ekberg), started reading more and started checking the labels of ingredients more actively once again.

So all that reading, listening, watching etc is great. Makes you more aware of your situation and perhaps has a small benefit to controlling yourself a little more. However, more needed to actually make it all work towards a goal, ie: losing weight and becoming more healthier.

So, what did I do? Well I had one other problem apart from assuring my brain that the knowledge gap is filled, I had to develop a series of good habits. Great, but how?

To develop a new habit you not only plan it inside out but also want to make sure you are mentally ready to face the challenge. You need a strong driver. That could be a great end goal. Something that will visually appear in front of your eyes every time you are about to cheat. A bit like your mum early days of your education reminding you to finish your homework or no games for a week.

My weight loss plan was

• To reduce sugar intake to almost nothing
• Drink more water
• Try intermittent fasting for at least half of the week
• Never eat anything after 8pm latest
• Eat less calories (I had no set amount that made it ugly and inconsistent)
• Try to go to bed before 11pm.
• Take an 8hr sleep each day.
• Aim to hit the gym first thing in the morning to kick start my body clock.
• Follow a ketogenic diet as much as I can.
• Achieve at least 10k steps each day.

I think that's pretty much it. Well, sounds like a lot but a lot of it is connected.

So, I was notoriously bad at those when I started and it was difficult of course. For instance, I could eat 100gr of chocolate a day before. Thankfully I did not do sweets but could not say no to a piece of dark choco. :)

On the other hand, I did follow a similar dietbefore so I knew I could do it. I also knew first few weeks would be painful. As a result of having flashbacks of those painful times I did not want it to kill my plans to acquire a good habit. That had to be sorted out. Experience from previous learning brought into this new chapter of my life and I made a new plan.

I applied a new technique which I came up with after developing some productivity hacks thanks to all that personal development books I consumed...

Deal with problems one at a time

When we face a problem we often don't realise at first that there could be multiple issues need to be resolved in order to achieve a solution. What that really means is that we should break it into smaller steps and deal with them one by one.

If you are trying to get from A to B and the distance is too long to achieve in one go, introduce a C in between A and B.

If you read above my weight loss plan, it requires two very hard goals to be completed. Dropping sugar while also eating less calories and introducing an active gym cycle into my week.

Starting the gym after some break is always super difficult. Your body just says a big NOPE. Last thing you want is to feel down and hungry during the first few weeks of activity.  So I had to choose one goal to work on and sort out. I decided to not change my diet for a month. Just carried on eating. At the same time I started the gym, 3 days first week. 2 days second week. 4 days third week. 5 days fourth week.

Completed 4 weeks. It's not hard anymore. I was back in the gym routine! It was time to adjust my diet accordingly.

Got to drop sugar, right now.

No food after 8pm next.

I also started working on other weight loss rules I defined and ticked them off the to-do list one by one. This means they became a part of my life, just like drinking water or remembering to breath.  After a few months into the plan I was still yet to wake up 6am to head to the gym though. I mean it was hard. I also did not need to do it as I fitted gym routine into my life as a lunch time activity.

So what did I learn?

Reading and taking in the information is great. To make something work you got to put it into action. You need to immediately apply what you learned into something you are working on. Also, as a bonus tip, if you can turn it into a habit, you make sure it's permanently stored in your brain.

When learning, it's important to keep going and keep trying different angles. Bring your own ideas to it. Apply and test. Start questioning. Find more answers. Once you hit that stage you can tell you've actually learned it. Without trying, without doing, you are not really learning. You are aware. Be a doer. A doer learns quicker and better.

Oh before I shoot off, my weight loss results were not bad. I dropped from 90kg to 80kg in 4 months. Then 77kg in following 3 months. That was 4 inches drop around the waist. I by the way had an ultimate fun goal for the end which was to bring back the 6 pack to life. I mean some added visibility for the mid section! Well, I did not quite hit that but I am sure the daily habits I developed matters most and one day when I hit that goal, I will know how it all happened. Since I made this post and as a result I got to feel more accountable, I better keep up.