Learning 101: The Science of How We Learn and Make Things Stick (Efficiently) (Intro)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living 101 Masterclass Series. Today I'm thrilled to be chatting about learning 101, the science of how we learn and make things stick efficiently. Emphasis on that last word, efficiently. We can spend a ton of time studying and kind of grinding and not have that. The efficient learning that we can if we employ the strategies that science says are most effective. We're going to look at a few different books and my favorite big ideas from those books ranging from make it Stick written by a couple of the world's leading cognitive scientists studying the science of learning. And then A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley who taught one of the most popular classes in history, over a million students, math and engineering teacher. And then How We Learn by Benedict Carey, New York Times award winning journalist and and also Cal Newport's how to Become a Straight A Student. Which is an awesome look at what elite students do to perform well without grinding. That interestingly, almost perfectly maps over what science says we should do. So my intention with this class is to support you in learning. Whether you are an adult looking to pass a US citizen's test, which is where my right hand guy is, or his wife who's studying Thai, or a full time student or a parent of a full time student. My intention is to help you learn more efficiently and effectively. As always, let's look at our top 10 big ideas and then jump in. Alright, so our first big idea is pseudo work versus real work. We're going to lean into some Cal Newport wisdom here. He's got an equation for us. Work equals time times intensity. So work accomplished equals times 10 times intensity. We're going to look at that equation. We're actually going to add another variable to it as we go. But we want to be really clear that we're not talking about pseudo work, we're talking about real work if we want to effectively and efficiently learn. Our second big idea is to conquer procrastination. We had a whole class on this Conquering Procrastination 101. We're going to do a quick review of some of the best, most important ideas and we've got to know that procrastination is our number one bad keystone habit as Barbara Oakley describes. And we got to get rid of that if we're going to be able to consistently show up and do real deep work. Our third big idea is getting our minds right. So we need to look at hope, growth and grit. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are Right. We want to embrace challenges with the growth mindset. We want to remember in grit, effort counts twice. Persistence is more important than intelligence as we aim to learn effectively and efficiently. The fourth big idea is to get into the specifics of the science of learning. We're going to start with the number one enemy of effective learning. Scientists call this the fluency illusion. Unfortunately, it's how most people study and it doesn't work. So we're going to look at that and then we're going to add the variable to our learning or work accomplished equation, which I'm excited to share. The fifth big idea is our number one pro tip. It's what science says and the elite students who perform well without grinding say we need to do if we want to learn most effectively. I'm going to leave that one as a secret for now. But can you guess it? Think about what the number one tip might be to most effectively learn. Our sixth big idea is to water your brain kind of like you'd water a lawn. This is a big idea that all the scientists come back to, all the elite performers come back to. You need to space out your studying. Don't cram it in one session. Space it out. They call that the spacing effect, distributed learning. We're going to talk about how to engage that most effectively. The seventh big idea, interleaving is a cognitive science word for varied practice. Some fascinating research that shows how important it is to vary your practice. If you just do the same thing again and again and again, it feels like you're learning fluency illusion, but you're not. Effectively learning. Really, really fascinating research. The eighth big idea to learn effectively is to teach it. You want to see if you understand something, teach it. Whether it's your brother or sister or mom or dad or whoever, your dog. See if you can explain it in your own words. Elaborate it. Elaborate on it is what scientists call it. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about how Charles Darwin used something similar. And then our ninth big idea. Eat, move, sleep. We're going to look at some science on nutrition. Remember, Your brain is 2% of your body weight, yet consumes 20% of your total energy. 60% of your brain is fat, which is going to be an important thing to remember. Then we want to move. John Ratey tells us that fit kids outperform unfit kids by a factor of two. That's extraordinary. And then we need to sleep. Benedict Carey says that sleep, it's like learning with your eyes closed. Really important to consolidate all the wisdom we're gaining. And then the 10th big idea is test time. So we're learning and oftentimes we're going to be measured on how well we learn something. So we're going to talk about how to perform effectively when you're tested. We're going to draw on some ideas From Peak Performance 101. Get your worry down, which disrupts your working memory. Get your confidence up and go out and rock it. That's a quick look. Let's jump in.