Cover image: Illustration by the author. Skeleton source. Woman source.

Without altering the contents of your skull

Back in October 2017, I decided to start learning three new skills every month, practicing each skill daily for 30 minutes. I expected the habit to have an impact, but never that it would change my life forever.

Before starting the habit, I had this strange concept that I didn’t enjoy learning. For me, “learning” meant “education”, but they’re simply not the same thing.

Education is an organized SYSTEM for learning.
Learning is a PROCESS for acquiring knowledge and skills.

The problem is, we don’t know how to learn. We are never taught how learning happens in our brains and how to make the most out of our time during our study, practice, or teaching sessions. I’ll show you how right here in this article.

How learning how to learn can change your life

1. Understand how the brain works

2. Master the meta-skills

3. Improve your memory

How learning how to learn can change your life

Learning new skills increases your motivation, makes you more adaptable, relatable, interesting, and helps you get better jobs and earn more money.

Since I started my approach of deliberately learning new skills every month, I’ve learned over 80 skills. Some of them I still use every day, and some are currently on the back-burner.

But that doesn’t matter.

The neural connections I’ve made in my brain remain and that allows me to learn other skills faster. There’s really no such thing as a wasted skill. I’ll share more about how the brain works later in this guide.

I’ve since travelled to over 50 countries, started three more businesses, and grew an audience with my writing. I make friends more easily simply by having so many more topics to converse about.

If I can do it, so can you!

How to learn how to learn

There are at least three important components to learning how to learn:

Understanding how the brain works
Mastering the meta-skills
Improving your memory

I’d say the above three should be done in that order. Before I started my approach, I thought most of the learning had to do with memory. It isn’t so. I still have a “bad” memory, yet I’m able to learn new skills at a rapid pace. That’s because I know how the brain works and mastered meta-skills to help me learn better.

Now, let’s dig deeper into each aspect.

1. Understand how the brain works

First off, no one fully understands the brain. Heck, we probably don’t understand ten percent of it! So, what I’m going to share here is what the latest research says about how the brain works.

Subconscious

How much of what you do actually happens consciously? The answer is close to nothing. When I lift my finger to type this sentence, the only conscious thing I’m doing is signaling my brain that I want to type.

What does the work? My subconscious does!

Can you guess how many neurons are fired up when my finger is moving to type? Me neither. There’s too many. Such a simple action requires blood flowing through your brain and activating neurons it reaches through connections previously made.

Phew, that’s complicated!

Can you guess how many neurons are in an adult’s brain? 86 billion!

So, for the most part, you control WHAT the brain is going to do to your body, but you don’t control the HOW. But even then, a lot of the WHAT is also out of your control. Are you aware of a hundred percent of your body movement? A guarantee you’re not.

How was your body moving as you read the previous paragraph? Not moving, you think? Think again!

Your subconscious is responsible for everything you command it to do. It’s the one making and using neural connections in your brain.

Neural Connections

A neural connection simply is the pathway between two neurons. Neurons on their own can’t really do much. They do precisely one tiny thing. Like, so tiny you wouldn’t even consider it something.

I mentioned moving your finger above — how many muscles are in your finger? Multiple, right?

The only way to get all the muscles to communicate with one another is by having them connected somehow. And that connection is a neural connection. Or, many in this case.

Chunking

To me, this is the most important aspect of learning when it comes to the brain. As you know, your brain has neurons connected by neural connections. When you command your brain to do an action, it fires off neurons in a specific way.

For the most part, if you lift your right index finger 180 degrees, it fires up the same neurons and connections every time. The “pathway” to making that happen can be called a “chunk”.

Now, here’s the magic: can you reuse that chunk for other skills? The answer is: certainly!

Think about your basic leg movements. Each one of them is a chunk in your brain. How many sports or dances can you do once you’ve mastered the chunk that makes you move your leg a certain way? Many, right?

Here are some examples from my experiences:

One of the skills I learned before learning to salsa dance was stretching. This greatly enhanced my ability to move my body while dancing.
Before I learned to write well, I learned to tell stories. Without good stories, writing isn’t as efficient.
When I practiced charisma, I learned to smile. This is a great skill for a model or an actor for example.
Learning to type on a computer allowed me to play the keyboard more easily.
Knowing French allowed me to learn languages of the same root more easily.

That last one is a simple example most people can understand. The thing is, there is a “root” to everything. Each sub-skill you learn is helpful for another skill you’re going to learn later.

As such, the best way to become a good learner is to learn more diversified things, essentially creating a vast library of chunks.

Memory Systems

Too many people think that having a “good” memory is the key to being a great learner. That’s wrong. Memory is a tool. A “good” memory will help you assimilate knowledge faster, but it won’t create the neural connections we talked about.

You can be a great skill learner without having a “good” memory. I’m not particularly skilled at memorizing things, yet I’ve managed to learn many skills successfully. For some skills, however, memory can greatly accelerate your learning curve. That’s true of many intellectual skills.

Short-term memory

Short-term memory is used for short-term retention of information that’s less than twenty seconds. The paragraph you read twenty seconds ago is still in your short-term memory. If you want to retain it for longer, you have work to do!

Now, twenty seconds might not seem like much, but without it, no learning could really happen. Think of it as the starting point for moving information over to the long-term memory — which is what you think about when you think about memory.

While at first glance, you may wonder why wouldn’t information go directly to the long-term. What’s the point of the short-term memory?

To protect you! Imagine if you retained every piece of information that comes your way; you’d be filled with misinformation or things you’d never want to remember!

Alright, so let’s say you stumbled upon information that you deem relevant and would love to retain for a long period, how would you do that?

The short and easy explanation is that the more you expose yourself to a piece of information, the more likely it will become “available” to you from the long-term memory.

It’s that simple, but there’s an important pitfall: this applies to bad information as well. If you’re in a toxic environment, that’s what your brain reconsolidates daily. moving in into the long-term memory. It starts to accept it as truth and makes it harder and harder to break.

Long-term memory

Long-term memory is retained over a long period of time. It’s everything that includes your life experiences, previously acquired knowledge, languages, etc. As you can probably imagine, you use it all the time.

Your whole belief system revolves around what is stored in the long-term memory. That’s why it’s hard to change one’s beliefs. When a piece of information is in your long-term memory, it’s hard to take out. The more and the longer you’re exposed to something, the stronger the memory.

Ultimately, when you know what the process is for “moving” short-term memories into the long-term memory, you can start choosing what you want to retain, and that’s very powerful.

Most people are being fed information and their brain stores that information. You actually have some control over that! You can refuse to read, hear, or see something. You can choose to feed information that relates to your mission and values.

The pitfall, however, is to get too much of the same information that you stop seeing other people’s points of view. It’s good to focus on things, but never forget to get some knowledge of opposing information so you can decide what’s right for you.

Working memory

The working memory retains and uses information, while the short-term memory simply retains. The short-term memory is only one part of the working memory.

When you’re learning something through practice, you’re involving the working memory more than you are involving the short-term memory. You watch how someone is doing something (short-term), you analyze it (working memory), and try it out (working memory). The working memory is the part that understands the cause and effect.

For example, to keep it simple, if you play a G chord on a Ukulele, the working memory will know what the sound will be.

If you follow a tutorial to set up software, you’re using your working memory. If you’re assembling IKEA furniture, you’re using your working memory. If you’re learning how to tie a tie, you’re using your working memory.

Simple?

How many things do you think can be active in your working memory at the same time? The answer is not that many. That’s why multitasking for humans is nearly impossible. The thought capacity is that it can hold about four elements of new information at one time. “Geniuses” might be able to hold up to seven elements at once.

Here are other interesting facts about the working memory:

The capacity of working memory depends on the category of the elements or chunks as well as their features. For example, we can hold more digits in working memory than letters and more short words than long words.

The limitations on working memory disappear when someone works with information from long-term memory.

Similar to the capacity issue, it takes mental effort to hold information in working memory for an extended time and can also be a cause of cognitive overwhelm.

Muscle/motor memory

Have you ever noticed how a person suffering from Alzheimer’s can still perform the same physical tasks they’ve been doing for their whole life, yet they can’t remember the name of their children? Or in worse cases, even their faces.

How’s that possible?

Here’s the kicker: habits are not stored in the same area of the brain. You can forget every fact you’ve ever learned and still be able to find your home if I drop you at your usual grocery store. Heck, you could potentially even drive back!

You’d have no clue how you did it, but you’ll do it.

Think about this for a moment.

Isn’t it amazing and powerful?

Physical habits are things you do with zero effort and no thinking. That’s how you’re able to type on a keyboard, walk, or ride a bicycle, for example. Imagine if you had to think about these things every time you had to do them — you wouldn’t be very productive, would you?

Concretely, how can you take advantage of that?

It’s simple: by “offloading” the thinking to your subconscious, you free up “space” for your conscious brain to think about other things, leading to learning. The more you do things habitually, the more your brain can concentrate on things you’re trying to learn.

How much easier it is to learn to jump on a bike once pedalling is all done subconsciously?

Additional resources about learning how to learn:

2. Master the meta-skills

I’ll mention 10 skills in this article. I wrote about them in greater detail in this article, and in even greater detail in this course.

Focusing — Raise your self-awareness by listing your skills, hobbies, passions, talents, loved ones, moments of happiness, moments of sadness, personality traits, and values.
Assessing Proficiency — Try to replicate something you already know is at the level you’re looking to get. Get an outside opinion on how well you’re doing.
Progress Logging — Before you even start learning a new skill, think about what you want to be able to accomplish at the end of your practice. Always give yourself a deadline. Use SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound)
Managing Habits — Use checklists of the things you want and don’t want to do daily. Review the checklist at the end of each day. Stick to it no matter what.
Spaced Repetition — When you practice something you’ve learned after 24 hours, then after one week, and then after one month, you’ll basically retain your learning for years to come.
Interleaving — Interleaving is a process where learners mix multiple topics during a learning session. Choose a few topics and disperse them throughout your learning sessions. The most efficient strategy is to use subjects that are related in some ways.
Note-taking — Never write down all the information you’re getting. You have to let your brain work a little with recollection. If you write everything down, it’s not any different from reading, and that’s mostly passive. To improve your learning, you can’t be passive!
Mind-mapping — The most important thing I found when mind mapping is defining a proper structure that’s both accurate and easy to understand for you. Make sure to revise your mind map with new and updated information you have.
Making Skill Trees — Once you’ve mapped everything out and you know how good you are at the different sub-skills, you can start to understand where your time should be focused. And once you know where to channel your focus, you can start planning and executing.
Visual Analogies — They provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between two ideas. A good analogy clearly shows those connections. The best analogies are simple and contextual.

Additional Resources about the meta-skills:

[COURSE] 10 Important Skills to Learn in 10 Days to Fast-track Your Learning of Any Skill.
[BOOK] Ultralearning

3. Improve your memory

According to memory expert Anthony Metivier, there are three approaches to improving your memory:

Mnemonics
Lifestyle Changes
Other memory methods

In this article, I’ll share the most generally impactful ones:

Mnemonics — Memory Palaces

Memory palaces can be really powerful once you’ve mastered how to do them. Sadly, this isn’t something you can just pick up right away, you need a good amount of practice before you become good at them.

At its most basic, the process is simple:

Imagine a familiar location.
Draw the Memory Palace on a sheet of paper.
Structure your course through the Memory Palace.
Practice it mentally.
Use it to memorize something.

Here’s an example from WikiHow:

Additional resources:

[ARTICLE] 5 Memory Palace Examples To Improve Your Memory Training Practice
[ARTICLE] How to Build a Memory Palace

Mnemonics — Expression Mnemonics and Acronyms

I still remember some of the expressions I learned back in grade school. One of them helped me remember the names of the nine planets (in French):

“Mon Vieu Tu M’a Jetté Sur Une Nouvelle Planète” — Mercury, Venus, Terre (Earth), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.

And this acronym helped me remember Canada’s great lakes:

HOMES — Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior

Surely you can think of others. You might even have created some for yourself. Expressions and acronyms are great to remember sequences or lists of words.

When creating new expressions, aim to form sentences that are easy to visualize and remember. When creating acronyms, aim to use existing words that are easy to remember.

Lifestyle — Power napping

A power nap is a short period of rest (typically 20–30 minutes) where you never go past the first of 3 stages of sleep.

I use power napping for more than just remembering things, but it’s certainly a good use for it. When you sleep, your brain creates more connections in your brain. It does so with the material you fed it prior to sleeping. So, if you want to remember something better, study it, and then take a power nap.

Here are eight things to consider when power napping:

Don’t power nap if you’re not tired enough.
Set an alarm.
Don’t nap for more than 30 minutes.
Cut off the distractions.
Be comfortable but not too much.
A “successful” nap is not always about sleeping.
It takes some time to recover from the nap.
Don’t nap when it’s close to bedtime.

Additional resources:

[ARTICLE] How To Power Nap: A Complete Guide

Lifestyle — Eating the right foods

Did you know that walnuts, green tea, blueberries, fish, whole grains, olive oil, and more are good for your memory? (source)

These foods contain nutrients that favour retention and prevent memory loss.

Lifestyle — Timely exercising

One often overlooked benefit of exercising is its ability to foster the creation of neural connections, not unlike sleep. So, when should you exercise? That’s the question we all want the answer to, right?

In the hugely popular Learning How to Learn Course, Dr. Terrence Sejnowski shares his insights on the topic. He says that when it comes to helping the brain, the best time to exercise is after your study or practice session. It doesn’t matter the exact time of the day.

Having experienced it many times in the past myself, I second his findings. I often workout or go for a bike ride after practicing skills. This helps me retain what I’m trying to learn. I often combine it with a power nap right after.

Additional Resources on memory:

Conclusion

How can we expect to learn like a machine when we don’t even know how it actually happens? Learning how to learn has helped me accelerate my personal growth. It helped me change my life for the better. It also helped me to create habits that make me unstoppable.

And it can do that for you too.

Learn how learning happens in the brain. Master the meta-skills of learning. Enhance your memory. These are the steps to ultimately become a master learner. Apply what you learned here and you’ll eventually get there.

You can do this!

— Danny

How to Turn Your Brain Into a Learning Machine