Purpose

Create a strong foundation in learning which also is the foundation of every success. The purpose of this article is to show you an effective way of learning in a short amount of time or being time effective. This can be applied to every aspects of career, can be software engineering, data sciences, data engineering, etc. since learning is a general aspect to everyone and being efficient in this thing makes you already ahead of the majority.

This is mostly based on my personal experience. Being able to learn new field or topic (ex. Marketing or Business) in a short amount of time. I've seen this most effective in hackathons since I have applied all of this techniques and mentality throughout my competitions that made me win some.

Check out Part 2 of this blog series

This is a series-based article. I will be posting my blogs everyday, featuring 3 effective ways on improving your learning process. Follow me to be updated with my release blogs.

Learn Anything 10x Faster: Outliers Guide – Part 2

Kairus Noah Tecson ・ Aug 29 '23

#growth #personaldevelopment #mindset #beginners

Preface

I started as not knowing development at or any other thing other than basic syntaxes of programming. It has been almost 1 year ago (September 29) and during that time did I start having a goal to improve in the field of development.

During an almost a year duration of grinding of learning or ultralearning, I have achieved quite a lot yet unexpected feats. I have been a Champion in a regional programming competition that involves more than 20+ universities offering Computer Science and Information Technology courses. I also participated on other regional programming competitions and hackathons. I recently achieved 2nd runner up in a hackathon which is held by one of the most prestige universities in my country. 2nd runner up might be quite low achievement but I achieved it alone against different teams composed of more than 3. I also obtained skills in fullstack development. ReactJS, ExpressJS, Github Actions, Ionic, Github and Git, other templating languages, etc.

Let me share this to you on how I achieved such boost of skills in just less than a year and may somehow find this as an essential weapon in your arsenal in the future.

Methods

1. Perception of Learning

Perception is a lens. This is how you view the world. This is pertained as the most root of all. If you want to change your character, start with your perception. If your character change, so does your thought. If your thought change, so does your actions.

Perception is the most fundamental of all. If you want to be the most efficient learner, you must start on how you view learning.

Learning is the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, study, or by being taught.

You must view learning as a step for you to reach your goal and not as a step towards social entitlement of being a nerd. Learning is fundamental in every personal growth. You might see someone in your class excelling that hard in class. It does not came from talent but from learning. Knowledge does not just comes popping out your brain, it is learned. The same goes by with other geniuses in this world, they all started in learning. It only starts to differ on how much time and effort you are giving on learning.

2. 4Fs: The framework for learning.

There has this term called "Feedback loop" in businesses and startups where they create this "Build-Test-Learn" loop for their products. This helps them hastily develop their product with quality. They create a MVP or a most viable product and test that out immediately, obtaining essential feedbacks for them to implement to their product, which is where "Learn" comes from. This is a continuous loop that spiral upwards towards developing the best out of that product without losing time to market.

The same goes by with personal growth. You yourself is a product for the society, and the same as other product, you must also have a feedback loop. And there is where 4Fs is inspired of. Find Flaws, Fix, and Feedback.

Flaws must not be viewed as a weakness or a defect but an area of opportunity for improvement. Identifying your flaws is an essential on identifying your path for learning. The flaws will be your target and goal for your learning journey. You might find it hard to achieve since you will be addressing face to face what you are lacking. The same goes by with all of us.

Majority of the people are scared to address their own flaws, which is the start of stagnation. Since flaws are not being identified, they don't know that they're already lacking. Being able to identify your flaws is already a great leap since you go beyond the majority.

After you identify or know your areas of improvement, you address it. This is where "Fix" takes place. You address those identified flaws. This is where your learning journey starts. Start off on learning how you can address this flaws and apply those steps you learned as your methods on eliminating those flaws.

You might struggle in public speaking, you identify it as one of your flaws. You may be tempted to search ways on how to improve your public speaking immediately, but that must no be your first step. As I discussed in my first method for efficient learning, perception is the most fundamental of everything. Thus, you must fix your perception on that flaw first, public speaking. You learned that your perception on public speaking as something your are not fit in since you are an introvert. You then address this perception first: that public speaking is not only for extrovert but more of a mode of communicating your knowledge or research to your audience. You think beyond yourself and find purpose on creating value for others. You then move forward on other techniques or methods on fixing and improving your flaws. This can be searching on Youtube for public speaking tips.

Last one is the most important of all, Feedback. After you spent efforts honing your craft, addressing those flaws, test your self. This can be through having practicing your public speaking to your friends or family. Your goal is not for them to praise you but to gather their feedback. Know their insights, then you can identify again your flaws. Praise and recognition is just a plus, what you wanted is identifying flaws that is already beyond your own recognition. Then you can start looping again on identifying your flaws and fixing it.

This loop is a continuous process of improvement. Just like a ball, without having to take action continuously, you cannot move, you become stagnant. Potential energy cannot move on its own, it must be on your own intervention, your own action can it start to move. Just like your own potential, you own flaws, you cannot fix and improve your craft if you will not take action.

3. Just do it

Just like the meme says, Just do it. Beyond the meme, It have been a part of my motivation before I learn to address my perception first. But this phrase still stays relevant.
One of the most hardest, most energy consuming in a rocket launch towards space is the take off. It takes so much energy to resist the pull of gravity just to be able to go out its range of reach.

Our own life also has its own gravity. Just waking up in the morning, you are already suppressed by your own gravity's force to sleep again or just stay laying on your bed. It takes so much effort just to resist the gravity to start doing things you must do. This is where "Just do it" phrase comes in. Not thinking about anything else, just your motivation and reason to take action at the same time the burst of action itself is what will get you to take off. Once you start taking off, start learning, start building habits, start addressing those flaws, then will it be more easier to go in the flow.

End

This is my first time writing about personal development stuffs, blogging in general, and mostly just write in my learning journal. If you've liked this and found this helpful, please send your support through likes and comments. Comment down your own feedback about my content.