CHAPTER 5
A woodsman was once asked,
“What would you do if you had just six minutes to chop down a tree?”
He answered,
“I would spend the first four minutes sharpening my ax.”
—Unknown
Oftentimes, when we sit down to learn, we are full of excitement, passion, and enthusiasm. We are eager to dive in, to sink our teeth into this new subject, and give it our best shot. But the truth is that while it’s great to have enthusiasm for learning, enthusiasm without planning can do more harm than good.
A few years ago, I decided that I was going to learn my fourth language—Russian. I was passionate about it. Second, as an up-and-coming accelerated learning expert, I wanted to demonstrate the power of what I was teaching by learning a relatively “difficult” language. Third, I already speak a Germanic, a Latin, and a Semitic language, so I wanted to try something really different. Finally, I knew how important it was to fulfill the “pressing need” and “immediate use” criteria. While there aren’t very many native Mandarin speakers in Israel, I’d have no shortage of Russian speakers.
With the näive goal of learning Russian by the end of the year, I dove in with a fury. I memorized both alphabets (cursive and block) and their pronunciations in a few days. I memorized hundreds and hundreds of new vocabulary words in a few weeks. I began studying the grammar and forming basic sentences. I even learned to touch type in Russian. I was on fire.
A few months later, I landed in Moscow, eager to flaunt my new skills to my Russian friends.
I was in for a rude awakening.
On the train from Domodedovo Airport to the city center, I noticed an advertisement for Citibank. As it turns out, Citibank’s slogan in Russia at the time was a very friendly one:
“Citibank. Always with you. Always for you.”
Except in Russian, it was written like this:
“Ситибанк. Всегда с Вами. Всегда для Вас.”
Wait, what?
I understood most of the words—and even their choice to use the collective, formal version of “you.” This was a concept I knew from my prior knowledge of the Spanish word, usted.
But why were they using two different words for the word “you”?
Oh, crap.
As it turns out, in all my study of Russian, I had neglected to understand one crucial element:
There are about six ways to say every word (and pronoun) in Russian—depending on the context.
But that’s not all. I quickly learned that my vocabulary list—which I thought was sorted by importance—was clearly not. Whereas I knew such useful words as трубка (tube) and мешок (sack), I did not know the difference between вход (entrance) and выход (exit). As you can imagine, the security guards at the Kremlin were less than amused.
What had gone wrong?
Poor planning.
Instead of sitting down to get a broad overview of the Russian language—a view of the forest from thirty thousand feet—I had gone straight for the trees. In all of my excitement, I neglected to develop a plan for balancing between vocabulary and grammar. I never stopped to look at the “big picture” and understand how the case system actually works. I simply jumped in at what looked like the beginning. And to this day, I am a below-average Russian speaker because of it.
The idea of preparing and structuring your learning in a logical way beforehand comes up a lot in accelerated learning circles. In his accelerated learning book disguised as a cookbook, The 4-Hour Chef, Tim Ferriss shares his framework for preparing to learn anything faster. It goes like this:
Deconstruction: How small can I break things down into their basic units of learning, such as individual vocabulary words or grammatical rules?
Selection: What are the 20 percent of those units that will give me 80 percent of the benefits (Pareto’s Principle)?
Sequencing: What is the best order in which to learn these units?
Stakes: How can I use psychology or social pressure to condense my timelines and push myself to learn faster?
With this process (and the other techniques in the coming pages), Ferriss has become an accomplished author, a successful investor, a top podcaster, a skilled chef, a champion sumo wrestler, and a record-holding tango dancer.
Whatever you’re learning, thinking ahead is key.
Recently, I interviewed Zach Evans, creator of the popular Piano SuperHuman online course. During the interview, Zach explained to me that most of the results he generates for his students come from simply thinking ahead. Through years of teaching, he has developed a system for breaking things down into individual skills or sections and then tackling them in the right order. Zach also pointed out that unless we plan out our learning in a methodical and deliberate way, we fall prey to bad habits, wasted time, or complacency. Zach himself learned this one day by accidentally leaving his camera recording during a practice session. When he reviewed the footage, he discovered that he’d wasted the entire two hours playing pieces he already knew.
Before you begin to study a new subject, there are a handful of questions that you must ask yourself. These questions will do more than help you determine the most efficient way to learn something, though. In fact, when you learn the almost annoyingly effective memory techniques later on in the book, you’ll see that learning something the wrong way can have permanent consequences down the line.
Here are some questions I encourage you to spend time considering before diving into any learning project.
- Why am I learning this information, and how and when will I actually use it? You probably noticed that this first question immediately checks off a few of Dr. Knowles’s requirements. But beyond that, it also helps us determine just what we’re going to focus on in the first place. Chances are, you’re not learning Russian to communicate with construction workers, right? In that case, learning words like трубка (tube) is probably not worth your time. If, however, you’re learning Russian to travel in the former USSR, then you should probably prioritize basic grammar. (Heads up: I also suggest learning practical words like “exit” and “entrance.”)
- What level of understanding or knowledge do you need? One question that I’ve long felt is missing from the preparation conversation is that of depth. After all, there are many levels of understanding and knowledge. The ability to remember a list of facts is very different from the ability to think originally on the subject. So ask yourself: To what level do you need to know the information you are learning? Do you need to be able to recite other people’s works word-for-word and challenge them for your PhD thesis? Or, do you simply need to know where to look something up the next time a patient presents those symptoms? The depth to which you need to know something dramatically changes the way you should approach learning it—and how much time you’ll spend on it!
- How can this information be broken down into small parts? How can it then be recombined into broader categories or themes? In this question, we “break it down.” What are the units of information in this new subject? Are they verses of a poem? Functions in a programming language? Chords on an instrument? Or words in a lexicon? Once you’ve determined these individual units, how will you classify them into groups, such as historical periods, key signatures, or parts of speech?
- What are the most important things to learn based on my personal goals? As you likely know, Pareto’s Principle states that 80 percent of the benefits come from 20 percent of the work. This means that unless you’re looking to become the world’s best in a given subject, you can usually save yourself 80 percent of the effort in learning. In music, for example, most of us can skip learning the individual frequencies of each note. In English, it’s safe to say that most non-native speakers shouldn’t bother with the future perfect continuous case. In fact, from years of living abroad, I can attest that they should avoid the confusion altogether!
- What is the right order in which to learn this information? Learning a heap of grammatical rules doesn’t make a lot of sense if you don’t know enough words to form a single sentence. Similarly, it’s not very useful to learn to read music until you know which keys play which notes. As I learned when I tackled Russian, the order in which you learn things really matters. Remember: you can never reclaim time spent learning the wrong things.
- How will I actually access this information? Knowing how you’ll access the information you’re learning is often just as important as knowing which information to learn. When I began studying Russian, I made the mistake of organizing my memory palace (a powerful tool you’ll soon learn) alphabetically. At the time, this seemed as logical a way to do it as any. But how often do you write a sentence and think to yourself, “What I really need is a word that starts with a K?” More likely, you’re searching for a specific part of speech like a noun or an adverb. It wasn’t until I interviewed star SuperLearner student and polyglot David Sanz Stinson that I realized my mistake. By then, it was too late! Don’t make this mistake yourself as you prepare to memorize new information. If you’re studying for the bar exam, ask yourself: Do you need to access laws by their order in the penal code? I’d assume not. You need to know what type of law they pertain to. Memorizing in this way is a very different—and much more useful—project.
- What will your study schedule look like, and how can you compress timelines? As Tim Ferriss teaches in his books, Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time you allow it. We all know the feeling of writing an entire semester’s final paper in a matter of days—or hours. So why not use this nifty psychological hack to our advantage? By structuring out our study sessions methodically, based on the questions above, we ensure consistency and persistence. Plus, by adding high stakes, social pressure, and condensed timelines to the mix, we kick ourselves into high gear. My friend Benjamin Hardy, psychologist and author of the book Willpower Doesn’t Work, calls these planned constraints “forcing functions.” Want to learn AcroYoga fast? Prepay for an advanced workshop three months from now. Hoping to learn a new technology at work? Volunteer to teach a workshop on it next quarter. By adding real-world stakes, you’ll be motivated to create an ambitious study plan—and actually stick to it.
- How will I measure and track my progress? To keep track of whether or not you’re moving forward at the right pace, it’s important to have a clear metric of success. For this reason, I often teach students about the concept of “S.M.A.R.T.” goals. The most effective goals are: Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic, and Time-based. Why is this better than any other goal, you ask? Well, if your goal is to “get better at Excel,” it’s pretty hard to assess that. You’re likely to drop off or put in very little effort. If your goal is to “learn six new features of Excel, including pivot tables and macros, by December 31,” that’s a different story. With this S.M.A.R.T. goal, it becomes much easier to monitor yourself and course correct along the way. Plus, remember that what gets measured gets improved, but what gets measured and reported improves exponentially.
- What will I do if things don’t go to plan? With any luck, the previous questions will challenge you to tackle some aggressive and ambitious learning goals. In a perfect world, you would achieve all of them, in record time, every time. But the higher you shoot, the more likelihood there is of failure—and we all slip up sometimes. No matter how positive you are, nothing is more frustrating than watching your best-laid plans fall apart. In these times, it’s easy to spiral downward, beat yourself up, or give up altogether. That’s why the best managers plan for occasional failures ahead of time. What exactly will you do if you fall off the bandwagon or get stuck on a particular subject? How will you get back on track and prevent one little slip up from derailing you and causing you to give up completely—a phenomenon psychologists lovingly call the “what-the-hell effect.” Will you book extra sessions with a private tutor? Make up the time on the weekend? Adjust your study schedule and give yourself some slack? If you have a specific plan ready for when you inevitably fall off track, you’ll minimize the damage and ensure that you waste as little time as possible.
Armed with these nine questions, you are well prepared to…well…prepare. You now understand why thinking ahead and creating a methodical success plan is far from a waste of time. In fact, it’s quite possible that every minute of preparation will save you an hour or more of deliberation. That’s why, from now on, every time you set out to cut down a learning tree, I know you’ll take a good hard look at the forest first. Then, make sure your ax is razor sharp.