learning

How to Move from Note-Taking to Note-Making Using a Zettelkasten

February 15, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim

You find the most valuable insights at the intersection of ideas.

Do you finish a book or an article and think you’ve found great insights but don’t know what to do with them?

If you ever feel like reading isn’t moving you forward, it’s likely because you don’t collect and connect your knowledge in a good way.

You can read the best writing in the world without changing at all. As Ratna Kusner once said:

“Knowledge trapped in books neatly stacked is meaningless and powerless until applied for betterment of life.”

But what if there was a simple way to build a database for your personal knowledge? How much easier would your life get if you always find what you need when you need it?

Luhmann, the Zettelkasten inventor, found the answers and lived by them. During his life, he wrote 70 books & 500 scholarly articles. He attributes his success to a note-taking system called the Zettelkasten.

Here’s why this note-taking-system works and how you can make this method work for you.

Why Zettelkasten Outperforms Other Systems

For the past years, I experimented with various note-taking systems —outlining, sketchnoting, mind-mapping, Notion workflows, and BulletJournals — before I finally settled on Zettelkasten. Here’s why this note-taking system beats others:

#1 Your Zettelkasten gets better the more you store

Tools like OneNote, Notion, Evernote, or your physical notebook exist in a top-down hierarchy. They are like a filing cabinet.

In the beginning, each note-taking system looks tidy and clean. But once you store more notes and ideas, they become unorganized.

Zettelkasten, on the contrary works like a bottom-up network. A lack of hierarchy helps you build a giant knowledge web of ideas. Your network works better the more information you store because connections and interlinks grow stronger.

Plus, a Zettelkasten can work as an idea-generation machine. You discover related ideas that you hadn’t thought of in the first place. As Sönke Ahrens writes in his book about the Zettelkasten:

“The more content it contains, the more connections it can provide, and the easier it become to add new entries in a smart way and receive useful suggestions. “

#2 You automatically use state-of-the-art learning science.

I used to rely on ineffective learning techniques like highlighting and rereading. I consumed more and more content instead of reading better.

Now the Zettelkasten will stop you from doing that. It’s an amazing learning tool as it forces us to use all the strategies that are known for effective learning — elaboration, spacing, and retrieval.

#3 You find the right idea at the perfect time.

As you’ll see in a minute, cross-references are at the core of the Zettelkasten. Whenever you add a new note, you think about how it relates to the existing notes.

You use networked thinking to link your notes together. And the more notes you add and connect, the bigger the network. You stumble upon useful intersections and move from note-taking to note-making.

In that way, the Zettelkasten not only captures your notes but helps you generate new ones as well. After all, the best ideas are the ones we haven’t anticipated. Or in James Clear’s words:

“The most useful insights are often found at the intersection of ideas.”

The Zettelkasten works in a network. (Source: JJ Ying on Unsplash)

5 Steps to Start Your Own Zettelkasten

The system is simple. Before I set up my system, I read through +20 resources. Here’s the quintessence on how to get started:

1) Decide on a digital tool

When I started, I tried to implement the system in my existing Notion database. But Notion is built for collaboration, not for building your second brain.

While there are some people saying you can also start an analog Zettelkasten, I wouldn’t advise for it. There are so many great digital options that really ease your workflow.

You can pick between programs solely built for Zettelkasten, like Zettlr and The Archive, or more functional alternatives like TiddlyWiki (free and open-source), Obsidian, RemNote, Craft, Amplenote, and Org-roam.

I use Roamresearch ($15/month) because of its clean design and its Readwise connection.

2) Import your highlights or start from scratch

If you pick Roamresearch, you can rely on a tool like Readwise. Alternatively, you can transcribe your former notes manually or simply start from scratch.

Create a page for each of your highlights, and bold or highlight the most important ones.

3) Create literature notes

From your highlights page, create a new page for literature notes. Your literature notes are a bullet-point summary in your own words where you write down what you don’t want to forget from the initial source.

When taking literature notes ask yourself questions like:

What is interesting about this?
What’s so relevant that it’s worth noting down?

Lastly, create some tags for your literature notes. Your tags serve as a reference and help you find this literature note when you need it. Your tags can be longer than a single word and are the answers to ‘In which circumstance do you want to stumble upon the note? When will you use the idea’?

4) Create permanent notes

These notes will stick with you forever. You find them by looking at your literature notes, your highlights and asking yourself: ‘Which insight do I have based on the material I read?’

The answer requires serious brain work but it is exactly why a Zettelkasten is such a valuable learning tool.

In contrast to the literature notes, your permanent notes are written prose. A reader of your permanent note should understand it without reading the original source that led to your idea.

In Ahren’s words:

Write exactly one note for each idea and write as if you were writing for someone else. Use full sentences, disclose your sources, make references, and try to be as precise, clear and brief as possible.

5) Create cross-references for your permanent Notes.

Now, this is, in truth, the most important step. A note is only as valuable as its context — its network of associations, relationships, and connections to other information.

Use the digital tool’s power of bidirectional linking to connect permanent notes that relate with your idea (of course, in the beginning, you can’t link much). Ask yourself questions like:

How does this idea fit with what I already know?
How can I use this idea to explain Y?
What does X mean for y?

Referring one note to another is the heart of the Zettelkasten method and crucial for idea development.

Final Thoughts

Creating a personal knowledge database can feel hard, especially if it slows down your consumption speed. But becoming a slower reader isn’t a time-waster. The contrary is true:

“Not learning from what we read because we don’t take the time to elaborate on it is the real waste of time.”

— Sönke Ahrens

I set up my Zettelkasten only a few weeks ago. Yet, it’s already transforming the way I store and discover knowledge. It makes reading much more meaningful, and I sincerely hope it does the same for you.

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How to Learn Like Someone Who Aced the MIT Challenge

December 29, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim

The four principles of ultralearning.

In 2014, Scott H. Young embarked on a controversial project.

He completed the MIT undergraduate computer science curriculum at 4x speed. Instead of the typical four years, he passed all final exams in less than 12 months.

Some people praise his results as the ultralearning experience.

Others are more skeptical as Scott transformed his MIT challenge into lucrative blogs and books. Here’s a question some people ask:

Is Scott a sneaky marketer or one of the most efficient life-long learners?

And while I’ll share my opinion at the end of this article, the answer doesn’t really matter. What matters is what we can learn from his learning journey.

These are Scott’s tips on how to become an ultralearner and quadruple your learning efficiency.

Use directness to improve learning effectiveness

Learning in formal settings is often ineffective because it’s distant from the actual application. Let’s take an example.

Imagine you’re a frequent flier. Before every start, you watch the video of a flight attendant putting on the life vest. You watch the video again and again.

But as this study shows, actually putting on the inflatable life vest a single time would be more valuable than repeatedly watching another person doing it. You acquire true mastery by performing the procedure yourself.

Social climber Dale Carnegie used to say knowledge isn’t power until it’s applied. And it’s true.

Don’t spend your time on tasks far away from your end goal. If you want to write online articles, don’t spend time watching a masterclass on how to write a book. Foster a bias towards direct action.

The directness principle is a powerful way to make learning more efficient.

How to do it:

What’s your end goal behind learning?

Let’s say you want to learn writing. What do you want to use it for? Is it for writing a novel? Then start learning to write by writing a novel. Is it for earning an extra income? Then start studying submission guidelines for paid online platforms and pitch your articles there.

Whatever you learn, focus on your true end-goal and pick a practice that’s as close to it as possible.

Feynman’s technique helps you remember anything

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (1918–1988) was an expert for remembering what he learned — by teaching.

Teaching is the most effective way to embed information in your mind. Plus, it’s an easy way to check whether you’ve remembered what you learned.

Because before you teach, you have to take several steps: filter relevant information, organize this information, and use your own vocabulary to paraphrase the concepts.

Feynman mastered this process like no other. The people of his time knew him for explaining the most complex processes in the simplest language. They nicknamed Feynman “The Great Explainer.”

Bill Gates was so inspired by his pedagogy that he even named Feynman “the greatest teacher I never had.”

How to do it:

The Feynman Technique consists of three simple steps:

Summarize whatever you want to learn on a blank page.
Explain what you learned in plain, simple language as if you were talking to a child.
Identify your knowledge gaps and revisit the concepts whenever you’re stuck circle back to your knowledge source.
Reread what you forgot to mention and add it to your explanation.

By following this technique, your learning by ‘first principles’ instead of superficial memorization.

“The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.”

— Mortimer J. Adler

Create a meta-learning map

No life skill can earn you greater dividends than learning how to learn. Yet, most people don’t know how to master meta-learning.

Meanwhile, taking responsibility for your learning is one of the most important undertakings you can manage.

Your meta-learning map serves as a knowledge tree for your practice and will help you learn better. Scott Young, the author of ultralearning, says a meta-learning map should contain three key items:

Concepts: Anything that needs to be understood.
Facts: Anything that needs to be memorized.
Procedures: Anything that needs to be practiced.

How to do it:

Make a learning map before you dive into any specific skill.

If you want to write paid articles, don’t start by practicing headlines. Instead, list all the things you need to acquire, like style, editing, storytelling, research, headlines, and a solid idea-to-paper process.

Unsure how to start the map? Find people who mastered the skill you want to learn and ask them about their learning paths.

Do you want to publish a bestselling non-fiction novel? Craft personal, short e-mails and send them to Malcolm Gladwell, Brené Brown, Nicolas Cole, James Clear, and all the other successful authors. Ask them about the core skills they needed to master. Then, start drafting your own map.

Unlock the power of self-testing

Many people feel traumatized when they think of formal test settings. But testing can be a powerful tool to improve the way we learn.

Because self-testing helps us overcome the illusion of knowledge and shows us whether we truly mastered the subject at hand. Plus, self-testing helps to identify knowledge gaps and brings weak areas to the light.

Even if you don’t get the right answer, the process facilitates remembering the correct answer. In almost all cases, it’s better to solve a problem than memorizing a solution.

Use the testing process to learn more as you go along. Always test yourself before you feel confident and push yourself to recall information, not just review it.

How to do it:

My favorite testing techniques include flashcards with a built-in spaced repetition feature (like Anki for anything, readwise for books, podcasts, highlights, or lingvist for languages).

Apart from flashcards, you can also use free recall. After reading something, try to write down everything you can remember, then use the source material to fill the gaps you missed. After your session, sit down with a piece of blank paper. Challenge yourself to list everything you can remember from what you’ve learned in as much detail as possible.

A third alternative includes the question-book method. Here you write down questions that test the content and answer these questions whenever you revisit the source. Ali Abdaal explains the active recall method in one of his learning videos.

Did Scott Young really finish the MIT curriculum?

Yes and no.

Yes, because he achieved his goal of ‘just wanting to learn more about Computer Science.’

No, because he self-graded his exams, skipped advanced course modules, and replaced peer-projects with less intense modules.

There are plenty of discussions that shed more light on Young’s underlying assumptions. And meanwhile, he also shared a critical reflection on his learning path.

But there’s a more important lesson here: With the right tools, learning any new skill is possible.

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Four Great Resources That Will Teach You How to Learn

November 27, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim

Crack the core of education and become a lifelong learner.

No life skill can earn you greater dividends than learning how to learn. Yet, most people don’t know how to master learning.

When asked, “Do you study the way you do because somebody taught you to study that way?” a study by Kornell & Bjork showed about 73% of students answered “no.”

Long after school, we continue to rely on ineffective learning strategies like passive consumption, highlighting, or rereading in the hope new knowledge will magically stick to our brain. Most people ignore that humans don’t absorb information and knowledge by reading sentences.

The mediocre majority will continue struggling through life this way, never experiencing the benefits of effective learning. They don’t care enough about the potential benefits to invest in their growth.

Most people ignore the proven ways to improve their learning process.

As a result, their lives stagnate. “Entertainment and distraction is the enemy of creation and learning. They will keep you in mediocrity,” Benjamin Hardy once wrote.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

A life full of meaningful learning and growth is available if you know where to start. In the last years, I read +15 books on learning, taught as a Teach for All fellow, and continue working in education. Here are the best resources for learning how to learn.

📘Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

A research group around neuroscientist Henry Roediger and psychologist Mark McDaniel spent ten years exploring learning strategies. Their goal was to bridge the gap between cognitive science and educational science. The result of their work is ‘Make it stick.’

The book in one sentence: Learning that’s easy is like writing in sand, here today and gone tomorrow; learning works better when it feels hard.

Why you should read it: Because of its applicability, this is my favorite book on evidence-based learning. You’ll realize the factors that shape your intellectual ability lie to a surprising extent within your own control. After reading, you’ll understand how to make the best learning techniques work for you.

Time Commitment: 336 pages; 7 hours to read it

Content Sneak Peek: This book explores and summarizes six evidence-based, application-ready strategies that help you learn better and store new knowledge in your long-term memory. The six strategies include retrieval practice (recall something you’ve learned in the past from your memory), spaced repetition (repeat the same piece of information across increasing intervals), interleaving (alternating before each practice is complete), elaboration (rephrasing new knowledge and connecting it with existing insights), reflection (synthesize, abstract, and articulate key lessons taught by experience), self-testing & calibration (answer a question or solve a problem before looking at the answer and identify knowledge gaps).

💻 Dr. Barabara Oakley — Learning How to Learn

Learning How to Learn is the most popular Coursera course of all time taught by academic experts Dr. Barbara Oakley and Dr. Terrence Sejnowski from the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Oakley’s research has been described as “revolutionary” in the Wall Street Journal, and she won numerous teacher awards for it.

The course in one sentence: Taking responsibility for your learning is one of the most important undertakings you can manage.

Why you should watch it: By exploring effective learning and retention strategies, this course upgrades your learning toolbox. Plus, the course dismantles common learning traps and guides and how to overcome them. After watching it, you’ll feel ready for an effective, personalized learning journey.

Time Commitment: Self-paced 15 hours

Content Sneak Peek: The course explores the modes of thinking (diffuse mode and focused mode), how our memories work (long-term memory and working memory), a handful of learning strategies (recalling, interleaving, and deliberate practice), learning blockers (Einstellung, procrastination, illusions of knowledge, task-switching), brain hacks on a mental level (memory training, environment, Pomodoro technique, habit-forming, focus) and hacks on a physical level (sleeping, naps, workout).

📰 Farnam Street Blog: Accelerated Learning

Shane Parrish, the founder of Farnam Street, was a cybersecurity expert at Canada’s top intelligence agency and an occasional blogger. He promotes proven strategies of rigorous self-betterment as opposed to classic self-help fare. The best articles on the blog explore timeless ideas around learning.

The source in one sentence: You can train your brain to retain knowledge and insight better by understanding how you learn.

Why you should read it: The blog is excellently written and application-oriented. There’s constantly new content, and it serves as a great refresher to the other resources.

Time Commitment: Around 10 minutes per article.

Content Sneak Peek: The blog explores various topics, like deliberate practice, double-loop learning, learning from failure, the half-life of facts, spaced repetition, and the Feynman Technique.

📘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

There’s been a lot of criticism around this book as the studies by Carol Dweck haven’t been replicated. Yet, I benefited so much from the mindset this book taught me that it belongs in this resource list. While reading it, just consider that it’s not peer-review science but rather mindset advice.

The source in one sentence: By distinguishing between a fixed and a growth mindset, Dweck shows how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor is influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities.

Why you should read it: This book is a must-read for every person looking for growth. After reading this book, you’ll be able to integrate a growth mindset into your life. For example, you’ll see mistakes as valuable learning opportunities. Studying this book can empower any educator to make positive changes in the classroom environment.

Time Commitment: 320 pages, 6.5 hours to read it

Content Sneak Peek: Mindsets shape whether we believe we can or can’t learn, change, and grow. People with a fixed mindset seek approval, while those with a growth mindset seek development. Role models from our childhood strongly influence our attitudes and ideas, yet we can change our mindset even in adulthood.

Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset (Source: Author based on C. Dweck)

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Don’t Just Do — Reflection Can Help You Take Better Action

November 15, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim

Here’s how.

Photo by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash

The other week I went for a walk with a friend. He was part of a national athlete team and among the top LoL gamers, studied statistics used to make a living from day trading, and now works as a mental coach.

While we wandered along the Danube and talked about my current research interest in learning and reading, he said something interesting:

“There is nothing more powerful, more instructive than learning from your past experience.”

A truth we often forget. We confuse activity with progress and seek new, better, innovative ideas and solutions. Meanwhile, we repeat the same mistakes and thought patterns.

If we’re not visibly active, we believe we’re not learning.

When we don’t pause to think and to contemplate, we keep circling in a limited sphere at a higher velocity. We can read 50 books to 10x our productivity and still lose the most important life lessons. By acting without looking backward, we close our eyes to the bigger picture.

Reading this article, you’ll learn why reflection works and how you can make it work for you. Understanding the power of introspection is one of the rare concepts you can’t unlearn.

Science and Gates on the Benefits of Reflection

Reflection is the active decision to think about your past. Or, as researchers put it:

“Reflection is the intentional attempt to synthesize, abstract, and articulate the key lessons taught by experience.”

Even if our eyes can’t witness its effects, introspection is powerful. By ruminating, you’re distilling the key insights from your experience. Connect your past with the present moment is an effective learning technique. Neuroscientist Roediger and neurosurgeon McDaniel write:

“Reflection can involve several cognitive activities that lead to stronger learning: retrieving knowledge and earlier training from memory, connecting these new experiences and visualizing and mentally rehearsing what you might do differently next time.”

But what’s so good about this strong learning effect? Scientists from Harvard Business School explored this question and state:

“Reflection is a powerful mechanism by which experience is translated into learning. In particular, we find that individuals perform significantly better on subsequent tasks when they think about what they learned from the task they completed.”

Apart from the scientific consensus, well-known people rely on the power of reflection.

Billionaire entrepreneur Sara Blakely shared in an interview how she filled more than 20 notebooks with her life’s obstacles and her lessons learned.

Before learning from Warren Buffett, Bill Gates said he “had every minute packed and thought that was the only way you could do things.” Bill concludes Warren taught him the importance of giving himself time to think and reflect.

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

— Carl Jung

How You Can Make Reflection Work for You

Reflection isn’t complex. It can be an easy addition to your toolbox, close at hand whenever you need it. Here are three strategies to start your own reflective practice.

#1 Level Up Your Journaling Practice

You can call it a bullet journal, reflective journal, or learning journal. As long as you spend time pondering on your past, the effect is the same. The key is not to capture events or facts but rather the process and how you felt about it.

Here are prompts to use on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis:

What went well? Why?
What went wrong? Why?
What new did you learn? How can you use this insight?
Which activities or tasks did you skip? Why? What can you learn from your behavior for your next steps?
On which topic did you change your opinion? How does this shift affect your next decisions?
Who are the most important people in your life? Why?

Plus, you can level up your journaling practice with evidence-based tricks. Write sitting in different positions, write for yourself, use the language you feel comfortable with, use diagrams and drawings, or record your own voice.

“For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

— Steve Jobs

#2 Meet Up With Friends for Joint Reflection

This one isn’t a substitute but a great addition to your journaling practice. Meeting with a group of peers for joint reflection can be powerful.

Heron, a social science pioneer, explains the method in his book:

You have got the choice of which topics you bring up. It can be a job-related reflection circle, discussing relational topics, or generally share personal journal excerpts or your thoughts behind it.

If you want more guidance, you can use these free reflection cards to get additional inspiration. Structure your meeting in facts, feelings, insights, and actions.

#3 Distill Key Lessons in Your Annual Review

The dark months around New Year are a great reminder to pause, reflect, and rethink the past 12 months. A yearly review is powerful. It can uncover valuable self-knowledge.

Here are ten powerful questions for a reflective practice at the end of a year:

Which things have you discovered this year? Which do you want to keep?
What experiences, people, and accomplishments are you most grateful for? Why?
Which residual feelings do remain if you think about the past year? Are you ready to let them go?
What was the biggest struggle in the past months? How did you tackle it, and what did you learn on the way?
How have you grown and developed in the past year? In what area(s) of your life did you make progress?
What have you discovered about yourself?
What moment did you feel the most alive this year?
When did you feel your heart most open this year?
What inspired you the most in the past months? How did this impact your life?
Based on your experience from last year, which advice would you give yourself for the next year?

“Extraordinary individuals stand out in the extent to which they reflect — often explicitly — on the events of their lives, large as well as small…by seizing the opportunity to leverage and frame these experiences, we gain agency over them. And this heightened agency, in turn, places us in a stronger position to deal with future experiences, even as it may alter our own sense of strengths and possibilities.”

— Howard Gardner

Final Words

We don’t have to be visibly active to learn. Progress starts with self-awareness. If we aren’t aware of a problem, we can’t improve.

With practices like reflective journaling, reflection circles, and yearly reviews, we can better understand our thoughts and emotions while exploring how they affect our behavior. We find pieces of our self-puzzle and can hold on to them for good. Step by step, we discover what life paths we want to take, leave, or create.

Let’s stop to rush through life and, instead, take time for reflection. In the words of American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey:

“We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.”

How Ali Abdaal Uses Tech to Remember Everything He Reads

November 12, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim

The seven-level system for books, podcasts, articles, and tweets.

As a UK based doctor, YouTuber, instructor, and podcaster, Ali Abdaal is one of the most productive people on the internet.

In one of his recent videos, Ali states that his additional income streams generate more than three times his income as a junior doctor in the UK’s National Health Service.

More than one million people follow his Youtube channel, and his e-mail list has more than 50.000 subscribers.

Despite his achievements, Ali remains a humble, reflective, fun person. Apart from Niklas Göke, he’s the one under 30 content creators I admire most.

In his recent video, he combines cognitive science with life hacks and shares the seven levels that lead to remembering (almost) everything we read.

Level 1: The way most people read

Many people are very passive while consuming content. They read through books and articles or listen to podcasts but don’t engage with the material. Soon, they forget what they learned.

Scientists call this our natural forgetting curve. We lose information over time when we don’t retain it.

Yet, many people continue to equate reading with learning. But this isn’t the case as my experience underlines.

Before building my first business, I had read dozens of books for each stage in the business lifecycle. Yet, as time went on, I forgot most of the advice I consumed. I was the perfect example of a level one reader.

At level one, we’re not using our brainpower. Reading in this way is mere entertainment.

Level 2: Take the next step after passive reading

At this level, you highlight everything you find interesting, either with a finger on your kindle, the trackpad on your browser or with a highlighter in your physical book.

While highlighting gives us the illusion of knowledge, it’s an ineffective learning method. Level two consumption still doesn’t improve your retention capacity.

As before, the natural forgetting curve will kick in, and as the days go on, you’ll soon have forgotten what you wanted to remember.

Yet, highlighting will become a great help if you use it as a learning strategy for levels three to five.

Level 3: Make your highlights work for you

Before we dive into how Ali does a systematic highlight revision, let’s see why it works from a learning perspective.

Our brain strengthens and consolidates memories of information it encounters regularly and frequently. With spaced repetition, you revisit the same information regularly at set intervals.

Science on learning has shown spaced repetition to be the most effective learning method to remember new content.

To use his highlights in a spaced repetition manner, Ali uses Readwise. It’s an online service that imports the highlights from your consumption tools. For blog articles, this might be Instapaper, for your podcasts Airr, and for your books, Kindle.

Once you’ve connected your inputs, Readwise sends you an email with 5 random highlights from your library. In one of his newsletters, Ali wrote:

“Since September 2018, the daily Readwise email is one that I’ve read religiously. Each day, I stumble upon wisdom that I chose to highlight in a previous life, and often I come across highlights from my favourite books that are spookily relevant to what’s going on in my life.”

I became a Readwise user a few months ago, but to be honest, I found the unorganized e-mail quotes pretty disturbing. Before diving into work, I don’t want to read my highlight from a book on slow sex. I unsubscribed to the daily email.

Yet, reaping the other Readwise benefits in level four kept me using this software.

Level 4: Find your holy storage palace

A highlight storage location is the golden nugget that can transform the way you read.

Remember that Readwise imports the highlights from your podcasts, articles, and books? Now you can export all the highlights into your favorite note-taking app.

By not only consuming but integrating the new knowledge into his working projects, Ali makes the most out of his time.

Here’s how I make Ali’s system work for me.

I connected my Readwise account to Medium, Twitter, Airr, and Kindle account. Every Sunday, I export the Readwise highlights to my Notion database. From there, I link the highlights to ideas for my podcast, articles, or business. In that way, I connect what I read to my current projects.

By sending your highlights to your Notion, Evernote, or Roam account, you’ll be able to work with the content you consume.

Level 5: Unlock the power of elaborative rehearsal

Elaborating means you explain and describe an idea in your own words. You consciously associate material you want to learn with what you’ve previously learned.

The more details and the stronger you connect new knowledge to what you already know, the better. By doing so, you’re generating more brain cues, and you’ll have an easier time retrieving new knowledge.

In his video, Ali says he regrets not elaborating on all the books he ever read. Here are the questions he now answers after reading a book:

How did you discover the book?
Who should read it?
How do you summarize the book in three sentences?
How did the book change you? (Life, behavior, thoughts, ideas that have changed as a result of reading the book)
What are your top three quotes?

Level 6: Become an expert for your content

Now, if you’ve reached level five, you’ll remember more than most content consumers. You’ll have evolved from a passive reader to a person who applies what they read.

If the content is excellent, and you want to take it one step further, you can write a literary summary. To do so, focus on the points that resonated. Your result will go as close to an entire book summary as it can get.

If you decide to go all-in, make sure to mentally recall what you want to remember instead of copy-pasting your highlights. By not recalling the information from your memory, you’ll skip the learning part.

What you want to do instead is to retrieve the concepts and ideas from your own memory. While writing your summary, try to use the simplest language you can. It was Albert Einstein, who said:

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

Level 7: Connecting the dots to a bigger picture

Information vs. Knowledge by *@gapingvoid*

So this level is pretty complex, and even Ali admits that he hasn’t fully started using it. I had to research Evergreen notes for some hours to understand the concept behind it fully.

Evergreen notes are the modern way to organize slip-box, “Zettelkasten” notes. Originally, this concept was from Luhmann, an extremely productive academic who published more than 70 books and 500 scholarly articles in his 40 years of research.

In the Evergreen system, you spend most of your time doing deep work, like creating content and connecting the dots. Your note organization takes care of itself. Here’s how education designer Andy Matuschak describes them:

“Evergreen notes are written and organized to evolve, contribute, and accumulate over time, across projects. This is an unusual way to think about writing notes: Most people take only transient notes. That’s because these practices aren’t about writing notes; they’re about effectively developing insight: “Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking”. When done well, these notes can be quite valuable: Evergreen note-writing as fundamental unit of knowledge work.”

If you want to dive deeper, this blog entry is a good starting point.

In Conclusion

You might wonder whether content consumption needs to feel hard, challenging, and time-consuming. It doesn’t. If you see reading and listening as forms of entertainment and leisure, it’s fine to stay forever in the comfort of level one.

If, however, you want to get the most from what you read and use it for your life, you want to reach level five with everything you consume.

Passive Reading
Highlighting
Systematic Highlight Revision
A Central Highlight Storing Location
Summarizing Key Principles with Elaborative Rehearsal
Writing Literary Summaries
Organize Your Life With Evergreen Notes

Life is a learning journey. By following Ali’s levels to remember everything you consume, you’ll soon find yourself on your path to wealth, and wisdom.

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5 Things Prolific Readers Don’t Do

October 22, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim

Give up these bad habits to get the most out of your books.

While most people agree that reading leads to happiness and wisdom, only a few become prolific readers.

The majority feels discouraged when they learn Warren Buffett reads 500 pages a day, or Bill Gates retreats to entire reading weeks. They think they can’t make enough time to read.

Yet, these people commit a common thinking error. They confuse reading time with reading quality. Becoming a productive reader has little to do with the total hours you spend reading.

Over the last years, I became a book fanatic, and since 2017, I’ve read 173 books. And until this summer, I did so while working a full-time job and running a startup at +65 hours a week.

If there’s one thing I learned, it’s that prolific readers don’t focus on doing more of something, but rather avoiding common pitfalls. Here’s the complete list:

They Don’t Force Themselves Through Mediocre Books

We only have a limited number of books we can read before we die. While our life is ticking away, new books are published at light speed.

How many books will you read before you die?

This article uses a life expectancy calculator and data on US reading habits to calculate the numbers. A 25-year old voracious reader who finishes 50 books per year has only around 2950 books left to read in their remaining life.

The number alone might seem like a lot. But if you put it in perspective, you’ll realize it’s almost nothing. Because 2950 out of 129,864,880 books are around 0.000023.

And that’s why prolific readers don’t force themselves through mediocre books. They know not all books are created equal, and most of the books aren’t worth their time.

Patrick Collison, the self-made billionaire founder of Stripe, explains in a podcast interview:

At every moment, you should be reading the best book you know of in the world [for you]. But as soon as you discover something that seems more interesting or more important, you should absolutely discard your current book … because any other algorithm necessarily results in your reading ‘worse’ stuff over time.

Time is a limited resource, and if you waste your time with a mediocre book, you won’t have enough left for the great ones.

How to do it:

Stop reading mediocre books. Get comfortable with putting an unfinished book aside when you find a better one. Look out for and read the great books, the ones that hold the power to change your entire life.

Prolific Readers Don’t Forget What They Read

Ever wondered why the smartest people you know seem to remember everything they read? It’s because people who know a lot are also likely to remember more.

Scientists agree that we learn by relating new information to what we already know. And minds filled with previous knowledge have an easier time remembering new content.

Elon Musk once answered in an ‘ask-me-anything’ Reddit thread:

“Knowledge [is]… a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to”

So the question is, how do you start building your knowledge trunk?

The learning theory answer is called elaborative rehearsal. You make an association between the new information in the book and the information you already know. The more you elaborate, or try to understand something, the more likely you‘ll keep this new information in your long-term memory.

How to do it:

The best way to do so is to connect the new knowledge to what you already know, and in the best case, apply it in real life. Take notes while reading. Instead of keeping your books look new, use them to the fullest. The more you write in the margins, the more you’ll remember.

Great Readers Don’t Focus On One Book at A Time

In March 2018, I didn’t finish a single book. It’s not that I stopped reading. Instead, I only managed to read five pages of Harari’s Sapiens before falling asleep every night.

That’s why prolific readers don’t read just one book at a time. You don’t want to eat the same dish for breakfast, lunch, and breakfast. Why would you read the same book at different times of the day?

Our brains can handle reading different books. In fact, spaced repetition, meaning revisiting some concepts with some days in between, is one of the most effective learning methods.

So, reading several books simultaneously can improve the way you remember what you read. Plus, you’ll likely find useful intersections between various concepts. It was James Clear who said:

“The most useful insights are often found at the intersection of ideas.”

How to do it:

Read a few books at the same time. Start a new book before you finish the one you’re reading. Pick a content-dense book, like Sapiens, for learning mode and a lighter fiction book for a nighttime session.

They Don’t Get Distracted By Technology

Our world is distracting, and we’re tempted to shift focus at light speed. When phones are within a hand reach, it’s easy to switch tasks without even realizing it.

Some 2000 years ago, Stoic philosopher Seneca summarized how bad even the most intelligent people are when it comes to protecting their time:

“No person hands out their money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We’re tightfisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.”

The average person spends over four hours a day on their device. If you spent half the time reading, with a reading speed of 250 words per minute and an average book length of 90,000 words, you’d finish more than two books a week. The equation is simple:

The less time you spend on your device, the more you’ll read.

In truth, we knew long before the documentary The Social Dilemma about social media’s harming effects. Yet, we fail to act upon our knowledge.

I struggled to change my phone habits for an entire year. But the journey was worth it. Once I abandoned my phone from my sleeping room and left it shut until 10 AM, I didn’t need to skip any activities to read 52 books a year.

How to do it:

You don’t need to try the digital detox apps like Forest, and Freedom. Instead, read Deep Work and Digital Minimalism and conclude that your best option is to switch off your phone whenever you want to focus completely.

Smart Readers Don’t Aim For A Number of Books

Most people confuse reading with progressing. They think reading a specific number will make them happier, healthier, and wealthier.

But no idea could be further from the truth. Reading is no fast-lane to wealth and wisdom. Instead, reading can even limit your achievements.

I know because I made this mistake.

Before building my first business, I had read dozens of books for each stage in the business lifecycle. But when it came to really starting, the biggest gamechanger was just doing it.

At some point, reading distracts you from acting. You’ll achieve more if you bump along without any books than you ever will reading and not doing anything.

So, prolific readers don’t have the goal to read a specific number of books for the sake of reading.

There’s a subtle difference between book hoarders, focusing on the total number of books they read, and prolific readers. Whereas book hoarders judge themselves by the number of books they own, smart readers judge themselves by what they got out of them and applied in real life.

Mortimer J. Adler put it best when he wrote:

“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”

How to do it:

Don’t confuse reading with acting. When you finish the book, ask yourself what to do with what you’ve just read. Apply the knowledge and put what you’ve learned into action items.

All You Need to Know

Letting go of these things isn’t difficult or exhausting.

On the contrary: Avoiding these common mistakes makes reading fun and worthwhile.

Don’t force yourself through mediocre books.
Take notes to remember what you read.
Read several books simultaneously.
Leave your phone shut whenever you want to read.
Apply what you read to your life.

Instead of feeling discouraged by all the ideas about becoming a prolific reader, enjoy experimenting at your own pace. Keep the habits that work for you and screw the rest.

Choose one or two new reading habits until you find a pattern that helps you on your journey to health, wealth, and wisdom.

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The Feynman Technique Can Help You Remember Everything You Read

October 21, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim

How to use this simple principle for you.

Books give you access to the smartest brains on our planet. And learning from the greatest thinkers and doers is your fast track to health, wealth, and wisdom.

Yet, reading per se doesn’t elevate your life. You can read 52 books a year without changing at all.

Social climber Dale Carnegie used to say knowledge isn’t power until it’s applied. And to apply what you read, you must first remember what you learned.

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (1918–1988) was an expert for remembering what he learned. Bill Gates was so inspired by his pedagogy that he named Feynman, “the greatest teacher I never had.”

Why Most People Forget What They Read

Most people confuse consumption with learning. They think reading, watching, or hearing information will make the information stick with them.

Unless you’ve got a photographic memory, no idea could be further from the truth.

To protect ourselves from overstimulation, our brains filter and forget most of what we consume. If we remembered everything we absorb, we wouldn’t be able to operate in our world.

But most people act like their brains would keep everything. They focus on reading a specific number of books a year. By focusing on quantity, instead of learning, they forget anything they read. Ultimately, for them, reading is mere entertainment.

It was Schopenhauer who already stated in the 1850s, “When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process.” So to learn, we need to think by ourselves.

A person who reads without pausing to think and reflect won’t remember nor apply anything they read.

You can spot these people easily. For example, they say they’ve read a book, but lack the words to explain their takeaways. Likely, they haven’t learned a thing from reading it.

Mortimer Adler put it best when he wrote: “The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.”

Luckily, there’s a way out of it. We can indeed learn from what we read. And we’ve known so for a long time.

How You Can Remember What You Read

Teaching is the most effective way to embed information in your mind. Plus, it’s an easy way to check whether you’ve remembered what you read. Because before you teach, you have to take several steps: filter relevant information, organize this information, and articulate them using your own vocabulary.

Feynman mastered this process like no other. The people of his time knew him for being able to explain the most complex processes in the simplest language. They nicknamed Feynman “The Great Explainer.”

If you’re after a way to supercharge your learning and become smarter, The Feynman Technique might just be the best way to learn absolutely anything. You can think of it as an algorithm for guaranteed learning.

The Feynman Technique is one method to make us remember what we read by using elaboration and association concepts. It’s a tool for remembering what you read by explaining it in plain, simple language.

Not only is the Feynman Technique a wonderful recipe for learning, but it’s also a window into a different way of thinking that allows you to tear ideas apart and reconstruct them from the ground up.

What I love about this concept is that the approach intuitively believes that intelligence is a process of growth, which dovetails nicely with the work of Carol Dweck, who beautifully describes the difference between a fixed and growth mindset. Here’s how it works.

The 4 Steps You Need To Take

In essence, the Feynman technique consists of four steps: identify the subject, explain the content, identify your knowledge gaps, simplify your explanation. Here’s how it works for any book you read:

#1 Choose the book you want to remember

After you’ve finished a book worth remembering, take out a blank sheet. Title it with the book’s name.

Then, mentally recall all principles and main points you want to keep in mind. Here, many people make the mistake to simply copy the table of content or their highlights. By not recalling the information, they skip the learning part.

What you want to do instead, is to retrieve the concepts and ideas from your own memory. Yes, this requires your brainpower. But by thinking about the concepts, you’re creating an effective learning experience.

While writing your key points, try to use the simplest language you can. Often, we use complicated jargon to mask our unknowingness. Big words and fluffy “expert words” stop us from getting to the point.

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

— Albert Einstein

#2 Pretend you are explaining the content to a 12-year old

This sounds simpler than it is. In fact, explaining a concept as plain as possible requires deep understanding.

Because when you explain an idea from start to finish to a 12-year old, you force yourself to simplify relationships and connections between concepts.

If you don’t have a 12-year old around, find an interested friend, record a voice message for a mastermind group, or write down your explanation as a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or Quora.

#3 Identify your knowledge gaps and reread

Explaining a book’s key points helps you find out what you didn’t understand. There will be passages you’re crystal clear about. At other points, you will struggle. These are the valuable hints to dig deeper.

Only when you find knowledge gaps — where you omit an important aspect, search for words, or have trouble linking ideas to each other — can you really start learning.

When you know where you’re stuck go back to your book and re-read the passage until you can explain it in your own simple language.

Filling your knowledge gaps is the extra step required to really remember what you read and skipping it leads to an illusion of knowledge.

#4 Simplify Your Explanation (optional)

Depending on a book’s complexity, you might be able to explain and remember the ideas after the previous. If you feel unsure, however, you can add an additional simplification layer.

Read your notes out loud and organize them into the simplest narrative possible. Once the explanation sounds simple, it’s a great indicator that you’ve done the proper work.

It’s only when you can explain in plain language what you read that you’ll know you truly understood the content.

The Takeaway

We all know from our own experiences that knowledge is useless unless applied. But by forgetting what we read, there’s no way to apply it to our lives.

Montaigne pointed to this fact in one of his Essays where he wrote:

We take other men’s knowledge and opinions upon trust; which is an idle and superficial learning. We must make them our own. We are just like a man who, needing fire, went to a neighbor’s house to fetch it, and finding a very good one there, sat down to warm himself without remembering to carry any back home. What good does it do us to have our belly full of meat if it is not digested, if it is not transformed into us, if it does not nourish and support us?

The Feynman Technique is an excellent way to make the wisdom from books your own. It’s a way to tear ideas apart and rebuild them from the ground up.

Here are the four steps you want to remember:

choose a book, get a blank page and title it
teach it to a 12-year old in plain, simple language
identify knowledge gaps and reread what you forgot
review and simplify your explanation (optional)

Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

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To Become a Super Learner, Avoid These Common Mistakes

October 20, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim

Key insights from research on human learning and memory.

Scientists started to investigate learning theories in 1926. Yet, almost a century later, many of us fail to apply proven learning strategies.

This meta-study on learning, memory, and metacognitive processes has shown most learners hold outdated beliefs and commit errors that can even impair, rather than enhance, their learning effectiveness.

To be honest, I was prone to all of these errors during my Bachelor and Master studies. It wasn’t until I became a Teach for All teachers that I dug deep into learning research.

So, here are the four most common mistakes that prevent us from becoming super learners.

1) Using Mass Study Instead of Spaced Repetition

Many people continue to cramp too much content into a single learning session. They confuse consumption with learning and think the more they consume; the more will stick with them.

Unless you have a photographic memory, this belief is terribly wrong.

Our brains don’t work like a computer’s hard drive where you insert a memory stick and simply remember everything on it.

Instead, our brains work as a dynamic neuronal network. We learn by making new connections within this network. Scientists agree that we learn by relating new information to what we already know.

Through smaller learning units and regular breaks, we can better support the formation of these links. Researchers have shown that learning in portions is way more effective than cramping whatever you can into a single sitting.

If you want to learn a new language and study 50 new words on Monday, you’ll likely forget all new words by Thursday. To remember what you learn, you better split the amount into separate days, research says.

How to apply it:

Break major learning sessions down to several single ones. Use technology assistance for spaced repetition, like Anki for flashcards or Lingvist for languages.

2) Memorizing Facts Without Context

By memorizing facts without any context, you’re wasting your time. Whenever you study grammatic rules, name reaction in chemistry, or browse through year dates in history, you’re not learning smart.

To remember what we learn, we must link the input to our existing knowledge.

As established, our brains are a network of neurons. You can look at it like highways with intersections. And every time an intersection with a new highway is formed, you will remember more of what you learn.

The need for connecting knowledge is the reason why knowledgeable people learn faster. If you already have a large inventory in your mind, it’s easier to find a fitting dock for what you learn.

Instead of learning a word from its translation, it’s way better to form different sentences with it and think of everyday situations when you can use it.

Here’s an among learning scientists well-known example by professor Robert Bjork:

“One chance to actually put on, fasten, and inflate an inflatable life vest would be of more value — in terms of the likelihood that one could actually perform that procedure correctly in an emergency — than the multitude of times any frequent flier has sat on an airplane and been shown the process by a flight attendant.”

How to apply it:

Connect anything you learn to what you already know. The best question to do so is asking why something works that way. Then, try to use it in a real-life context and apply the knowledge to your life.

3) Sticking to the Same Learning Method

You’ve likely heard about the people who claim to be a visual or auditive learner. Yet, the hypothesis that specific learning methods are better for some people than they are for others is an outdated belief.

At most, learning types are a self-fulfilling prophecy. This means if you believe you can learn something in a specific way, your belief in the effectiveness of this method will promote your learning efficiency.

Instead, you want to do anything that helps you relate new knowledge to existing memory — no matter if that’s via listening to a podcast, writing a reflective essay, or teaching it to a toddler.

The wider your mix of methods, the greater your learning success.

Here’s what scientists say about our brain’s infinite capacity to learn through different learning techniques:

“In fact, storing information in human memory appears to create capacity — that is, opportunities for additional linkages and storage — rather than use it up. It is also important to understand that information, once stored by virtue of having been interrelated with existing knowledge in long-term memory, tends to remain stored, if not necessarily accessible. Such knowledge is readily made accessible again and becomes a resource for new learning.”

How to apply it:

Super learners focus on diversifying their learning techniques. You can do the same by experimenting with any of the following: practical exercises, rereading, note-taking, summarizing, questioning, teaching, self-testing.

4) Avoiding Test Situations

When we’re learning something we’ve not mastered yet, we tend to avoid every opportunity to test our new skills in real life. We fear we might embarrass ourselves by making mistakes.

Here’s a personal story:

I had been learning French for three years when my parents took me to France for a camping trip. On the way, we stopped at a McDonald’s to get lunch. My parents encouraged me to make the order, yet I refused. I was afraid my French would sound hilarious.

My fear of failure stopped me from improving my skills.

The act of recalling information provides a much greater boost to later retention than studying it for a second time. So, independent reproduction — like being asked to make a restaurant order in a foreign language — is essential to keep your knowledge in mind.

Plus, Richland et al. found that long-term learning benefited when participants were asked questions that they could not answer before studying text materials.

So, making errors appears to create learning opportunities. In the words of the scientists:

“Becoming maximally effective as a learner requires interpreting errors and mistakes as an essential component of effective learning rather than as a reflection of one’s inadequacies as a learner.”

How to apply it:

Seek situations where you can test your new knowledge. Don’t judge yourself for not getting everything right. Instead, focus on the learning benefit you get from making mistakes.

Conclusion

Learning is a journey, not a destination. And to learn more effectively, here’s what you might want to keep in mind:

Use space repetition instead of mass learning.
Embed new facts into context.
Experiment with diverse learning methods.
Seek test situations and embrace mistakes.

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4 Steps To Transform Your Kindle Into A Learning Device

October 20, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim

How to get the most from your e-reader.

Most people are e-reading enemies until they truly read their first e-book. I remained an enemy fifteen books in.

Building on my education expertise, I’d argue you can’t interact with your Kindle as you can with your physical book. You can’t dog-ear your favorite pages, scribble your questions in the margins, or sketch out the concept you just learned.

And while these arguments still hold true, technology-assisted learning makes most of them irrelevant. Now that I discovered how to use my Kindle as a learning device, I wouldn’t trade it for a paper book anymore.

Here are the four steps it takes to enrich your e-reading experience.

1. Highlight Everything You Want To Remember

No worries, I know researchers proved highlighting to be an ineffective learning tool. In fact, I join the canon against highlighting as a learning technique.

And yet, highlighting your e-book’s phrases is the necessary first step to create your learning experience. Here’s why.

First, highlighting will slow down your reading speed. This is a good thing, as researchers from San Jose State University have shown that people tend to skim through the pages when reading from a screen. But you don’t want to skim. You want to deep read the words in front of you.

Plus, your highlights form the original material for your learning experience. And this is also why, against common wisdom, you shouldn’t limit your highlights to a specific number. Instead, move your fingers over any piece of content you find worth remembering.

2. Cut Down Your Highlights In Your Browser

After you finished reading the book, you want to reduce your highlights to the essential part. Visit your Kindle Notes page to find a list of all your highlights. Using your desktop browser is faster and more convenient than editing your highlights on your e-reading device.

Now, browse through your highlights, delete what you no longer need, and add notes to the ones you really like. By adding notes to the highlights, you’ll connect the new information to your existing knowledge. You’re engaging in what learning theory calls elaborative rehearsal.

Using the Kindle Notes browser app saved me about an hour per book. Before, I browsed through all physical book pages to locate the pages where I added my thoughts. While this practice was fun, it didn’t add up to my learning experience.

3. Write a Quick Review To Summarize Your Insights

Now, trimmed down your highlights and elaborated on the best ones. Ideally, you only have the quintessence with some personal notes left. You’re all set for the learning fun.

The first thing you want to do is writing a quick review, for example, on Goodreads. While it’s nice to show you’re friends what you’ve read, this exercise is about testing what you remember.

Here are the three questions you want to recall from your memory:

How would you summarize the book in three sentences?
Which three things do you want to keep in mind?
Which concepts will you apply in your life based on your new knowledge?

Watch out to not copy/paste your highlights or building on other user’s reviews. If you don’t do the brain work yourself, you’ll skip the learning benefits of self-testing.

What you want to do instead is to retrieve the concepts and ideas from your own memory. By thinking about the concepts, testing yourself, you’re creating an effective learning experience.

4. Use Spaced Repetition to Remember What You Read

This part is the main reason for e-books beating printed books. While you can do all of the above with a little extra time on your physical books, there’s no way to systemize your repetition praxis.

But before I show you how you can connect your Kindle to a spaced repetition software, allow me to explain why this learning technique is so powerful.

Spaced repetition helps you prevent your brain from forgetting. Research has shown that repeating the same information ten times over different days is a better way to remember things than repeating the same information twenty times on a single day.

By revisiting the same things regularly at set intervals over time, you make the new information stick to your long-term memory. And that’s what makes spaced repetition one of the most effective learning methods there is.

Readwise (no affiliate, no partnership) is the best software to combine spaced repetition with your e-books. It’s an online service that connects to your Kindle account and imports all your Kindle highlights. Then, it creates flashcards of your highlights and allows you to export your highlights to your favorite note-taking app.

Buy Your Next E-Book While Reading A Great Book

All of the above is only useful if you read the right book at the right times. Books that hold the potential to improve your understanding of self, the world, or your entire existence.

And to find these kinds of books, you need to plan what you e-read.

Buying a book on your Kindle when you just finished a book and desperately need a new one is like going into a grocery store while starving. Everything will look delicious, and you will end up buying shit.

Out of the 129,864,880 books, there are, most will be, not worth your time.

So instead of following your Kindle book recommendations and compulsively buying a bestseller, keep ownership of your book selection. Goodreads, Gatesnotes, Ryan Holiday’s booklist, and Mortimer J. Adler’s appendix are a great place to start.

In Conclusion

While many people use e-readers these days, only very few turn them into learning devices. By following these steps, you’ll enrich your e-reading experience and get the most from what you read.

Highlight everything you want to remember.
Use the kindle notes page to cut down your highlights to their essentials.
Write a quick Goodreads review to summarize your key learnings.
Use Readwise to remember what you read.
Buy your next e-book before finishing your current one.

Instead of feeling discouraged by all the ideas about how you can improve your learning experience, enjoy experimenting at your own pace. Keep the steps that work for you and screw the rest.

Choose one or two new e-reading habits until you find a pattern that helps you on your journey to health, wealth, and wisdom.

Sign up for free to the Learner’s Letter to get weekly insights on reading, learning, and growth.

4 Growth Mindset Quotes That Will Change the Way You Learn

August 22, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim

Pearls of wisdom from Carol Dweck.

Carol Dweck is America’s most influential researcher on motivation and mindset. She coined the term growth mindset — something all lifelong learners have in common.

She is a Psychology professor at Standford and also taught at Columbia and Harvard. Yet, you don’t need a Ph.D. to understand her work. She uses relatable language and basic logic to change the way we learn.

Dweck’s book shattered my wrong learning beliefs and changed my life for the better. People aren’t born smart. They become smart as a result of learning.

These quotes transform your life for the better by inviting more challenges and growth. Here are four curated mindset quotes that will open your heart and mind to the concept of a growth mindset and, in doing so, change the way you learn.

“When you make your best effort, you may be outscored, but you will never lose.”

Formal education teaches us to focus on the outcome. That’s why most of us judge our performance based on results: a grade, a score, a certificate.

Yet, what is far more important than achieving any result, is whether you made your best effort during the process.

Often, the outcome is influenced by factors you can’t control. You can’t control the end.

Instead, what you can always control is whether you did your best. As long as you focus on the effort, you’ll live your best self. And by giving your best, you’ll never lose — despite the outcome.

Derive your happiness and value from your effort. Focus on the process instead of the result.

How to do it:

Instead of asking whether you won, ask yourself whether you did your best. Have no fear of losing. If you lose but give your best effort, you’ll have nothing to regret.

Let go of controlling the outcome. Instead, focus on what you can control: your intention, your attitude, and your actions.

By doing the work, day in and day out, you’ll become better. And by focusing on one step at a time, you’ll win in life.

“Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better?”

Let’s imagine you could choose to play tennis against two different players. If you pick the first player, you’ll win 3:0. If you select the second, you’ll lose 1:3.

Would you choose the game you win or the one where you learn?

Sure bets won’t make you better. Risk-free wins won’t add to your learning curve.

Babies never decide it’s too hard or not worth the effort. They don’t worry about making mistakes. They walk, they fall, they get up, and they learn.

Instead of seeking validation, seek challenges that make you fall. If you pick winning, you’ll inflate your ego. If you choose learning, you’ll learn for life. Only the later will steer you towards the path for success.

How to do it:

Ignore games and tasks. You can win quickly and perfectly. You won’t form new connections in your brain.

You don’t need to prove yourself that you’re perfect at something. Instead, get your shit together and try something new.

Seek learning opportunities. Look for challenges that make you grow. And while you’ll be struggling, remember the best learning happens outside of your comfort zone.

“When you already know you’re deficient, you have nothing to lose by trying.”

I wish I could read this quote to my younger self. As a teenager, I loved our piano. Yet, I never played it. I feared to destroy my illusion of being a perfect player.

Perfectionism hinders learning. The fear of making mistakes prevents you from trying.

When you know you’re not perfect, you’re humble enough to go ahead and try. You don’t fear to destroy your ideal self. Instead, you’re open to making mistakes and learning.

The geniuses, the world-class performers, became world-class because they weren’t afraid to fail. Instead of thinking they already knew it all, they were aware of their deficiency.

How to do it:

Know that you’ll never be perfect. When you know, there’s still so much to learn you don’t fear to try.

Once you accept that you’re deficient, you’ll get out of your way. You’ll start practicing and getting better.

“Real self-confidence is not reflected in a title, an expensive suit, a fancy car, or a series of acquisitions. It is reflected in your mindset: your readiness to grow.”

True intelligence means changing your opinion based on new insights. It’s staying open to new learning.

This is easier said than done. We grow up with a set of beliefs and values and surround ourselves with people who share our opinion.

The deeper we are on our island of knowledge, the more difficult it is to change your opinion when you’re faced with new ideas.

Yet, by having the courage to be open, we invite learning opportunities. Ultimately, this open-mindedness will accelerate our learning.

How to do it:

Beware of the four horsemen of a fixed mindset. Every time you find yourself in some of these thought patterns remind yourself to be open:

– I know it all.
– You’re wrong, I rule.
– Oh, I’ve heard of this concept before.
– Nothing new for me.

The effort to think openly and embrace new ideas will be worth it when you’re able to take part in the benefits that come from opening your mind.

Final Thoughts

Most of the time, we make learning harder than it needs to be. Small shifts in our mindset can lead to happiness and fulfillment.

And while each of these mindset shifts can change the way you learn, you certainly don’t need to integrate all of them.

At the end of the day, your lifelong learning journey is defined by you.

Use these ideas as a source of inspiration and brainstorm what might help you to live a happier, healthier, and more fulfilled life.

And always keep Dweck’s words in mind who said

“When Do You Feel Smart: When You’re Flawless or When You’re Learning?”

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7 Things I Learned Reading 52 Books a Year For Two Years

June 19, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim

#1: Read the books that make you want to read more.

I started to get serious about reading in early 2018. I committed to wake up every day at 5:30 AM and read until 7 AM. Sometimes I’d read after work, and by replacing my smartphone with an alarm clock, I’d always make time to read before going to bed.

One of my main motivations for reading more was a quote by Charlie Munger, self-made billionaire and Warren Buffett’s longtime business partner, who said:

“In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time — none. Zero.”

Since March 2018, I’ve read 174 books. Here are some of the lessons I learned:

#1. Read the Books that Make You Want to Read More

Reading shouldn’t feel hard. If you don’t like the book you hold in your hands, skip it. Better to waste 11.95$ than 4 hours of your lifetime.

Books aren’t created equal — millions aren’t worth your time.

Only because your mentor liked a book, it doesn’t mean you must enjoy it. Maybe you don’t like the topic from a book on the bestseller list. Maybe you find a book too fluffy. Or maybe, the book is a classic, but you dislike the writing style.

I abandoned George Orwell’s 1984 a few pages in, and most people will blame me for not finishing this classic. But to be honest, I just couldn’t stand the negative utopia.

Lifetime is too precious to endure books you don’t like. Read the genres you cherish, the content you enjoy, from the authors you admire.

How to apply this advice

Every time you start a book, ask yourself a few questions. Do you like the tone of voice? Do you understand the content, or do you get sleepy every time you hole the book in your hands? How do you feel when you close the book: Do you want to continue reading, or are you happy you put the book aside? And overall, do you get what the author is trying to say?

Never force yourself through a book you don’t enjoy reading.

The best person to judge whether you should read a book is neither Goodreads nor your smart friend — it’s you.

#2. Communicate With Your Books

It was during my work in India when I first saw a person scribble into a new book. When I asked him why he’d destroy the book, he answered:

“Books are there for you. What’s the point of reading, if you can’t highlight your favorite sentences, ask questions?”

Since then, I never left a book unmarked. Using text markers, stickers, and pens make reading more fun, more memorable. In #7, you’ll learn how to systemize what you’ve read.

Here’s how my advice-dense books look like:

How to apply this advice

Cross out what you don’t like. Put stickers on pages where you experienced “aha” moments. Highlight what you want to remember. Jot down a question if lines are unclear. Scribble notes on the pages, to reuse what you’ve read.

#3. Replace Your Phone with Your Book

Did you know the average person spends over four hours a day on their device? If you spent half the time reading, with a reading speed of 250 words per minute and an average book length of 90,000 words, you’d finish more than two books a week.

The less time you spend on your phone, the more you’ll read.

Changing my phone habits was probably the hardest part but also the most effective one. I didn’t need to skip any activities to read 52 books a year. Decreasing my screen time enabled me to read (and write).

I tried different digital detox apps like Forest, Phocus, Freedom, and Moment but eventually, I deleted all of them. Ironically, the books Deep Work and Digital Minimalism helped me most to reclaim my time.

How to apply this advice

Disable all notifications. Use airplane mode whenever possible. When you start reading, put your phone into a different room. Replace your smartphone’s alarm function with a classic alarm clock. The only thing you can do in bed, besides sleeping, should be reading. Carry books with you while commuting. Instead of grabbing your phone, grab your book.

For a more radical guide, read Ryan Holiday’s advice for spending less time on your phone.

#4. Be Clear About Why You Read

Do you want to find facts, seek entertainment, or expand your understanding? Different books require different mindsets.

Thanks to How to Read a Book, the classic guide to intelligent reading, I learned not to read non-fiction chronologically. While I still read most books cover to cover, knowing I can skip irrelevant passages makes reading more relevant.

Your life is too short for passages that don’t serve your needs.

How to apply this advice

Ask yourself what you’re looking for before you open a book. Evaluate the first impression against your reading intention. Check whether the author has the credentials to give you advice. Many writers produce theoretical self-help fluff and have never done what they’re preaching.

If the book in your hands doesn’t fulfill what you’re looking for, put it aside. If you’re looking for specific information, identify relevant chapters, and only read those.

#5. Read Different Books Simultaneously

You don’t feel like reading before you go to sleep? Chances are high it’s the wrong book on your bed table.

I love reading non-fiction with technical investing advice, but this doesn’t mean I want to be sitting in bed at night with my mind buzzing with all the new things I learn. Instead, I quiet my mind with lighter fiction. Between my reading start and finish of Harari’s content-dense Sapiens, I read four other books.

You don’t want to eat the same dish for breakfast, lunch, and breakfast. Why would you read the same book at different times of the day?

“The most useful insights are often found at the intersection of ideas.“

— James Clear

How to apply this advice

Be okay with reading a few books at the same time. You can start a new book before you finished the one you’re reading. Start with one content-dense book for learning mode and a lighter fiction for nighttime lecture or weekend mornings.

If you’re interested in a book, but you’re not in the right frame of mind to read it just yet, put it on your reading list.

#6. Keep a “Want-To-Read” List

Reading is like every other part of life: Unless you choose what you want to read, others, like the airport’s bookshelves, will choose for you.

Moreover, the best motivator to continue reading your book is a long list of books you want to read after finishing.

The “want-to-read” piles on my bookshelf motivate me to read. One pile is for self-help advice, one for non-fiction, one for education and one for fiction.

How to apply this advice

Have a “reading list” in place and feed the list regularly. If you already have a list tracking in place, us it. If not, try Google Keep, Wunderlist, Amazon Wishlist, Bullet Journal, ToDoist, or Goodreads and settle on your favorite book tracker.

The filter function is a clear upside for Goodreads. In your “Want to Reads,” you can search for “date added” and “avg rating.” For ideas for your reading list, you can also use Goodreads to browse your friend’s lists.

#7. Apply Your Knowledge

Before building my first business, I had read dozens of books for each stage in the business lifecycle. But when it came to really starting, the biggest impact was just doing it.

At some point, “reading” distracts you from doing. You’ll get farther bumping along on your own without any books than you ever will reading and not doing anything.

Entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk wrote why reading wouldn’t help you become a better entrepreneur, saying:

“But how many books from these ‘experts’ do you need to read before you can actually do something? You can only read so much and at some point, you just have to do. Stop being a student, and start being an entrepreneur.”

Be careful about whether you’re procrastinating with reading and whether it holds you back from taking action.

How to apply this advice

When you finish the book, ask yourself what to do with what you’ve just read. Go back to the pages you highlighted or put stickers on. Put what you’ve learned into action items.

For example, when you read High-Performance Habits and learn about Affirmations, commit to recording your affirmation.

Unless you follow the advice from books and do something, even the smartest advice is a waste of your time.

The Bottom Line

In any case, don’t set your goal of reading a specific number of books per year and keep Mortimer J. Adler’s words in mind:

“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”

And whenever you find yourself wondering whether spending money on books is worth it, remind yourself of Benjamin Franklin who said an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

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