10 Top Strategies for Self-Learners that will make you Learn Faster
Learning as an autodidact is the most exciting way to learn. Indeed, you choose your topics, and you learn at your own pace.
However, there is some drawbacks and as a consequence, you must have a strong self-discipline and devotion if you want to master what you want to learn.
Last week I wrote an article about how I Quit my Law Studies to Learn online what I love: AI.
I wrote some strategies that I use as a self-learner that I replicated in this article + new strategies.
1. You have no excuses!
First of all, you have no excuses : you can learn everything with internet: from the Uzbek language to the study of nuclear fission. From MOOCS to tutorials on youtube you have access to a ton of free resources.
You want to create a video game? You can learn it here! You want to speak French? You can learn here.
2. Plan well or you will fail
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
― Benjamin Franklin
Plan well and stick to your schedules if you want to succeed.
Put deadlines, deadlines are here to force you to stick to your schedules and to stay on the track.
Planning is maybe the hardest thing : because there is a ton of resources, it’s simple to be overwhelmed and to procrastinate.
My methodology:
Have 3 plannings
- One for the month: what you want to accomplish in each domain ?
- One for the week, be honest and realist about what you can do.
- A Todolist for each day: done the day before, each task must be estimated in time.
As you can see, you don’t need fancy programs: I use excel for my Monthly and weekly planning and Notepad for my todolist.
3. Work Hard Play Hard
Your time is precious. You must be fully commited on what you do if you want to be productive and get the most of the day, there is nothing worse than spending hours on learning a topic but remembering nothing because you were not focusing on it.
Word Hard Play Hard
When you’re working, work hard, be focus, turn off your facebook, phone, snapchat and all of that stuff that destroy your focus. Be fully commited on what you do.
When you’re playing, play hard, have funny distractions that you really like. No spending time on facebook is not a funny distraction! You know it, it does not bring much pleasure.
You like the Sims, Starcraft? Better idea to play 10 minutes the Sims than spending 10 minutes on Facebook.
4. Use the 50/10 Rule
It’s scientifically proven that your brain can be concentrated in maximum 50 minutes. It’s really useless to work hard during 5 hours without breaks.
My advice use the 50/10 Rule:
50 minutes of work
10 minutes of pause
6. Practice Active Reading
Nothing worse that passive learning/reading. Have you ever wondered why when you’ve just read a page you can’t recall something? It’s because you do passive reading.
Here some strategies for Active reading:
- Read the Table of contents and the titles and elements of the chapter before begin to read the chapter to see the big picture.
- At the end of each subchapter recall the main ideas.
- When you take notes, don’t just copy but change the phrases to make it yours.
For more information about this topic, watch this excellent video by College Info Geek.
7. When watching a course : be an active listener
To be an active listener:
- If there is some readings suggestions, do the readings about it first, find the best resources and read it: it will helps you to know a little bit what the professor will talk about.
- Do a recall of the main ideas at the end of each video.
- Takes notes, don’t try to just copy the phrases said by the professor, but try to rephrase it to make them own.
8. You don’t know something if YOU DON’T TEST YOURSELF
Practice makes permanent
How many times we say “Sure it’s easy I know that’s so logic!” yeah, this is call lying to yourself.
Avoid these“illusions of competences” (as explained by Barbra Oakley in her great course Learning how to learn) by testing yourself.
When you test yourself: don’t look at the solution, try as best to do the exercise by yourself. If you can’t you don’t know and need more practice.
Remember:
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool, Nobel Prize Winner Richard Feynman
9. For God sake culture is not a fancy word!
Cultivate yourself! The worst thing that can happen to you is to become a specialist in your domain but an uneducated in all other fields.
The best people are whose who are cultivated in different fields which allows them to see the world in different perspectives and as a consequence, to innovate.
Listen good podcasts like the NPR’ podcasts, go to museums, go to the library, READ READ READ!
10. Do Side Projects !
Side projects are great especially in the programming field. It helps you to apply what you’ve learn. But also hoping to raise your profile. And sometimes making money.
2 importants things to consider:
- Start small then improve: sure you have this great idea of creating the next facebook with a ton of features. But start small or you’ll never finish.
- One side project at a time!: sure you want to create a video game, but also write a book, but also create a new AI agent. That’s cool, that’s great idea, but tell me how you’re gonna to handle this 3 projects ? Pick one and finish it!
Resources
MOOCs:
- https://www.class-central.com/ : class central is a search engine that helps you to find the best MOOCs.
Learning better, learning faster:
- Learning how to learn : one of the greatest MOOC of all times. Barbra Oakley give you a lot of keys to learn better and faster.
- Mindshift : the continuation of the first MOOC.
- Feynman Technique : this is for me the best technique to learn everything.
Learning:
- Khan Academy, is a free MOOC platform with tons of videos about a lot of topics
- MIT OpenCourseWare is the MIT platform with a lot of great courses from the MIT.
- edx: edx is one of the most famous MOOC platform with courses from Harvard, MIT…
- Coursera: another great MOOC platform.
- Udacity: Udacity is the greatest platform to learn to program, the courses are made by big names such as Google, Facebook, Kaggle… (Android apps, iOS apps, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, AI…).
- Free Code Camp : If you want to start learning how to program freeCodeCamp is the best website you can find. The courses are very good and the community is very active and love to help you.
That’s all, I hope that this article inspired you and give you some useful advices to be a self-learner and learn better and faster. Now, go back to work !😄
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