Learning

Back in high school I played trumpet. I never really got any good at it. I particularly struggled with the relationships between the notes in a scale. During college, I took a music theory class and things started to make more sense. After I moved to Washington for work I wanted to incorporate musicality back in my life, so I decided to learn piano. This was when everything really came together. [Read More]

Last week’s post cautions learners to be aware of Illusions of Competency. A common Illusion of Competency is spending time on things you already know vs what you’re struggling with. This of course makes sense. We want to protect our ego and feel competent. So we just keep reviewing questions where we already know the answers. How do we take off the blinders and keep ourselves in check? Anki Anki is a great software tool to address this issue using a technique called Spaced Repetition learning. [Read More]

I highly recommend the free online course Learning How to Learn by Oakley and Sejnowski. The concepts and techniques presented in the course offer significant dividends for all future learning endeavors. This would have been invaluable to know in college, high school, and earlier. Like an investment account, the sooner you start, the more time it has to grow with compound interest. Illusions of Competency One concept that really stuck out to me was the concept of “illusions of competency. [Read More]