Curiosity is a powerful driver. I love to learn new things, and in the modern world of technology, being a lifetime learner – and always curious – is a necessity. I’m also an impatient learner.
I relish the challenge of learning new things. I love getting through a complicated subject that I’m intensely interested in and working past the frustration one may feel at the start. I love the release of endorphins in those “ah-ha!” moments of discovery and understanding – the moments when you really “grok” something. I enjoy the ride along the road to mastery as I know that I’ll eventually start down the path where things get more productive and creative. I love the feeling of “flow,” when I’m wholly immersed in a subject, and when things come quickly and easily.
When I was young, I felt that I could never be an 8th-grade math teacher, because 8th-grade math never changed. Why 8th-grade math stuck in my head is likely arbitrary, and I later understood that there are many rewards and great satisfaction that comes from helping others learn and assisting them to get to those places I describe above. But that thought described my yearning to understand new and different things, to help me grow as a person intellectually, and to grow in my profession. I’ve always been fascinated by further research on the human brain and learning, and have worked to integrate new learning techniques into my routines. We all want perfect memories, and the ability to learn new things quickly, right?
I’ve spent a lot of time “Learning to Learn,” as the title of this blog post says, and working to optimize learning and memory. My purpose here is to share my experience, tools, and various techniques for learning and remembering any subject.
Perfect Memory
Sorry, but perfect memory doesn’t exist. I joke that, “I have a photographic memory, but that sometimes the flash doesn’t go off,” and that describes my experience. Some things are crystal-clear, and some things are a bit fuzzy or dark. There are some things that I can learn that seem to come back to me quickly and easily with no effort, and other things where I tend to struggle just like everyone else. For instance, in a social situation, I’m likely to ask you what your name is a few times after meeting you. Repeating the name to myself or in speaking to the person helps, but not always. I’m upfront about it, though, and freely admit I struggle with names, and find that most people are the same. That shared experience can be a bit of an ice-breaker and source of amusement, rather than a source of embarrassment. Don’t expect me to remember a phone number, either – I need to get it into my address book. Some of this memory issue is a sign of the time where we don’t need to remember phone numbers; we have a place to store them and let them go. You may never be aware of the number again in your life, so why save that data in your head? It is far less stressful to have a reliable and consistent place to store information, where you then don’t then need remember it with 100% accuracy.
Technical information tends to stick with me somewhat easily, and I can often see things in my mind when I need to recall. Much of this is likely because I’ve already built a foundation where that information can live and thrive. There is likely a valid reason for the ease; it isn’t necessarily a difference in my brain, but likely that I’ve already put in the time needed to grok the new things quickly.
Conversely, I’ve also had the humbling experience of trying to learn a new CAD program where the documentation was terrible, and I got often lost as I began to use the program. The experience helped me to be a better author and educator, though, and to better empathize with my students.
Relying on memory as a primary source of information, however, is fraught with problems. Memories fade and are not always accurate. Studies of eye-witness accounts of an accident show a fantastic amount of error in accuracy and a surprising amount of variance from observer to observer. Additionally, when you focus intently on one thing, it can mask awareness of other, perhaps, more important things, like in this video.
I often see the frustration in my students when they are trying to learn a vast new subject like 3ds Max, or another other large application. There is just too much to take in at a time.
What I tell them is that it isn’t always about knowing everything, but in understanding what is possible and where to look for more information.
Taking time to get the big picture at the start, and working to understand what is possible in the big picture, can lead to better success and less frustration. Understanding the details of what each of a particular feature’s parameters do isn’t as important as knowing that it exists and where to find the details. As you use the feature more, you will undoubtedly nail the essential parameters, but never be afraid to look it up. Things change all the time, and it’s good to check and see if anything is new or improved.
A reliable memory of anything subject takes multiple passes through that information. It is the only way to make the info permanent.
Improving Your Memory
Eat right, get some exercise, and certainly a lot of rest every day. That will get you part way there, at least. Sleep is essential to memory formation. Reading or learning before bedtime will help those memories move from short to long-term memory.
The other thing you can do is to organize yourself and build new habits for storing information as it comes to you. In the book, “Getting Things Done,” one of the things David Allen talks about is, in short, writing things down and then letting them go. Like the phone number, you know where it is, and you don’t need to stress over where it is or how to find it.
I use two primary tools for storing and retrieving information: Evernote and The Brain. The first is a notebook, and the other is mind mapping software. Some may use Microsoft Notes or another mind mapping tool, but these work well for me. They are my cyber memory enhancements.
Evernote
My Evernote account has over 7700 notes in dozens of nested notebooks on everything from book research to meeting notes, PDF technical articles to business cards. I’ve made it a habit in placing almost all information I might need into Evernote, even if it is just a brief quip, a name, or a web address I might want to refer to later. I use the clipping function in Chrome or Edge all the time to save essential articles, quotations, and interesting tidbits.
Like any habit, it takes time to make it part of your life. You need to have Evernote open and available and to use it as your only source of note-taking. Unless I have no other choice, I do not use hand-written notes. It is a double effort to transfer that into digital (although I can and do take pictures), and it is a mess to manage multiple notebooks and scraps of paper. Just say no. I need to recall that information and have it searchable.
On a side note, just the act of writing something down can help to make that memory more permanent. If you don’t have your note taking software available, then definitely write it down and take a picture if you’ll need it later. I’ve also used digital audio recorders to take down notes and thoughts. I use the Nuance “Dragon” software for speech-to-text, and that is amazingly accurate these days. I find that recording lectures are not something I tend to go back to, but for short notes when I’m driving, for instance, the audio recorder works great. I also advise getting one that isn’t your phone where you need to hit three buttons for it to work. Quick and easy, and transfer to text as soon as possible.
I like Evernote enough to pay for their premium service and sync it with every device I own. I rely on the fact that every PDF and image is also searchable; I take pictures of everything from serial numbers to products I like and can usually find the information I need in seconds.
The Brain
Mind mapping with The Brain is an almost analog compliment to the linear note taking and data storage of Evernote. Each node is a thought, concept, or topic, and there can be one or more connections to other thoughts anywhere on the map. It is like the brain and the relationships between thoughts and memories. I’ve used mind mapping for many years, and find most mapping software to be limited and rigid. The Brain is free-form and flowing, and the best way for me to store information about the world around me, and the subjects I’m interested in or need to track.
When I started at Autodesk, I was told that information would come at you like you are drinking from a firehose. That was true. As new information came to me I did my best to capture it into The Brain in a mind map I called “The Autodesk Connectome Project,” an idea that I took from the “Human Connectome Project.” Autodesk was about thoughts and relationships, and a perfect subject. I found The Brain was the only way I could get a good handle on the people, resources, projects, and the thousands of other things required for my job. It was a lifesaver. Between Evernote and The Brain, I could usually bring up any information I needed within a few seconds. A lot of this was links to the hundreds of Wiki pages we wrote on various subjects, and I would invariably use The Brain to get back to a page rather than relying on awkward “Favorites” in Chrome or Edge. At the end of my tenure at Autodesk, my connectome brain has 6200 thoughts and 6800 links between the thoughts. My largest mind map to-date was on some personal fiction writing projects, and that stands at 9200+ thoughts and 10,300+ connections. Others have brains in the 100,000+ range.
Memory Cleanup
The memories stored in these databases can get stale over time. The research for my book isn’t pertinent, and I need to go through and delete those notes. People and relationships in the company change and I need to keep updating the status and connections for those that are important to me, and as I connect again with the subject or group. Just like in real memory, our digital minds need some weeding from time to time, but never more than is necessary or useful to your work. It can be cathartic to clean your digital house, but it is a lot easier if you just do a little at a time, like weeding a garden. It pays off in the end, both in refreshing your wetware memory and improving your database.
Finding the Time to Learn
One thing that many people struggle with is finding the time to learn. You will be amazed at the amount of time you can squeeze into your day or week when you make learning a priority, and reduce some barriers to learning.
The first barrier is accessibility. I brought books with me just about everywhere – to lunch, to the doctor’s office, and as something to read before a meeting started. Even in environments that aren’t very conducive to learning, I found that skimming through a book, or reviewing things that I’ve already covered, helps to reinforce the information and add learning value to an otherwise wasted opportunity. (I’ll include more on learning techniques in the next post.)
The second barrier is life itself. I’ve gone through cycles in my life where I needed to make learning a priority, and it typically required me to take a step back and inventory the things that took time out of my life and didn’t give me some value in return. As a single parent there are things you can’t and won’t cut, but I found that television shows and Netflix usually (with rare exceptions) don’t bring me positivity in my life, and are easy to cut. I did a lot of learning at sport-ball and cheerleading practice, and even coded projects on my laptop, outdoors, wrapped in a blanket. You want and need to be present to things in your life, of course, but can likely find an idle time where you can learn, read, and even do.
With all that said, it’s important to remember that we aren’t robots, after all, and non-stop work leads to burnout. Recreation, exercise, time with friends, and even TV can be a necessity when you need some downtime. Recent studies had shown that working an extraordinary number of hours only reaps a benefit for about a week or two before you become less efficient and may be doing as much, or less, than when you were working regular hours. Take a break when you need it.
Optimized Learning
As much as I love to learn, I’ve always been impatient in my learning. Learning takes a lot of time, and that delays me getting to the fun part where I’m actively creative.
In the next blog post, I’m going to cover some of the techniques I use to optimize my experience when learning a new subject.
- Jenni