Day 7: What to Learn

Today we continue our creating our learning plan by determining the topic and scope of our learning project. We will cover the indicators of what to learn and techniques for helping you to decide what to learn.

Resources for this lesson:

• Transcripts
• Worksheet
• List of Scientific Resources

Summary

What are the Indicators of What to Learn?

Before determining what to learn you must understand the task at hand

• What is required of you for knowing this information?
• How will you use this information?
• How will you be assessed?
• What timeframe and resources do you have for your learning?

If you don't know where to start on a task, that's typically a sign that you haven't understood the task well enough.

Use your goals to help determine what to learn and provide a source of motivation. Use three types of goals in your learning:

• Long-term goals: big lofty things we want to accomplish in our life, that excites you and it gives you a good feeling.
• Milestone goals: act as steps on the road to reaching your long-term goal.
• Process goas: actionable habits and systems that are taken daily that help you reach your milestone goals.

You job is to break down long-term goals into actionable, manageable chunks in the form of milestone and process goals.

An easy way to start setting goals is using the SMART method, which means setting goals that are specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic, and time limited.

Why it matters: Tasks asked by others and our internal goals will point us to the things we must learn if we want to fulfill that task or achieve our goals.

How to Determine What to Learn

When beginning a learning project, we must determine what topic we're going to learn and it's approximate scope.

• Start with a rather narrow scope, which can expand as you proceed and need more understanding.
• Find out what level of understanding or knowledge do you need to successfully fulfill your task or reach your goal.
• Use tools like frequency lists which point out the most common pieces of knowledge that everyone should learn if they wish to be proficient.
• Breakdown large knowledge fields into small units of learning, focusing on one and stacking them together over time.
• List out the concepts, facts, and procedures of a knowledge field and then brainstorm all the things you need to learn.
• Decide what the most important things to learn are based on your personal goals.
• Use the 80/20 principle: what is the 20% of the things that you need to learn that's going to get you 80% of the results in the future.
• Stack skills together, taking skills from different fields and combining them to have a unique set of skills that sets you apart from everyone else.
• Use the emphasize exclude technique, emitting or delaying elements of your learning plan that don't align with your goals right now.
• Decide the correct order to learn the knowledge you must acquire.

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Activity

To determine what to learn answer the following questions:

• What level of understanding or knowledge do you need?
• How can this information be broken down into basic units of learning?
• What are the most important things to learn based on my personal goals?
• What is the right order in which to learn this information?

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Skill Lesson Mastered

Demonstrate mastery of the knowledge and skills presented in this lesson by applying it to the above activity. If, and only if, you have a full understanding and have mastered the knowledge and skills presented in this lesson, select the next lesson in the navigation.