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Comment by maxwellfoley | Hacker News Reader

Is this any good? I've had it in my list of things to check out for a while but I suspect it might just be TED-talk pop-psych voodoo stuff.

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This is a zero-bullshit course. I completed it in about a week an a half (definitely not a lot of work) and it's drastically changed the way I look at learning and my perspective about the difficulty of earning new skills.

My pace on reading programming books for instance has gone down such that it takes about 2-3 times it would normally take to go through the material, however the difference is unmistakable with respect to how much I know the material. It took me 2-3 years of additional work experience to be at a comparable level in other topics.

So you read through the books more slowly, practicing, and recalling the material? Can you elaborate on your process now?

I work several subjects in parallel (three books currently). I go through each chapter twice. Once to understand the material then moving on to another book.

When I come back to the former book I go through the chapter again creating Anki cards for anything notable. The sheer amount of material I notice I had completely forgotten on the second reading is astounding.

I go through the Anki cards daily, in the morning I cover the material created from two of my books. In the evening I go through the third book (which I deem more valuable in a deep sense/abstract).

I have yet to have solid a strategy on chunk-building (as the course pushes you to do), however I can still see some bigger units emerge with time.

Thanks very much

Can you elaborate on why it's valuable to go through different books in parallel? My goal has always been to do one thing at a time, so the idea that the opposite if beneficial is interesting.

The course emphasizes how memory works, you would think that to remember things you have to write the information well-enough in it so it sticks. But in reality, the information has been there the first time around the issue for the brain is finding the information like locating a product in a large warehouse.

It is the process of recall that makes things stick to memory as opposed to repeated memorization. Working on several subjects at a time spaces out sessions and prevents the illusion that you have access to the knowledge you worked for when in fact you don't.

Very interesting. Thanks for the info. I honestly haven't given much thought to how much I recall; I figured that I remembered what I remembered and that was that. Perhaps that should receive more attention.

These two blog posts by K. Eric Drexler explain why this is important. It's related to learning subjects you have no familiarity with.

[1] http://metamodern.com/2009/05/27/how-to-learn-about-everythi...

[2] http://metamodern.com/2009/05/17/how-to-understand-everythin...

Based on that endorsement, I'm going to have to check it out for sure. Thanks!

Can confirm. I'm a fast learner, and this course made noticeable improvements in my learning speed and ability to memorize.

No, it's really good. They back up their statements with neuroscience research and give you practical implementation tips.

It was alright in the sense that I went through it passively (didn't do the assignments, just watched the videos). They put a great perspective on how we learn which summarized to spaced repetition, taking in subjects as chunks, and some time management techniques(like the pomodoro).

It is excellent. Technics I've taken years to collect are grouped and organized in just one place. Go for it.

I'd put more emphasis in topics like SRS, but maybe it is a matter of taste.

It's great. They also link to a lot of additional optional reading to backup what they're talking about and much of that is also very useful.

sp527 covered it pretty well, but it's a really good class. While you could just read the instructor's book, A Mind for Numbers, this does a good job with the motivational aspect.

It even comes with interviews from some successful scientists on the tips they use.

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