“If effectiveness is doing the right things, efficiency is doing things right.”
This is a special episode because it doesn’t focus on the lessons of one particular person. Instead, I explore the tips, tricks, and framework I’ve used to learn just about any skill.
This is the meta-skill of meta-learning, or learning how to learn.
I’m going to share techniques that can help you — even if you’re sub-par or a rote beginner — take the smartest first steps and use 80/20 analysis to accelerate your progress.
This is adapted from The 4-Hour Chef, which is the cookbook that’s not a cookbook — it’s a book on accelerated learning.
Without further ado, please enjoy this episode on meta-learning.
Listen to it on iTunes.
Stream by clicking here.
Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”
Want to hear another episode about accelerated learning? — Listen to my interview with Luis Von Ahn, the co-founder of Duolingo. In this episode, we discuss what 2-3 books and resources he’d recommend to entrepreneurs, language learning tips, early mentors and key lessons learned, and how to recruit and vet technical talent (stream below or right-click here to download):
This podcast is brought to you by Vimeo Business. Vimeo Business has all of the prior benefits of Vimeo Pro, including VIP support. Whether you make videos for a living, run your own company, or simply want to amp up your video marketing, Vimeo Business is here to help. It has more than 280 million creators and viewers worldwide and makes it easier to share your videos with a global audience and connect with professional video makers to bring your stories to life.
Vimeo Business allows you to upload up to five terabytes and store your videos in one secure place, add up to 10 team members to your account for easy collaboration, and gather feedback with seamless review tools. You can even add clickable calls to action and capture email addresses directly in the player, which can help you generate leads and drive conversion for whatever you’re trying to optimize, such as a newsletter or a sales page. Check out vimeo.com/tim10 to save 10 percent on Vimeo Business.
This podcast is also brought to you by Wealthfront. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive (in a good way) set-it-and-forget-it investing service led by technologists from places like Apple. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years and now has more than $2.5B under management. Why? Because you can get services previously limited to the ultra-wealthy and only pay pennies on the dollar for them, and it’s all through smarter software instead of retail locations and bloated sales teams.
Check out wealthfront.com/tim, take their risk assessment quiz, which only takes 2-5 minutes, and they’ll show you for free the exact portfolio they’d put you in. If you want to just take their advice and do it yourself, you can. Well worth a few minutes to explore: wealthfront.com/tim.
QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
Selected Links from the Episode
The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life by Timothy Ferriss
Smart Design
Burton Snowboards
Starbucks
OXO Good Grips kitchenware
The Objectified documentary
The Holy Grail in Speed Training by Barry Ross, Dragon Door
Efficient-Market Hypothesis (EMH)
The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville by Warren E. Buffett, Columbia Business School
Michael Phelps Freestyle Multi Angle Camera
The Most Graceful Freestyle Swimming by Shinji Takeuchi
Nautilus
Kokkari
Nootropics: An Ethical Discussion by Lilly Pham, Princeton Journal of Bioethics
Raiding the Medicine Cabinet to Become Superhuman by Peter Rubin, Wired (about my use of desmopressin and other nootropics)
Chinese Primer: Character Text by Ta-tuan Ch’en, Perry Link, Yih-jian Tai, and Hai-tao Tang
Seikei Gakuen
The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
The Jouyou Kanji
The Asahi Shimbun
Acquisition of Japanese Kanji: Conventional Practice and Mnemonic Supplementation (my sexy Princeton senior thesis)
Berlitz language learning
Better Basketball videos by Rick Torbett
Show Notes
Meta-learning allows us to mimic the world’s fastest learners to become world class — in just about anything — in six months or less. [06:05]
When Dan Formosa created Smart Design, the extremes informed the mean, but not vice versa. [06:28]
Sometimes it pays to model the outliers, not flatten them into averages. [08:06]
WWWBS? (What would Warren Buffett say) about outliers and averages? [09:31]
Just about everything you need to know about meta-learning can be understood — or at least observed — by watching these two videos. (Michael Phelps vs. Shinji Takeuchi) [12:06]
The top one percent often succeed in spite of how they train, not because of it. [13:21]
Shifting from frequent nootropics use to understanding the blueprints behind high-performance. [15:33]
On using judo textbooks for transferring the principles of Japanese. [21:10]
The missing piece: is the method efficient? [22:30]
The catalyst for finding the method (which involved me dropping out of college in the middle of my senior year). [23:11]
Using the DiSSS (deconstruction, selection, sequencing, and stakes) process to drastically shorten the time it took to learn languages. [25:04]
Deconstruction: What are the minimal learnable units with which you should start? [27:50]
Sequencing: In what order should you learn the blocks? [28:14]
Stakes: How do you set up stakes to create real consequences and guarantee you follow the program? [28:19]
The secondary principles of CaFE (compression, frequency, encoding). [28:32]
Compression: Can you encapsulate the most important 20 percent into an easily graspable one-pager? [28:51]
Frequency: How frequently should you practice? What is the minimum effective dose (MED) for volume? [29:00]
Encoding: How do you anchor the new material to what you already know for rapid recall? [29:13]
How I began interviewing people as a way to deconstruct and learn any skill. [29:36]
My general interviewing process. [31:36]
Learning from the process: applying the answers to your own experiences. [34:40]
People Mentioned
Dan Formosa
Bill Gates
Chris Rock
Barry Ross
Mark Bell
Allyson Felix
Warren Buffett
Benjamin Graham
David Dodd
Michael Phelps
Shinji Takeuchi
Arthur Jones
Erik Cosselmon
Daniel Burka
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Bernie Feria
Babak Nivi
Kevin Rose
Darya Rose
Rick Torbett
Scott Jurek