Yesterday, I talked a little about Tim Ferriss’s system for learning and how much I liked it. As I was writing, I realized that I use a system of my own out of habit now.
A few years ago, I was on a dragon boat team. I use the term “team” very loosely. The anesthesia department at my hospital put together a bunch of people to sit in a boat together. It’s mostly an excuse to drink beer and do something outside of work together.
At the first practice, I show up and there are 9 of us. The boat holds 21 and we have 30 people registered for the team. You need 10 in order to even take the boat out. Thankfully, we were able to find a random person who wanted to practice and he came along.
As we climb into the boat, our coach for the day asks, “So what are you guys working on today?” He was, of course, met with dead silence and blank stares. He tried again, “Are you doing starts….or distance or synchronization…?” Nothing. I could hear the water droplets falling from my paddle into the river.
“Are you guys just here for fun or are you here to be competitive?” Our captain still doesn’t say a word. The anesthesiologist on the bench next to me turns and says, “We’re pretty much here to drink beer.”
The coach takes a deep breath and starts in.
“Ok this is how you hold the paddle. This is what you’re trying to accomplish. This is what synchronization looks like and why. Here is how you start the race. This is what a race looks like…”
During this talk and throughout the one-hour practice I’m taking mental notes. I immediately start dissecting the information. What do I need to hold onto and what can I discard? What is the one thing that knowing would help more than anything else? What do I not need to know at all?
Here’s my list:
-Left arm at 90 degrees
-Right leg against the side of the boat
-Paddle completely submerged up to and including your hand on the stroke
-Watch the person in the very front of the boat and be completely in sync with that paddler, no matter what.
That’s it. 4 things. Out of the 50 to 100 things we learned, those are the keys. Focus on those and I’m pretty sure I’ll be better than good.
I know you don’t care about dragon boating, but I’m trying to show you how this system works. If I were to worry about the angle of the paddle, what the guy in front of me was doing, what the difference is between a 10-stroke and 16-stroke start is (its more than the number of strokes, LOL), I wouldn’t go back. I’d think I was an idiot and couldn’t keep it all straight.
As it is, I felt pretty smart and only needed to remember 4 things for our next practice.
This is incredibly helpful and can be easily applied to anything you’re trying to learn. You just need to start looking at things this in a little bit of a different way.
It isn’t hard. Start looking to pull out important facts and they will appear as if by magic. Try to learn everything and, instead of feeling overwhelmed, you’ll keep an ear out for the handful of key things you actually need. Let’s put a nozzle on the end of that fire hose.
I did all of the dissection and selection for you and put it into The Final Step. Everything important for your exam, squeezed down to the essentials in a way you can remember it. Grab yourself a copy and you’ll be way ahead of the game:
Brian Wallace