Cheery Wednesday greetings from Learning How to Learn! Apr 6, 2016

Cheery Wednesday greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

We’re a little earlier than our usual cheery Friday greetings this week because Barb’s speaking this Friday (April 8th) to help launch the On Course Conference in Anaheim, California. Come join us if you’re in the area! (And meanwhile, happy Wednesday!)

Gaining a competitive advantage

We’d like to recommend the fascinating website, Five Good Questions, of our friend, investor Jacob Taylor. After a chance lunch with Warren Buffett, Jake has dedicated years to studying what makes Warren and his partner Charlie Munger so successful. Jake writes “Although they were both blessed with exceptionally high IQs, I believe their astounding wisdom comes from reading so many damned books. Their real competitive advantage is that they’ve simply out-read everyone else. Want to be the smartest person in the room? It’s simple. Read more. It’s a truly egalitarian hack that’s available to any of us who dedicate the time.”

In Five Good Questions, Jake hauls authors like Barb onto his show and asks them five good questions to gain insight into their subjects. Jake’s approach is one we highly recommend in Learning How to Learn. Don’t just take a topic like investing and study it in the usual way (after all, that’s what most investors are doing), but instead, reach out for new insights from unusual sources.

Learning How to Learn in Russian “Научись учиться” – давайте переведем вместе!

Our new Russian Lead is Dauren Adilbekov, a wonderful young man who is spearheading efforts to transform Learning How to Learn into a new, entirely Russian language version of the course. If you speak Russian, Dauren could really use your help as part of the little team he is forming—go to this thread to join a terrific group!

Procrastination

We’ve heard from many learners over the years that procrastination is one of their biggest issues. Recently, a number of you sent us links to Tim Urban’s hilarious and thoughtful TED Talk on procrastination. (Tim’s blog “Wait but Why,” is terrific also—but it’s like candy for procrastinators, so be careful!)

If you want help with procrastination beyond the advice we give in Learning How to Learn, we highly recommend the following books:

• The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg. This information featured in the very structure of Learning How to Learn—we described Charles’ work when we were discussing how to tackle the habit of procrastination.
• Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport. We’re big fans of Cal Newport. His book is highly recommended for anyone who’s planning to learn or accomplish something difficult.
• Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg. What can we say—using stories to convey key insights about productivity makes a book not only useful, but fun to read!

A FANTASTIC MOOC and book

We recently discovered the extraordinary MOOC Memory and Movies: Explaining the Psychology of Memory Through Films, by psychologist and neuroscientist John Seamon, along with his brilliant accompanying book Memory & Movies. What a great way to learn vital insights about memory—by using excerpts from great films as the key to help unlock our understanding. We ourselves learned a great deal, not only about memory, but about the role of memory in great movie-making. Both the MOOC (which begins April 11th) and the book (which has even deeper insights than the MOOC) come with our strongest recommendation—enjoy!

Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

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