Hi reader,
No major updates from January, or at least nothing that I can't cram into this opening sentence - I signed up for Youtube TV to skip commercials during the helmet football playoffs, I started wearing two masks for trips to LOL Foods, and I think the GameStop story is only slightly interesting.
Let's pick up from the end of yesterday's post, where I finished by noting that the only relevant consideration for self-directed education is the energy to keep going. The issue with that conclusion is that it's partly misleading because I feel most people already have a natural desire to learn, discover, and grow - what I posed as a question of propulsion is better framed as a challenge to avoid the obstacles that impede us on our journeys.
I've returned today with a list of these obstacles to keep in mind on your self-education process. If you avoid these problems, your natural inclination to learning should be free to lead you through a lifetime of self-education. This is a hard-earned list because I've made all of these errors myself, though of course in some cases I speak from observing someone else make the mistake. It's not comprehensive by any means - I expect to add to it over time, for a long time, as I continue learning; today's list is just the start.
Here are the first five mistakes to avoid in the process of self-directed learning:
1. Not enough time
I almost got rid of this because it felt too obvious, but it's sadly the most common error I've seen as it relates to self-directed learning - you cannot learn if you don't make time for learning.
2. Enabling distractions
If people ask me why I don't have a smartphone, I give them some version of the following - I value abilities such as being able to focus and remaining fully present more than I value the many useful features of the smartphone, and I fear that having a 24/7 distraction machine would erode these abilities without bringing an acceptable return in terms of convenience, connection, and information.
I don't think turning in the smartphone is an idea that will work for most people but I do think everyone could benefit from ruthlessly culling needless distractions from daily life. As I noted in #1 above, time is a crucial component of learning, and distraction impacts time from two angles. First, the time handed over to a distraction is time lost from learning. Second, a distraction has the potential to bisect otherwise unbroken time, which could undermine the learning process for anything that requires a long block of uninterrupted time.
3. The know-it-all
This is a lesson best learned during an honest moment of reflection at the end of the day - it means admitting that you woke up mistaken about something. I go through this experience when I reread books because I often find that the things I thought I knew from my first read were either misinterpretations or outright errors. The failure to recognize the know-it-all obstacle means your understanding about new topics is doomed to remain skin-deep at best because although the first pass can make you familiar with any general idea, without rethinking it's hard to fill in your own gaps with the missing details.
The long-term arrogance of this mistake puts the self-learner at risk of several subsequent errors, with the most likely being an inability to incorporate new discoveries about an existing topic. In the worst case scenario, a once-knowledgeable person remains stuck in a certain perspective for so long that the immediate issue of being out-of-date eventually gives way to the permanent crisis of being mistaken.
4. The knew-it-all
Like with the know-it-all, the knew-it-all is another obstacle that is often defeated in the mirror - it means admitting that you learned something rather than tricking yourself into thinking you already knew it (even though you never previously expressed the idea on your own). I suspect this happens a lot when people skim information - rather than absorb the knowledge in a way that challenges assumptions and raises uncomfortable questions, the knew-it-all finds a common denominator that is consistent with an existing perspective instead of investigating the potentially objectionable details.
If you are looking for examples of this out in the world, keep a close eye out for defensive allegations of "trick questions". There are certainly cases of confusing or misleading phrasing that interferes with the retrieval process, but for the most part if a factual question invites an incorrect response any suggestions of a "trick question" hint at the retroactive logic of a knew-it-all. If you feel like the victim of a trick question, make sure to think hard about whether you could have generated the information without any prompting.
5. The entertainment factor
The educational value of a podcast, television show, or bestseller is influenced by how willingly the creator exchanges the information content for the entertainment factor - a good rule of thumb is that if you enjoyed learning from a particular source, you probably didn't learn much. This isn't meant to dismiss the value of these sources as a tool for casual learning, but if you are serious about a specific topic you need to avoid anything that ranks in the top ten of a popularity list.
It's possible to expand "entertainment" to encompass considerations such as affinity, demeanor, or industry standards. Doctors are rightfully criticized for the way poor communication skills are linked to patients ignoring their orders, but given that I'm much more likely to become a patient than a doctor the relevant lesson for me is that I should ignore my concerns about a doctor's questionable bedside manner.
What next?
These five are the obstacles that I've thought the about the most during the past month. More to come, I hope, as I reflect more on the learning process.
Until then, thanks for reading, and see you in February!
