"What gets measured gets managed".—PETER DRUCKER, management theorist.
What do we seek to get from books, videos, articles, podcasts,posts etc?
Of course to be better informed to make quality business and personal growth decisions etc.
What is your method for managing the things you learn?
How do you decide what to remember and what not to?
Memorizing has gotten a bad rap as a mindless way of holding onto facts just long enough to pass the next exam. This perception has it's consequences on your personal and business growth .
Let's look at the science behind it.
Decision is the product of thinking.
Thinking is the mental activity of searching and connecting already internalized ideas about the subject.
That means no already internalized ideas no active thinking.
For example spend a moment to ponder over this question.
How does METACOGNITION contribute to your effectiveness in life?
Answer to yourself.
Pls do that before you continue with this post.
Most people do not naturally want to think longer about this question , but i urge you to really ponder over it.
Please go back and perform the instruction if you haven't yet.
Great. Let's proceed.
My guess is that to answer the question you looked into your mind's vault of ideas to link them to produce meaningful network with the help of your internal dialogue system.
These are the ideas you probably tried to access;
1. Meaning of metacognition
2. what it means to be effective in your life
3. How metacognition can help you achieve effectiveness.
If you haven't processed those ideas in your mind effectively before you would have "NO IDEA " about the answer. You would see nothing when you look into your mind. So thinking on the question can't take place.
Adopting a system for managing your learning means we can intentionally keep and retrieve more ideas for critical thinking.
We may agree that;
1. The QUICKER we can retrieve ideas mentally the SMARTER we can critically think.
2 The "MORE" ideas we can retrieve the "EASIER" the decision making process.
3. The BETTER we synergistically relate internalized ideas in our minds to the right problem, the higher the QUALITY of our thinking and decisions.
The selling point is that Ideas are the building blocks for critical thinking.
Imagine ideas as tools then memory is the tool box.
An effective and efficient tool box makes it possible to easily organize, store and retrieve the right tools at the right time.
People such as Bill Gates and Elon Musk have high quality tool boxes. They developed them to specifically orgnize and retrieve high quality tools they buy from books,Youtube, articles, podcasts etc. We shall discuss something similar to what they do in this article.
Bascally God, the author of life has designed us with a natural ability to pick ideas and experiences for our general growth process. That makes you powerful.
However finding a system to manage carefully selected high quality ideas from books,articles,podcasts, post etc makes you SUPER powerful.
You cannot absorb, store and retrieve all ideas you come across. It's not possible and not necessary at the same time. And of course there is no such system known among men.
What you need however is a system for maximizing your absorption and retrieval rate. A system that accelerate your rate of recall for your well researched ideas.
"Buy the truth[wisdom] and do not sell it "-Proverbs 23:23
Think about this for a moment;
how many worthwhile ideas have gone unthought and connections unmade because of your memory's shortcomings?
"Memory of ideas is the foundation for critical thinking".
A process to remember what you learn without mindless memorization is essential to conquer information overwhelm.
The method i am going to teach you in this article is summarized as the EXPLANATION EFFECT.
Warren Buffett practices this system.
The philosophy is that you learn better what you intend to pass on to others and retain much of it after teaching the idea.
Why is it so important?
1. Learning with an intention to teach it to an audience makes you much attentive to the subject.
2. You retain 96% of what you teach.
3. You receive feedback after teaching it. Feedback helps improve your idea after testing it on people.
4. Over time you become an authority in your field for the thought leadership demonstrated consistently and persistently in your teaching processes.
To develop yourself to make an impact in people through your business, here are my guidelines for you;
1. Conquer information overwhelm.
Before you get lost in a material, determine its importance to your goals. "How does this get me closer to my destination?"
"The goal is to find your inefficiencies in order to eliminate them and to find your strengths so you can multiply them". - Tim Ferris
Doing much of everything does to make you more effective.
Too many people invent things to do to avoid the important ones.
Cultivate a low information diet so you can focus on maximizing your output.
2. Extract the 20%
"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. There is a need to allocate that attention efficiently". —HERBERT SIMON, recipient of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 7 and the A.M. Turing Award, the "Nobel Prize of Computer Science"
You need 20% of the ideas from a book, article, podcasts, sermon etc to achieve 80% of it's desired objective.
Those ideas constitute 20% of the material and are considered as the key ideas. Allocate your attention to only these key ideas.
It's like separating rice from the chaff. Extract key ideas and make linear notes with them. [Mind mapping is an alternative]. I often select, copy and paste new ideas in my note pad app. You may devote some pages in your note pad app for striking ideas. Dont let quality ideas pass you by.
3. Processing your key Ideas.
Develop a habit of Crystalizing similar ideas under suitable titles of your choice. It works like a football coach selecting great players from a pool for a competition. The process involves critical and tactical blending. Coin the ideas using your personalized context and metaphors. Fuse with your real life examples. Blend it with familiar ideas from other sources to make it your own. Avoid cut and paste of other peoples ideas unless you are quoting them. You are however allowed to paraphrase.
If its crystalized well enough you will have a good post for your audience. By now you should have a targeted group of individuals who are interested in your field of learning or brand. It could also be your customers or even the general public through your wall. Other sources are Social media groups, fb stories or status.
It's much thinking to sort and synthesize pieces of ideas into your own context. But that's active learning.
4. Sharpen your writing and speaking skills.
Develop your most exciting posts further into articles for your brand blog. Make talking head videos from the ideas.
That's why Bill gates created a blog known as Gates notes. All other blogs serve this purpose.
Remember that you learn better what you intend to pass on to others and retain better after successfully passing it on to third parties or platforms.
5. Act on action items.
Some ideas are action ideas that thinking ideas. They are instructions for certain physical activities. Such ideas must be given the right attention. Otherwise you will be limited to thinking and standing still.
"A man does not leave a legacy by standing still " Ravi Zacharias (Founder-RZIM )
The success equation gets balanced only if your feet get wet or your hands get dirty.
Move into action on your action items.
"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent Perspiration". -Thomas Edison
Experiment your ideas in your product development, marketing, supervision, teaching, preaching, manufacturing, designing, construction, speaking, writing etc.
Take stock of the feedback and evaluate yourself. Prepare and get back to the lab until you find what works.
The ultimate way to remember is by doing. "Experience is the best teacher" unknown.
A successful idea that interest you may not automatically work for you. There are many factors that gives successful ideas the fertile grounds to yield results. So until you test it you can't bet on it. It's not yours until it becomes part of you.
Comments
Post a Comment