Hey,<\/p>\n
It’s commonly accepted that one of the best ways to learn something
\nis by actually doing it.<\/p>\n
Business skills are often best learned by actually running a
\nbusiness. Programming skills come from actually hacking together
\nprograms. Writing expertise comes from doing a lot of writing.<\/p>\n
While this is certainly true, it’s actually a little strange.<\/p>\n
After all, schools, self-study programs and other educational
\ninitiatives have as their PRIMARY goal of learning. Whereas when
\nactually engaged in an activity, learning is typically a by-product.<\/p>\n
When I attend business school, my entire goal is to learn skills of
\nbusiness. When I run a business, my goal is mostly to keep the
\nbusiness going, learning is merely a side-effect of that process.<\/p>\n
Considering education has learning as it’s sole goal, why do we find
\nthat learning by doing still works better in many cases?<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Part of the reason that learning-by-doing often works better than
\ndeliberate education, is that it is highly optimized to the real
\nworld.<\/p>\n
When you take on educational tasks, it’s easy for teachers and
\nlearners to get sidetracked and miss what is crucially important to
\nthe outside world.<\/p>\n
Another reason might be simply the institutional disadvantages of
\neducation towards certain types of skills. Teaching ethics, for
\nexample, is relatively easy to do in a class. Instilling actual
\nmoral deliberation and judgment under pressure is extremely hard
\nto simulate.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
But if learning-by-doing, which most of the time is simply
\nlearning-as-a-by-product outperforms a lot of formal education, is
\nthere a third alternative?<\/p>\n
Is there a way to learn even better the skills we normally believe
\ncan only be learned by doing?<\/p>\n
I think there is.<\/p>\n
The fix isn’t to exchange learning-by-doing for a sterile
\nenvironment. It’s to refocus the goals of the activity more
\nstringently on learning and improvement.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Learning by Deliberate Practice<\/p>\n
I see two ingredients in this superior way to learn skills:<\/p>\n
1. Taking on real projects you care about.
\n2. Making decisions based on the principles of deliberate practice.<\/p>\n
Taking on real projects is the “doing” part of learning-by-doing.
\nThis means you don’t engage in fake, hypothetical activities, just
\nto get a grade. You pick projects you actually care about.<\/p>\n
The second step though, is to guide your development of these
\nprojects based on deliberate practice. I’ll share a few examples:<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
The first way you can do this is through using your project to test
\na particular hypothesis. That is, the project is your attempt to
\nanswer a question about the world that would be difficult to uncover
\notherwise.<\/p>\n
When I write new ebooks, I usually have my stated goal in terms of
\nsales and audience reaction. But I also use them as an opportunity
\nto test theories about writing and business.<\/p>\n
When I first released Learn More, Study Less in 2008, my hypothesis
\nwas to see if people would pay for a premium ebook (which turned out
\nto be incredibly successful).<\/p>\n
Later I tried multiple pricing tiers with a different ebook, and it
\nfailed miserably. By incorporating explicit tests into my projects,
\nI learned more than if I had just pursued the status quo.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Another way to do this is to engineer projects to focus on maximal
\nchallenge per unit of time.<\/p>\n
When I work on projects, I try to outsource or reduce elements that
\ndon’t push my skills in a particular area. This means I end up
\nlearning more, than if I made a new project which didn’t challenge
\nme.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
A final way to do incorporate deliberate practice into your real
\nworld projects, is to make them small and focused on areas you
\naren’t great at yet.<\/p>\n
Large projects tend to have a lot of filler. Parts where you’re no
\nlonger learning new things.<\/p>\n
Smaller projects tend to be more tightly focused on a challenge.
\nPlus you can guide these smaller projects to test you in a specific
\nway.<\/p>\n
For example, if you were trying to improve your speaking skills,
\ntaking on small, unusual opportunities to speak in public would be
\nmore beneficial than sticking just to class\/work presentations.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Try to think of your own ways you can structure your real world
\nprojects to increase your learning rate!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, It’s commonly accepted that one of the best ways to learn something is by actually doing it. Business skills are often best learned by actually running a business. Programming skills come from actually hacking together programs. Writing expertise comes from doing a lot of writing. While this is certainly true, it’s actually a little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":579,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions\/579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}