The Only Skill That Matters
This was written by a human. Check out the book summary disclaimer. This summary includes personal comments.
Introduction
The Only Skill That Matters, by Johnathan Levi, is a collection of highly efficient and scientifically proven learning methods to increase your learning speed and information retention.
This book helped me memorize the first 200 decimal digits of pi within an hour. It also helped me recall much more information from books I’ve read since and connect information between books better. As a little bonus, it further increased my frustration with the existing educational system. Here, you’ll find all the core concepts from the book.
Content
Why is learning the most valuable skill?
We live in a society with an increasing number of knowledge workers, with new information being added every single day. Most knowledge work fields are constantly shifting due to technological improvements. Some technical skills from today might be outdated in just a few years. This gives people with strong learning skills an advantage and makes learning the most valuable skill, as it allows them to adapt to situations more quickly than others.
How do we learn?
Our brains are learning machines, thanks to our advanced prefrontal cortex and hippocampi. But brains won’t just learn anything. They’re wired to learn very specific things in response to certain stimuli. When you think that your brain is made to learn from reading, then you’re probably mistaken. Our brains didn’t evolve to learn through text, because the written word has only recently become widely accessible. Just a few hundred years ago, almost everybody was illiterate. While literacy rates have improved drastically, our brains are still functioning the same. So how do we learn?
Think about this from an evolutionary perspective. What kind of learning would improve your chances for survival? You’d have to remember where to find food, water, and shelter, and identify threats in a split second. All that survival knowledge is based on experiences. Your strongest memories are probably those with some strong experience connected to them. For me personally, there is a variety of embarrassing moments where I have done something wrong or didn’t know some seemingly obvious information, which I remember to this day. For example, I had done a PostgreSQL course as preparation for a job interview. When being asked what the difference between the keywords “having” and “where” was, I had no idea. Those keywords weren’t new to me; I had read about them a few times already. But I only remembered after having to awkwardly confess that I didn’t know the difference between those two basic PostgreSQL keywords and having someone explain it to me. Since then, since connecting this information to an embarrassing experience, I have no issue with recalling the difference. “Having” takes place after aggregation, “where” before.
When learning, we also like to connect new information with existing information. This is especially true for adults. When learning something new, it’ll be advantageous to create some connection between what you’re learning and what you know. When learning, you might form questions such as “Why do I have to learn this?” or “When will I ever need this again?”. When you think about how you might be able to apply some information you’re about to learn, you ready your brain for learning and give your brain a reason to remember.
How to improve your learning?
The book itself has a couple of chapters, addressing most of the following topics in-depth individually. Since the information has been of value, it has been extracted to centralized pages. First, it is important to get a rough grasp of how your hippocampi work, the brain regions where your long-term memory lives. In the “Hack your Hippocampi” section, you’ll find a summary on how to use the systems of your hippocampi to your advantage, based on information from this book. Next comes learning preparation, where I’ve summarized a selection of methods I found particularly helpful. Finally, getting to the core of the book, there are the learning methods. Those methods help you recall information much more easily and effectively.
One key strategy is utilizing visualizations, usually extreme ones, so you’ll benefit from the experience factor. Visualizations are used for a variety of learning methods. One popular option is the memory palace, which organizes information into chunks and places them into some familiar locations so you can recall the information by mentally walking through the place. For recalling numbers, the mnemonic major system offers a great tool, which can be combined with the memory palace as well.
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