Bookworm Transcripts

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Hey Mike, how's it going?

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Pretty good.

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Are you Corey?

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I'm doing well.

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I'm doing well.

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This is my first time in the seat as the official co-host.

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I was declared last episode, and now I'm official.

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So it feels good.

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Feels good.

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Feels like I'm--

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chairs more comfy today.

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The microphone feels better in front of my mouth.

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Yeah, well, I'll share with you before we hit record.

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But I've gotten some great feedback from people

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who said that you're doing a good job.

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So it's not just me saying nice things

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because I want someone to talk to books about.

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Well, thank you for those of you who said nice things.

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I appreciate that.

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That's very good because you throw these things out there

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sometimes, and you hope somebody's getting value out of them.

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So I appreciate that.

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I got one for you.

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I didn't do the Mind Map today because I wasn't--

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I got down.

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I got my notes, and I said, OK, I'm going to organize these,

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and I'm going to get ready to think about how I want to talk

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about the book.

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And the Mind Map just didn't feel right.

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And I don't know why.

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It just didn't feel like the mechanism I wanted to go for.

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So I went with Notion, and I went through,

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and I put those in there and organized them.

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And then I went back through again and highlighted them.

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And I don't want to go into the details of whether I think

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it worked well or not right now.

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We could do that later, maybe.

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That'd be fun to do later.

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But what I'll tell you is I think

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it's going to be as productive or hopefully more productive

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than the Mind Map.

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So I might not be a Mind Map convert

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like I thought I was going to be a Mind Map convert.

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I'm a little sad, but understandable.

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This isn't a great book for a Mind Map anyways.

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I mean, I did it anyways.

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And we're chatting before, and I mentioned

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that I'm going to start actually creating these landing pages.

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I've done a few of them for people

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so if you do want the notes from my notes from this book,

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I'll have a link in the show notes where you can download it.

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And I do share these in my newsletter now.

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So this has kind of become a thing.

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But yeah, this one in particular just didn't really

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jive with the Mind Map format as easily

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as some of the other books that we've read, which

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it's a book about learning.

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So I was kind of surprised by that.

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Yeah.

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We're jumping the gun here, but this book

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kind of surprised me on a couple of different levels.

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So I'm excited to talk to you about it.

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I'm excited to hear your opinion on it.

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So first thing we have to do is we

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have to follow up on action items.

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So Mike, are you willing to take us through your action items?

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Your first one was check out it design your life workshop.

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You did that kind of, right?

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So what's your status on that?

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Any update?

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I've checked it out enough to know that I'm not interested.

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OK, good.

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I've also checked it out enough to know

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that I should be doing stuff like this.

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Yes.

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Yes, I think you could very much do that.

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Like I told you before, I do a mini version of that.

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It's really, as I went through the book,

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it's very different than what they do there.

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But I do it for academics.

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So for faculty members who want to figure out

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how to combine research, teaching, and service.

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So yes, I would agree having done it

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and then seeing how they do it, you would your fair game.

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And it's right there teed up for you.

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You just need to knock it out of the park.

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Yeah, so that kind of relates to something--

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I think this is later on in my follow-up items.

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Maybe it wasn't an official one.

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But we talked last time about my brainstorming

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with the community.

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Oh, yeah, that is one on here.

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Start planning my community.

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And you pressured me to have a landing page link ready

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by the time this one goes out.

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So that's still a work in progress, the landing page link.

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But I have been thinking a lot about the community.

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And these workshops, that's actually

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going to be a part of it.

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So I'll do them one off.

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You can sign up for them like a paid webinar sort of a thing.

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But I do plan to have a version of the community

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where you get access to all that kind of stuff built in.

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That's awesome.

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So I'm going to start doing these more regularly.

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I'm still trying to nail down the cadence.

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But I'm thinking one a quarter.

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And I've got a couple of topics I've been thinking about.

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I think the place to start, obviously, is like,

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how do I take book notes?

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I've even done that presentation for other people

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as a paid workshop.

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Why would I not do it for myself?

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Especially since it's kind of evolved a little bit.

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I mean, it's largely the same.

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I still do the mind map and I have my own system.

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But every book we read kind of changes the--

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or solidifies are causing me to change some minor things.

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So I guess I'll have the link to the community signup.

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I'll share that page in the show notes here.

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But I'll share the one to the workshop as soon as it's--

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That's your second accountability mechanism, right?

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The first one was you had to talk about it today.

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The next one is you have to have it in the show notes

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for the time the show goes out.

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Yeah, exactly.

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So I got about a week to pull it all together.

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In the middle of finishing up my practical PKM cohort,

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I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

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What could possibly go wrong?

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OK, so the next one you had was create engagement, energy,

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and flow mind maps.

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Were you able to do that?

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Yeah, although I didn't actually do it as individual mind maps.

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I did it as part of the same mind map.

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I just had three different branches.

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The last book-- it was a little bit weird the way

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that they described mind mapping.

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And that actually was another topic

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that I was thinking about for a workshop.

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It's like mind mapping in general.

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I've made courses on that before.

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I use it all the time.

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I've got thousands of mind maps in mind

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note, not just the book notes.

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But yeah, I have the different sections for engagement, energy,

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and flow.

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And it wasn't as insightful as I thought it was going to be.

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The big takeaways here were I tend

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to get into flow when I'm doing stuff solo.

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So writing or reading or even building business systems,

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which is maybe kind of weird to some people.

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But that was my previous job, was like business systems,

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director of operations, essentially integrator.

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And so systems are kind of my thing.

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I love tweaking those.

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The energy and engagement ones, though, were largely the same.

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The things that I get really engaged with

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and the things that give me a lot of energy

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are basically when I can do live stuff with other people.

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So recording a podcast is that to a certain degree.

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But I think more so even than that,

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it's like the coaching type stuff.

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So it would be the workshops that we were talking about

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or the cohort that I'm going through right now.

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I built out in the last session that I did,

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I walked through the task dashboard

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and all the different ways that you can do

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task management in Obsidian and how I manage and track

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my habits and all this kind of stuff.

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And I created 130 little screencast clips

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that I put into my keynote.

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And every time I do one of these cohorts,

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I'm like, well, I did one previously.

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This is the third one.

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I'll just use what I had last time.

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I literally redid every single screencast.

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And then at the end, I'm like, okay, so that was a lot.

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I was really excited and I really liked showing it to everybody

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and everyone at the end was like, that was amazing,

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but it was a lot.

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(laughs)

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- Well, and if you're like me, you'll do that,

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I don't know if you'll do that every time,

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but you'll do that the first three, four, five times.

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And then you'll get to the grid and you'll be like,

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okay, these are good enough.

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I need to focus my time in other places.

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So yeah, I will get there, I'm sure.

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But the thing that really was eye-opening to me is like,

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not the presentation of the technical stuff.

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Like that's kind of cool.

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And I like showing those videos and seeing people on Zoom,

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like their eyes get real big, like,

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I didn't know you could do that.

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But what really lights me up is at the end

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when people ask the questions.

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And I feel like I'd know enough

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to help point them in the right direction.

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It's like, I have no idea what to do in this situation.

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What do you have for me?

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And then I go into my thing and then at the end,

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like, so does that make sense?

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Like, oh yeah, that was great.

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You know, that's exactly what I needed.

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That is the thing that I absolutely love.

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So.

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- Let me ask you a question on this one.

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You get energy from those live events.

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Do you find yourself, 'cause you've admitted

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you're an introvert, do you find yourself on the tail end

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of that, like a half hour later, an hour later,

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you're just drained?

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Or does it have a long tail?

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Like, do you stay energized longer than that?

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- No, I definitely crash,

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although I'm getting better at managing it.

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I feel like I don't get quite as high or quite as low.

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But there was a point where like my wife and I

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have our date night on Tuesday.

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And we would always record focus on Tuesdays.

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And the days that I would record focus, like afterwards,

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I would just be a puddle of mush.

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Like, I couldn't do anything.

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And she's like, what the heck is wrong with you?

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And I'm like, I recorded a podcast?

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(laughing)

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No, I'm the same way that like, I love teaching.

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Teaching gives me energy.

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Interacting with students, it's so much fun.

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And then I get to like 5.30, six o'clock in the evening.

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And I'm like, oh, I'm just drained.

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Like, I'm just absolutely spent because it was so much fun.

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And it was so high that like the low drops low.

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So.

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All right, good.

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Let's move to the next one you had.

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You had make a list of your mentors.

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Were you able to do that?

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- Kinda, this needs more work.

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I have a general list of some of my mentors,

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but I didn't get as much time to build this out

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as I had hoped.

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So again, didn't really get the insight

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that I wanted from this specific one.

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I would kind of mark this as a failure on my end.

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The other ones were pretty much,

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I was pretty much able to follow through with all those,

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including the exam in my morning routine.

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I mean, I talked about habits this week in the cohort.

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So I had to do that.

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(laughing)

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Had to update the slides.

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What I discovered from my morning routine

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is that over time,

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I have been creeping towards,

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okay, I'm awake, time to get to work.

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(laughing)

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- Ah, yeah, yeah.

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- So it forced me to kind of reset

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and realize that that first hour of my day,

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like that is sacred time.

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And I really need to protect that for the routine

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and nothing else.

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I need to shut down the part of my brain

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that is telling me that because I am upright,

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I need to be working.

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- Yes, no, I couldn't agree with you more

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that I found myself in that routine.

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It's been over the last week or two

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that I've really took a step back and said,

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no, no, take the time this morning

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to do what makes sense to do first, right?

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And for me, that's prayer, meditation, reading the Bible,

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so take the time to do those things first

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because if you don't do that,

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you're probably gonna not do it today.

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Like you're probably gonna figure out a way

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to push it away.

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And I've found that over the last two weeks,

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that's been huge for me.

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So that's cool, that's cool that you've realized that.

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- How about you?

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You had a couple of them.

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- Yeah, so mine were identified gravity

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and anchor problems in my life.

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And what I've tried to do as I've identified problems

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is I've tried to separate those two.

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And what I've realized is that things that,

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sorry, I guess what I've realized is it's harder to tell

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between an anchor problem and a gravity problem

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than I thought it would be.

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That there's actually a little bit of overlap

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between those two and something that I clearly came out

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and said, "No, this is definitely a gravity problem."

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It's really just like a deep-seated anchor problem.

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Like that anchor is really, really stuck into the ground.

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But there are definitely ways around it

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that I'm not thinking about or ways around it

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that we as an institution aren't thinking about.

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So it's much more of like a really intense anchor problem

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and not truly a gravity problem.

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So my big learning from that is don't overthink,

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or don't over prioritize gravity

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because gravity is the easy way out.

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Oh, that's hard.

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Boom, I'm just not gonna worry about it,

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'cause I have to design around it.

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No, no, maybe it's just a really hard anchor problem

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and you have to work through that.

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My second one was reframe,

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do the failure reframe exercise.

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So reframe my failures for the last three failures.

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I did not do that for the last three.

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I did it for a couple of them that I've had lately.

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And I'll tell you what, this is a valuable exercise.

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It's really one that changes the way you think about it

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and takes it from something that potentially impacts you

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negatively, mentally, and you're like,

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oh man, that's a really kind of a low point in the week

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to go, oh yeah, that wasn't awesome.

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But look at how much better I can become out of that

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or look at what I can learn through that process.

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So that's been good for me to do the failure reframe exercise.

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That's one that I will definitely keep doing

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as more failures pop up because I have this philosophy

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that if I'm not failing seven out of 10 times,

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I'm not trying, I'm not really pushing the boundary.

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If I'm hitting that goal or hitting that achievement

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too many times, am I really trying to push to do the fun,

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the hard, the things that stretch me?

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And a lot of people look at me and they're like,

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wait, you wanna fail more than you succeed?

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And I'm like, appropriately, yes,

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but I'll get some side-eyed looks for that one.

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So, (laughs)

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- Nice. - All righty.

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So those are our action items.

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Are you ready to move into the book?

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- Let's do it.

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- All right, so this week, we're gonna talk about

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Learn Like a Pro by Barbara Oakley and Olav Schwe,

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which I think is how you pronounce his last name.

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The full title of the book is Learn Like a Pro

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Science-Based Tools to Become Better at Anything.

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The book is divided up into 11 sections,

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a tiny little introduction, which is basically like,

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hey readers, this is what you should think about.

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And then a checklist at the end,

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which is a really interesting kind of summary

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of the whole thing.

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And we'll just move, if you're good with it,

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we'll move right into the intro in chapter one.

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So, just real briefly on the book, it's pretty short.

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It's shorter than I thought it was gonna be.

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I think it's only like 117 pages.

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And there are quite a few visuals that go along with it.

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I thought it was kind of weird that there were no

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parts to this book because there's definitely

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some significant themes that they talk about,

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which I guess like that's one of the general things

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about this is I feel like this is really written for students.

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There are definitely sections of it

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where it's very generalizable and just about anybody

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can benefit from the stuff.

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But there is definitely a part of it

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where it's like this is how you study for tests

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and stuff like that.

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So, I felt it very easily could have been broken up

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into a couple of different sections

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and that maybe would have helped the flow a little bit.

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- I would agree with that.

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I would agree that it's written to students

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because I think, if I had to guess, right,

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you always try to back up and say,

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well, how did this book generate?

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This book generated because Barbara Oakley

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went back to school to do engineering

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and there were some things she had to learn

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through that process and she was like,

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well, if I needed to learn this stuff,

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somebody else might need to learn this stuff

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and then she did the research

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and kind of rolled it from there.

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So, I would agree with you.

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- That's the best kind of books.

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- Yeah, exactly.

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I would agree with you.

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So, from the intro or from the sections

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actually titled "Two Hour Readers,"

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they call out the fact that people would say,

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like, I'm terrible at or I can't learn

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or I can't do the thing.

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And what they wanted you to do is change your focus

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or what they suggested,

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just change your focus on maybe you're just not doing it right.

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Like, maybe you're just approaching it

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from a perspective that doesn't make sense

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and it's not that you can't learn that language

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or you can't learn the program

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or you can't learn these other things.

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It's just the way you're trying to do it

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isn't the most effective, the most effective way.

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Now, the second one was basically they say,

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this little book, so they acknowledge

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and one of the things you called it out

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that I had in the back of my head,

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the notes section of this book is like gigantic.

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I mean, it feels huge.

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There's notes for each chapter

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and I was trying to figure out,

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and I didn't take enough time to actually do this,

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how the notes section differed from the bibliography section,

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but I just didn't really dig into that.

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But basically, they call out that it's a short concise book,

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it's meant to be a short concise book,

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which would point me to as well that it's meant for students,

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it's meant for younger folks to get a quicker path through it.

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But then they say the very best

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of practical learning tools and insights.

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And you don't have to tell me right now,

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but Mike, before we end this conversation,

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I would like to know if you think

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this is the very best of practical tools and insights.

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Anything else on the internet before we move to one?

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- No, but I'm having a hard time

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resisting answering that question right now.

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- Just do it then, just do it, go ahead.

00:16:58

- Okay, well, it's not, I'll say that

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because they talk about some productivity principles,

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which are good, I feel like the stuff

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that they share is actually good.

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And there was some insightful stuff here

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that helps solidify some things for me.

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However, I think that there's a whole big section

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that's missing, and maybe I just glanced over it,

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but we were talking about mind maps before.

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I feel like that is a topic where they didn't really

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even address it, and if they did,

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they certainly didn't go into any sort of depth

00:17:39

about how it could be helpful.

00:17:41

- They mentioned concept maps.

00:17:43

- Yeah, they'd mention concept maps,

00:17:45

but there's a whole lot more there,

00:17:48

and it feels like a lot of the stuff

00:17:49

that they're sharing is list-based, outline-based,

00:17:53

and I'd forget the official terms,

00:17:55

but there's different types of different ways

00:17:58

that people think, and the outline view

00:18:00

clicks with one type of people,

00:18:02

the visual mapping kind of clicks with another type of person.

00:18:05

However, even if you consider yourself an outline person,

00:18:08

you can gain additional insights by having the mind map

00:18:12

or the concept mapping piece to it.

00:18:14

So I think this is in terms of really learning something.

00:18:19

You need to have kind of these two balanced approaches,

00:18:22

which is honestly why I like mind nodes so much,

00:18:24

because it gives you the mind map

00:18:25

and the outline for free side by side.

00:18:28

And when you look at both of those,

00:18:30

every single time I do that,

00:18:32

I feel like I get additional insights.

00:18:34

Why, when I bring my notes over to Obsidian,

00:18:37

I've got the mind map, but then I export it as a markdown,

00:18:39

and I have all that markdown in there as the outline too,

00:18:42

and then I can break it apart

00:18:43

and link atomic notes together and things like that.

00:18:47

But I felt like this was kind of heavy on the outline approach,

00:18:52

and it's based off of somebody's experience,

00:18:55

so you can't really fault them for that.

00:18:58

But the whole idea of concept mapping,

00:19:00

like they kind of did it lip service,

00:19:04

but they didn't really talk about it at all,

00:19:06

and it's gonna be very much a missing piece to a,

00:19:11

I'm not really sure how they're framing this.

00:19:14

I forget the science-based tools to become better at anything

00:19:18

for certain types of people in certain types of situations.

00:19:21

It really is what it is.

00:19:23

- I agree, and one of the things that I think

00:19:25

is interesting about that too is the how to.

00:19:28

So every, the title of every chapter starts with how to,

00:19:31

et cetera, how to et cetera, how to et cetera.

00:19:33

So I think it's as much as a mini tutorial,

00:19:38

like you said, for certain types of people

00:19:39

in certain situations, and I think if you're coming to this

00:19:42

from zero, from absolutely nowhere, good,

00:19:46

it's a good place to start.

00:19:47

We're hitting some of those high level things,

00:19:49

but it's almost like a launch point to then figure out

00:19:52

what works with you and then go figure out more

00:19:55

later on down the road, and again, that would tie me back to,

00:19:58

if it has a student focus to it,

00:19:59

that actually makes a ton of sense

00:20:01

because that's where students are.

00:20:03

Like students aren't at the level necessarily

00:20:05

where they're gonna go crazy into this.

00:20:07

They really just wanna know like,

00:20:07

how do I get better at X?

00:20:09

Okay, here's a how to guide for that.

00:20:11

All right, so let's move into chapter one.

00:20:13

So chapter one is how to focus intently

00:20:16

and beat procrastination, and this will be,

00:20:20

I, there were a couple of different times in this book

00:20:22

where I went, huh, Mike, huh, Mike, right?

00:20:25

Like, and I just, I'm intrigued to hear you talk about it.

00:20:27

So we started off with the Palmodoro technique, right?

00:20:30

My question for you, Mike, is how many times

00:20:33

in the 190 episodes that you've done here

00:20:36

has the Palmodoro technique come up in one of these books?

00:20:39

Well, I had the same thought, I'm like, oh, Palmodoro,

00:20:42

like everybody knows about Palmodoro.

00:20:44

And then I started thinking about it,

00:20:45

I'm like, actually, maybe not everybody does know

00:20:47

about the Palmodoro because I feel like maybe

00:20:49

in the circles that I've ran in

00:20:51

and the places that I've worked,

00:20:53

I hear about it a lot more than the average person.

00:20:56

So the Palmodoro technique is definitely the place to start

00:21:01

and they do a pretty good job of describing it

00:21:05

because a lot of times when people talk

00:21:08

about the Palmodoro technique,

00:21:09

they just focus on the timer aspect.

00:21:13

You set the 25 minute timer, you do the thing

00:21:15

and then you take a five minute break,

00:21:16

but they added a couple steps, which I think were good,

00:21:19

in that before you sit down and do the 25 minutes of work,

00:21:22

you have to eliminate as many distractions as you can.

00:21:25

And then once you set the timer,

00:21:26

you have to focus intently on your work.

00:21:28

Those two additional steps, while they may seem obvious,

00:21:31

I feel are very important when you are just trying

00:21:36

to learn the Palmodoro technique maybe for the first time.

00:21:39

I think it could save you a lot of trial and error maybe.

00:21:43

And then they get into some of the brain science

00:21:45

behind what happens when you are doing the Palmodoro technique.

00:21:50

Like things you don't wanna do,

00:21:52

they activate this insular cortex,

00:21:54

which is the pain in the brain, I like that description,

00:21:57

but it usually disappears after about 20 minutes.

00:22:00

And that's kind of the thing is like,

00:22:01

that's why the 25 minute timer is set

00:22:03

because you get to the end of it and then you realize,

00:22:05

oh, that thing that I was dreading,

00:22:07

I don't dread it anymore.

00:22:08

And then it's kind of a jolt to your system,

00:22:11

like, well, why were you dragging your feet on the thing?

00:22:13

And then you're like, oh, yeah, I guess maybe next time

00:22:15

I'll just do the thing.

00:22:17

- Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:22:19

The big piece that you summarize it,

00:22:21

well, the big piece that comes out to me here

00:22:23

is about what to do during the break.

00:22:25

And they call out the fact it's like,

00:22:27

put your phone away, don't really be distracted

00:22:30

by these other things because that doesn't help you process,

00:22:35

that doesn't help you recall,

00:22:37

that doesn't help you work through things.

00:22:38

And I can't remember if they mentioned it or not,

00:22:40

but like one of the biggest things I think you can do

00:22:42

is get up, move, and then for me, it would be like,

00:22:45

get outside, right?

00:22:46

So get sunshine, get some vitamin D,

00:22:49

do something like that if you can't get outside,

00:22:51

'cause it's too cold or it's too icy or whatever,

00:22:53

at least walk around the hallways and do something.

00:22:55

The trick to that though is what I've found

00:22:57

is if you're in a social environment,

00:22:59

sometimes you get pulled into that

00:23:01

and your five minute break turns into a 20 minute break

00:23:03

and now your whole system gets messed up.

00:23:06

But I really like what they call out here

00:23:08

is the fact that there are distinct times

00:23:11

for distinct things and I think that's a really valuable

00:23:14

thing for the Paul Maduro technique,

00:23:15

at least it's been for me when I've tried to use it.

00:23:18

Do you use it much?

00:23:20

- I don't, I have, around my office somewhere,

00:23:24

I have, there was a Kickstarter for this Essington Glass

00:23:28

with the little like nanospheres that I'm gonna,

00:23:31

so it's like a really fancy,

00:23:32

oh there it is on my bookshelf back there,

00:23:36

a really fancy Palmodoro timer.

00:23:38

And I did use that at first because when you flip it over,

00:23:41

it creates that sound and that's kinda,

00:23:43

that becomes an auditory cue of it's time to get to work.

00:23:46

However, I probably haven't run the Palmodoro technique

00:23:51

in like four or five years.

00:23:54

- Yeah.

00:23:55

- And that is largely in part because I've developed

00:23:59

my own system for like planning my day and things like that.

00:24:02

And one of the things that I really believe and hammer on

00:24:06

in like the cohorts and stuff is just because

00:24:08

some things on your task list doesn't mean

00:24:10

that you should necessarily do it.

00:24:13

You gotta be thinking about, is this actually important

00:24:16

to me, especially if you get out of the academic world

00:24:19

where the things that you have to do are the assignments

00:24:21

that are required for the class.

00:24:23

And you get into a workplace setting

00:24:25

and now you've got work email and people can just

00:24:27

dump their trash on your lawn and walk away,

00:24:29

you have to establish some barriers.

00:24:32

So I think at that point, you know, it's not,

00:24:34

how can I squeeze out as much as humanly possible

00:24:38

with the energy that I have available?

00:24:40

Like who carries a few of energy?

00:24:41

You're getting paid to work, you're gonna show up and work.

00:24:44

- Yeah, exactly.

00:24:45

- Exactly, exactly.

00:24:46

- It's really like a filtering that is gonna produce

00:24:48

the value for the organization of selecting

00:24:52

the right activities, not, well, I have to do this thing.

00:24:55

So how do I make myself do it?

00:24:57

- Yeah, I think for me, I don't use it anymore either.

00:25:00

In a large part of it's because, and I don't know,

00:25:02

if you've said this somewhere, if I've read this

00:25:04

in a book somewhere, but it's like, focus is a muscle.

00:25:06

Right, and the more you train the focus muscle,

00:25:08

the more you can focus and the longer you can focus.

00:25:11

And I started out having to do Pomodoro

00:25:14

and it worked really, really well.

00:25:16

Now I typically did a 55 or a 50/10,

00:25:20

but it was because I was reading long form articles

00:25:22

and I was writing bigger things.

00:25:25

But now it's to the point where if I throw the music on,

00:25:28

I actually, they're gonna talk about it later,

00:25:30

these binaural beats, if I throw music like that on,

00:25:34

I mean, I can just drop into focus mode

00:25:36

and I don't need a timer anymore.

00:25:38

Actually, I run the other side of the risk

00:25:40

where it's like, I get so into it that I lose track

00:25:43

and I'm so focused in that time.

00:25:47

Okay, so the next thing they hit here

00:25:48

is be wary of multitasking.

00:25:50

They call out a bunch of different things

00:25:52

that you have attention residue,

00:25:53

so things are left over in your attention

00:25:55

that you're not thinking about.

00:25:56

This actually ties into something they talk about later,

00:25:58

which is this diffuse learning

00:26:00

or this diffuse way of thinking.

00:26:03

They say frequently switching, frequently task switching

00:26:05

increases susceptibility to distraction.

00:26:07

More errors, slow work makes writing worse

00:26:11

and diminishes learning.

00:26:11

They have a bunch of those things.

00:26:13

We can reduce our fixation on the task

00:26:18

or our focus on the task.

00:26:19

So they call out multitasking as a bad thing,

00:26:23

which we've all heard that many, many times before.

00:26:26

I like the fact that they go into ear muffs

00:26:28

and they actually give you a brand of ear muffs,

00:26:30

which I think is pretty hilarious here

00:26:32

and they do that throughout the book

00:26:33

where they'll actually give you specific apps

00:26:36

or brands of things to try out,

00:26:40

which I think is really good for a how-to book,

00:26:42

but at the same time, it makes the,

00:26:44

and tell me if I'm using this term right,

00:26:46

it loses the evergreen nature of the content

00:26:49

because I might go look up some of these things

00:26:51

and they don't exist anymore.

00:26:52

And what do I do?

00:26:53

Like, how do I, you know what I do when that?

00:26:56

So we then get to distraction-free environment,

00:27:00

take frequent breaks, music and binaural beats,

00:27:04

and then meditation and yoga.

00:27:05

And the one I wanna call out here is,

00:27:07

I know you've gone into the meditation realm a little bit.

00:27:11

You've started to think about mindful meditation

00:27:13

and things like that, but they actually say,

00:27:16

"Oh, we can't really draw confirmed conclusions."

00:27:17

And they kinda just, you know, boom,

00:27:18

and it's real short and they call it out there.

00:27:21

So that summarizes our chapter one.

00:27:24

Any thoughts on that?

00:27:25

- Just that the point about not using your phone

00:27:29

during a break, I think is really good.

00:27:31

And the attention residue is a real thing,

00:27:35

but again, that was not new to me.

00:27:40

That was one of the, well, that and the Pomodoro,

00:27:44

essentially were like the first things I learned

00:27:46

when I started studying productivity like 10 years ago.

00:27:50

So again, you know, maybe this is geared towards

00:27:53

your in introductory into these types of concepts,

00:27:58

which makes sense that then that it's in chapter one,

00:28:01

but nothing really profound here in my opinion.

00:28:05

- Okay, good. So let's move to chapter two.

00:28:06

Chapter two is the how to overcome being stuck.

00:28:10

So how to overcome being stuck.

00:28:13

The key, one of the key points they make in this section is,

00:28:16

as long as you're focusing on a particular topic,

00:28:19

you're blocking the activities of your diffuse mode

00:28:23

on that topic.

00:28:23

So they call out this distinction between focused mode

00:28:27

and diffuse mode.

00:28:28

And focused mode is like, okay, I'm editing a paper.

00:28:31

So I'm looking at the actual small level sentence structure.

00:28:35

And am I using the right words in the right places

00:28:37

and overall, the diffuse mode would be

00:28:39

I'm thinking about the ideas of what to write.

00:28:42

And I would have never, this was an interesting finding for me

00:28:45

'cause I wouldn't have thought to call it

00:28:48

focused mode and diffuse mode, but I do this.

00:28:51

So this is the shower thoughts, right?

00:28:53

Like I start thinking about a thing,

00:28:55

but then it just kind of stews in the back of my brain

00:28:58

and all of a sudden this idea pops up

00:29:00

or this new creative thing pops up

00:29:01

or walking to work or driving the car

00:29:06

or doing something like that.

00:29:08

And what I think one of the things that came out for me

00:29:11

on this is, is me constantly having a podcast in my ear

00:29:15

or an audio book in my ear, is it messing with my diffuse mode?

00:29:19

And I think it is and I don't like that,

00:29:23

but at the same time I like listening to things.

00:29:25

I like having people speak into me.

00:29:27

So I thought that was a really interesting point

00:29:29

at a chapter two.

00:29:30

- Well, I'm not sure that it's messing with your diffuse mode.

00:29:36

I mean, I guess potentially,

00:29:39

I don't really like the distinction here

00:29:42

of the focus mode and the diffuse mode, by the way,

00:29:44

because I feel like I've got a better model

00:29:47

from when I read Hyper Focus by Chris Bailey.

00:29:51

And full disclosure, I guess Chris Bailey

00:29:54

is a friend of mine at this point,

00:29:56

but his book, Hyper Focus, talks about how

00:30:00

there's the hyper focus side where we're so zeroed in

00:30:03

on this is what we're doing.

00:30:05

And then there's the scatter focus side

00:30:08

is how he describes it.

00:30:10

And I feel like that scatter focus

00:30:12

is a much better definition than the diffuse mode.

00:30:16

Like that makes more sense to me.

00:30:18

Like, oh, I'm not focusing on one thing.

00:30:21

So my focus is scattered.

00:30:23

Yeah, that clicks whereas like diffuse is like,

00:30:25

well, what the heck does that mean?

00:30:27

Are we talking about camera gear?

00:30:29

What sort of lens are you using there, bro?

00:30:33

- Yeah, exactly.

00:30:34

That makes sense.

00:30:35

So scatter mine.

00:30:36

- Yeah, so and Chris talks about how you have to kind of

00:30:39

intentionally go back and forth

00:30:41

between these different modes.

00:30:43

And Chris is a really smart dude.

00:30:46

He gave a TED talk at one point.

00:30:48

And the description I remember from the TED talk

00:30:52

is like Chris Bailey, the most productive man

00:30:53

you'd ever hope to meet.

00:30:55

And he kind of like, he's a really humble dude.

00:30:57

So every time I seem like, oh, hey,

00:30:59

there's the most productive man you'd ever hope to meet.

00:31:01

And he's like, ah, knock it off.

00:31:02

(laughs)

00:31:03

- Yeah, that's funny.

00:31:04

But I do think that like, he knows his stuff.

00:31:08

And so he talks about how with hyper focus,

00:31:10

you can't do that for extremely long.

00:31:12

I mean, some of the same concepts

00:31:13

that they're talking about in this book,

00:31:15

but if you're gonna like,

00:31:17

if you wanna go deeper on this topic, go read hyper focus.

00:31:19

It's a really good book.

00:31:21

And it describes, I think, more practically

00:31:23

how you can do this sort of thing.

00:31:25

So like one of the things that Chris talks about

00:31:28

in that book is he's got a whole chapter on collecting dots

00:31:32

and how there are certain dots that are really useful,

00:31:34

but they're not that entertaining.

00:31:36

And there's like this spectrum, you know,

00:31:38

if there's useful, there's balance, there's entertaining,

00:31:40

and then there's like the trashy stuff,

00:31:41

it's like that's never gonna be useful.

00:31:43

I feel like with podcasts, maybe that's higher entertainment,

00:31:47

not quite as useful, you could get really useful stuff

00:31:50

from a podcast too, I guess it kind of depends

00:31:52

which ones you listen to and how you're gonna be listening

00:31:54

to them, but just the fact that it's going on

00:31:56

in the background, I don't think that's necessarily

00:31:58

working against the scatter focus or diffuse mode.

00:32:02

You just gotta recognize that when you're doing that,

00:32:04

you're not ringing out every drop of value you can

00:32:09

from the words that are being spoken,

00:32:10

but as long as you're okay with that, like who cares?

00:32:13

- Yeah, and maybe that's a good distinction

00:32:15

that I hadn't until right now is there are certain podcasts

00:32:18

where I should be doing them in more of the hyper focus mode

00:32:22

and I should be taking notes while I'm listening to that.

00:32:24

And then there are other ones that are much more background

00:32:27

scatter focused mode and that's okay.

00:32:31

Like I'm driving to work and I don't really need

00:32:33

to take notes on this, I really just care about,

00:32:35

you know, the new thing that came out

00:32:36

or what's happening in this world.

00:32:38

And that's all right.

00:32:39

- So I gotta jump in right here and ask you,

00:32:42

like where does Bookworm land on that then?

00:32:44

Is that one of those ones that you should be taking notes on?

00:32:46

- So the way I used to listen to it is it depended

00:32:50

on the book.

00:32:51

- Okay. - There were certain

00:32:52

books you all would cover where I really wanted

00:32:54

to get something out of that book, you know,

00:32:56

and I was like, okay, let's see what these guys

00:32:57

have to say about this.

00:32:58

And then there were other ones where just like,

00:32:59

yeah, you know, I'm driving to work, I don't really care.

00:33:01

Like let's just, let's just throw Bookworm on.

00:33:04

So it all just depended on the episode,

00:33:06

like which is not normal for me with all my podcasts.

00:33:11

Like there are very few.

00:33:12

So another one would be Andrew Hubermann's podcast.

00:33:15

- Yeah. - So he runs one where

00:33:16

it's about like health and wellness and fitness

00:33:18

and things like that.

00:33:19

And there are certain ones that I just don't listen to

00:33:21

because I'm just like, yeah, I don't care about that one.

00:33:23

Or there are other ones where I'm like,

00:33:24

I'm gonna listen to this, I'm gonna take notes

00:33:26

because it's so intriguing and it's so,

00:33:28

so interesting to me.

00:33:30

So that's interesting.

00:33:31

- I would like to think that we have very high quality

00:33:34

conversations, but I would still say that people don't take

00:33:39

notes listening to Bookworm because that kind of taps

00:33:42

into the thing with like audio books is like,

00:33:45

oh, well, I know that because I listened to it.

00:33:47

No, you don't. - No.

00:33:49

- No, you don't. - You didn't engage

00:33:51

with the material in a meaningful way to really solidify

00:33:55

this stuff.

00:33:56

And so at first, you know, when Joe and I started

00:33:59

this podcast, we thought people would be reading along

00:34:01

with us and it turned out that a lot of people were listening

00:34:04

to the podcast as kind of like a filter as to whether

00:34:08

they were gonna read the book.

00:34:09

And over time, I feel like that is the ideal way to do this.

00:34:13

Grab something that's entertaining, that you can listen

00:34:15

to on your commutes or when you're at the gym

00:34:17

or when you're doing chores around the house,

00:34:20

but you're not gonna stop on your writing lawnmower

00:34:23

because I say something profound and jot down a note.

00:34:26

Just recognize that that may trigger something,

00:34:29

open up a loop in your brain like,

00:34:30

oh, that book, those ideas that they were discussing,

00:34:33

that sounds interesting.

00:34:35

I'm gonna go study that further and then go pick up the book.

00:34:39

And if you wanna use the affiliate links that are

00:34:40

in the show, no, it's cool.

00:34:42

(laughs)

00:34:43

But then you have to do the additional work to really

00:34:46

like make it your own.

00:34:48

And I feel like we're in this place right now as a society

00:34:52

where we hear things or we watch a video on social media

00:34:57

and I now know this thing.

00:35:00

It's the, I call it the internet philosophers.

00:35:04

(laughs)

00:35:05

- Yeah, exactly.

00:35:06

- And I feel like that's dangerous

00:35:08

and we should all be rebelling against that

00:35:09

as hard as we can whenever we can.

00:35:12

- Well, and I don't know about your philosophy

00:35:13

so I'd be interested to hear this.

00:35:15

When I listen to an audiobook, if it's a nonfiction audio book

00:35:18

that I'm listening to, usually it's because I'm running

00:35:21

but I want a way to distract myself from the running

00:35:24

and all I'm trying to get is like one or two key ideas

00:35:27

out of that book.

00:35:28

Right, like so I'll listen to a five hour audiobook

00:35:31

because I'm like, okay, is there one or two things?

00:35:33

Like, or are there one or two things I can grab

00:35:35

from that book and like that is worth it to me.

00:35:38

Like that is a value to me.

00:35:39

It entertained me while I ran and it gave me one or two things.

00:35:42

If I'm listening to a fiction book, I don't even care.

00:35:44

Right, it's just like, okay, it's in the background.

00:35:46

It's whatever is happening.

00:35:47

So here's my question for you.

00:35:49

Are there any podcasts that you actually listen to

00:35:52

and take notes while you listen to them?

00:35:54

Never.

00:35:55

I will occasionally, like if I'm out for a run

00:35:58

and someone mentions something and I'm like,

00:36:01

that sounds cool, I need to check that out.

00:36:03

Then I'll capture a note inside of drafts

00:36:06

in about once a week, I'll process my drafts inbox

00:36:09

and if I still wanna go check out that thing,

00:36:11

I'll go check out the thing.

00:36:12

There've only been two for me.

00:36:15

So there's one that's happening right now

00:36:17

and it's because I'm using it to prepare for another thing.

00:36:20

But the only reason I do it is because I need that information

00:36:23

to be successful in the other thing that I'm doing.

00:36:26

The other one was the exact same situation

00:36:29

but it was on a one time deal.

00:36:30

It's like they did an episode that was so valuable

00:36:32

that I listened to it a second time and took notes on it

00:36:36

the second time.

00:36:37

So that's interesting.

00:36:38

Wow, okay, I didn't expect this to go down

00:36:40

the podcast rabbit hole.

00:36:42

It can be valuable, that's the thing

00:36:44

but the things that you pick up, I guess,

00:36:48

when I'm listening to a podcast or an audiobook,

00:36:51

I'll listen to audiobooks a lot of times

00:36:52

when I wanna just read something again

00:36:55

or I've read the actual book

00:36:57

and I just wanna review some of the material

00:36:59

so I'll just play that instead of a podcast

00:37:01

when I go for a run or whatever.

00:37:03

But the fact that you're collecting this information,

00:37:06

these are dots that are going into your brain,

00:37:09

that does have an effect whether or not you can recall it.

00:37:12

So from the perspective of today's book,

00:37:15

did you actually learn it?

00:37:16

No, but that doesn't mean that it didn't have an impact.

00:37:19

You can't regurgitate it on a test

00:37:22

but those are still dots that you've collected

00:37:25

and at some point you will connect them

00:37:28

in the right conditions when the time is right

00:37:31

and they will produce something useful.

00:37:34

So I try to curate the stuff that I listened to,

00:37:37

I want it to be potentially useful

00:37:39

but I'm not trying to ring every ounce of value

00:37:43

that I can out of it.

00:37:45

It's just something that is on in the background

00:37:48

and that stuff is maybe not getting as far down

00:37:52

as if I were actually forcing myself to take notes

00:37:55

on it right there but that's okay

00:37:57

because I have limited time attention

00:37:59

and energy available to me so I'll select my own spots

00:38:03

when I'm gonna dive deep on that stuff

00:38:05

and decide what I really think about things.

00:38:08

Yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense.

00:38:10

All right, so they call diffuse mode the strategic weapon

00:38:13

or what did Bailey call it, scatter mode?

00:38:15

Scatter focus, yep.

00:38:16

Scatter focus, right?

00:38:17

So they call that the strategic weapon

00:38:19

and then they go into a series in chapter two

00:38:21

of giving you techniques and methods, right?

00:38:23

So they call it one, they call the hard start technique.

00:38:25

You scan over a test or I said a homework problems

00:38:27

or something difficult, you mark the ones that are difficult,

00:38:30

you work on them for a few minutes

00:38:31

and then you intentionally step away

00:38:33

to let this diffuse mode or the scatter focus

00:38:36

work in the background.

00:38:38

Now I advise this for my students on tests as well

00:38:40

but mine is purely based on timing.

00:38:42

It has nothing to do with focus mode and diffuse mode.

00:38:46

It's more a matter of students will burn 45 minutes

00:38:49

on one problem and there's a 10 problem test

00:38:51

and I'm like you can't do that,

00:38:52

like you're missing all these other points

00:38:54

'cause you didn't get a chance to try.

00:38:55

But then they also talk about diffuse mode

00:38:57

in writing first drafts, they talk about using coffee shop

00:39:00

or background noise or different places

00:39:02

that'll help pull you out of focus mode

00:39:05

and into diffuse mode.

00:39:06

The one that I like and that I'm ready to go on,

00:39:08

the one that I like is the writer dye app

00:39:11

that they recommend.

00:39:12

I've actually used apps like this before

00:39:15

where you set a timer or you set a word limit

00:39:17

in an amount of time and if you don't hit that number of words

00:39:20

it erases all of your writing.

00:39:22

Now this works for me on a bunch of different levels

00:39:26

'cause one it's motivating, it's like

00:39:27

I don't wanna lose all that work that I did

00:39:28

but two it was taught to me a long, long time ago

00:39:31

that writing is thinking.

00:39:33

So the reason why I like things like that

00:39:34

is because it forces me to think about a thing

00:39:37

and it forces me to think about it more than just

00:39:39

like in the background of my brain

00:39:40

but I'm actually trying to type it as well

00:39:42

and I think about it more deeply.

00:39:43

And then even if I do get to the situation

00:39:44

where it wipes everything away,

00:39:46

I've thought about it once really, really hard.

00:39:48

So I like that they call it out that app,

00:39:50

I like that they threw that app out there.

00:39:52

Use it with caution because if you're one of those people

00:39:55

that like will get really devastated

00:39:56

when it wipes away all your writing,

00:39:59

it might happen and then it's technology.

00:40:02

So sometimes it glitches and it like

00:40:04

it doesn't work the way it's supposed to

00:40:05

and it cuts earlier or whatever.

00:40:07

So that wraps up two for me.

00:40:10

What else do you have anything else to add for two?

00:40:12

- No but this writer die app terrifies me.

00:40:15

I don't think I would touch this with a 10 foot pole.

00:40:17

- It's really, really great.

00:40:19

If you use it appropriately and your brain can handle

00:40:23

that kind of a thing.

00:40:24

And when you get to that point where you're like,

00:40:26

I just have writer's block, I can't write anything.

00:40:28

It's a way to move yourself through.

00:40:31

All right, let's go to chapter three.

00:40:33

How to learn anything deeply.

00:40:35

Now I think this is a very, very aggressive title.

00:40:40

Aggressive is probably not the right word.

00:40:43

What word am I looking for, Mike?

00:40:44

Like it's a-- - Clickbaitie.

00:40:45

- I don't know.

00:40:46

- Yeah, it's Clickbaitie.

00:40:47

It's like-- - This is an SEO title for sure.

00:40:49

(laughs)

00:40:50

- Anything, okay.

00:40:52

So what they're taking us through here

00:40:53

is they're taking us through a little bit more

00:40:55

of the neuroscience, how axons and other neurons

00:41:01

and stuff fire and how they connect together.

00:41:03

My takeaway from this was basically,

00:41:07

okay, we've got these different parts of our brain.

00:41:08

We're gonna do different things with different parts

00:41:11

of our brain.

00:41:12

Retrieval practice comes into here.

00:41:14

Mark, Mike, do we get into working memory

00:41:18

and long-term memory in this section?

00:41:19

Or is it in a different section?

00:41:21

- I don't think it's in this one,

00:41:24

at least not in my notes.

00:41:25

- No, it's in four, okay.

00:41:27

So we're leading up to working memory and long-term memory.

00:41:29

So we're trying to make these links,

00:41:32

we're trying to do different things.

00:41:35

Retrieval practice is what stood out for me

00:41:37

in this chapter.

00:41:38

So retrieval practice, in other words,

00:41:39

you wanna see if you can pull information from your memory

00:41:42

or work with it in your own mind

00:41:45

rather than simply looking at it, working through this.

00:41:48

And I think this is where I really connected with Oakley,

00:41:52

the author, because as an engineering student,

00:41:55

I would look at all these problems being done,

00:41:57

these example problems being done.

00:41:58

And I would think, okay, that's easy, right?

00:42:01

Piece of cake.

00:42:02

And then I'd get the problem and I'd be like, oh my,

00:42:05

I have no idea what to do.

00:42:07

Like I've, no, I don't even know how to start it.

00:42:09

I don't know what assumptions to make.

00:42:10

I don't know anything about this problem.

00:42:12

And this is where that retrieval practice comes in

00:42:13

where you kind of make it your own

00:42:16

and you say, okay, why did they do that in the problem?

00:42:20

Why did they do that in the problem?

00:42:21

Why did they do that in the problem?

00:42:22

And you're really connecting the dots here

00:42:24

and you're retrieving other things

00:42:26

from other parts of your brain,

00:42:27

which then makes those links stronger

00:42:30

and makes those connections stronger.

00:42:31

And honestly, if you want to learn anything, right?

00:42:36

This is where I like don't think the title

00:42:38

is completely clickbaity.

00:42:40

If you run this process, it really significantly helps you

00:42:44

learn in any context, like in almost any context,

00:42:48

is this retrieval practice?

00:42:49

And that's where I think they move out of the clickbaity title.

00:42:52

- Yeah, the thing that I got out of this chapter

00:42:55

that I really enjoyed was the description

00:42:58

of how the chain links get forged together.

00:43:02

And this is where they've got some visuals

00:43:04

to illustrate this, but this really doesn't have to do

00:43:08

with the how to part, but I really enjoyed

00:43:11

the actual scientific description of what actually happens

00:43:15

where you've got these 86 million different neurons

00:43:18

in your brain and understanding how they actually get

00:43:21

wired together was kind of cool.

00:43:24

And they kind of build on that as they go too,

00:43:26

but some of the big takeaways to me were that

00:43:29

when you learn new things, you're building on things

00:43:32

that you already know.

00:43:34

And when you're creating these links,

00:43:36

the more that you retrieve these sets of links,

00:43:39

the stronger that you make them, which makes a lot of sense.

00:43:42

Like you just every time you review that material,

00:43:46

essentially you're reinforcing that set of links there.

00:43:49

But the thing that really I have the most notes on

00:43:53

probably is like right at the end, they talk about,

00:43:55

well, the real place where the learning is solidified

00:43:58

is in your sleep.

00:43:59

There's nothing you can do about that

00:44:00

other than try to get more sleep.

00:44:02

And here's some tactics for doing that.

00:44:05

I have to say that they're how to fall asleep more easily.

00:44:09

They talk about clearing your mind,

00:44:11

I'm making a list for tomorrow,

00:44:12

avoid blue light from your phones and screens,

00:44:14

make it dark, use a way to blink it,

00:44:15

put your mobile phone in another room.

00:44:18

Those are all great suggestions.

00:44:20

I've actually pieced together my own sleep routine

00:44:23

and that's largely it.

00:44:24

So I think I agree with that.

00:44:27

But then the relaxation technique to fall asleep,

00:44:29

like I tried this, it doesn't work for me.

00:44:33

And this isn't the only version of this I've found.

00:44:35

Any of those like articles,

00:44:37

how to fall asleep in two minutes,

00:44:38

that's essentially what they're talking about here.

00:44:41

These have never worked for me.

00:44:43

And just a little bit of a background on the sleep thing,

00:44:45

like I was diagnosed with epilepsy

00:44:47

when I was 18 years old.

00:44:48

So sleep is really important for me.

00:44:49

I tracked my sleep using three different apps

00:44:52

every single night.

00:44:54

Okay, now I'm not constantly going back

00:44:56

and looking at that data or saying,

00:44:58

oh, I only got 57% last night.

00:45:00

I better just batten down the hatches

00:45:02

and stay in bed all day because who knows what's gonna happen?

00:45:05

But the truth is that, you know,

00:45:08

seizure can be triggered by a lack of sleep.

00:45:11

Now I haven't had issues in over 20 years.

00:45:13

So like it's under control,

00:45:15

but largely because I'm doing everything that I can

00:45:17

optimize the quality and the quantity of the sleep

00:45:20

that I get.

00:45:21

However, I feel like this relaxation technique

00:45:24

to fall asleep, maybe this works if you are a student

00:45:27

and you are getting up early because you have to,

00:45:31

but then staying up late because you want to.

00:45:34

(laughs)

00:45:35

That's immediately what I thought of when I read this.

00:45:38

It's like, well, this would work for someone who's just

00:45:40

like constantly wired from the stimulus

00:45:43

of like being in a college setting.

00:45:46

But when you get into the real world,

00:45:49

don't get frustrated when that doesn't work

00:45:51

'cause it's probably not gonna work.

00:45:53

- Do you have trouble sleeping?

00:45:54

Like, do you have trouble getting to sleep at night?

00:45:57

- I mean, I have never been able to get one of these hacks

00:46:02

to work for me, but I don't think I have trouble sleeping.

00:46:05

I'm not the type of person where I'm out the minute

00:46:08

that my head hits the pillow.

00:46:09

In fact, I get frustrated sometimes because like

00:46:13

my wife and I will be talking and then all of a sudden

00:46:15

she's out.

00:46:16

(laughs)

00:46:17

And I'm like, where'd you go?

00:46:18

- Yeah.

00:46:19

- So I am that person, right?

00:46:20

So you would get frustrated with me because, I mean,

00:46:23

I can think about going to bed and then in five minutes

00:46:25

I'm asleep.

00:46:26

It is very, very rare for me not to be able to.

00:46:28

I can drink a couple of coffee and then 10 minutes later

00:46:31

go to sleep.

00:46:32

Like it's not, you know, that might just tell you

00:46:34

about my coffee consumption, but like it is not a challenge

00:46:38

for me.

00:46:39

So this section really, I got it and I understand that.

00:46:42

What I think was interesting about this is I thought about

00:46:44

through the lens of like Red Bull, Monster,

00:46:48

all of these energy drinks and the fact that like,

00:46:50

at least I know for the guys, a lot of the guys I work with,

00:46:54

you know, they'll do what you say.

00:46:55

Like they have to be up for eight AM class or nine AM class

00:46:57

or whatever it is and then they're playing video games

00:46:59

until two in the morning.

00:47:00

- Yep.

00:47:00

- And usually they're not living the healthiest life

00:47:03

while they play the video game.

00:47:04

So they're eating food that doesn't make sense.

00:47:05

And they're in and it's like, okay, I could maybe see

00:47:07

this kind of working through that.

00:47:10

What I thought was weird about this chapter too though is

00:47:12

we talk about some heavier, they're not heavy,

00:47:15

but heavier concepts.

00:47:16

So you've got recall practice or retrieval practice.

00:47:20

You've got inner weaving, which is basically mixing concepts.

00:47:23

Don't stay focused on the same concept,

00:47:25

mixed concepts together.

00:47:26

Talk about the axons and stuff.

00:47:27

But then we get into these other things,

00:47:29

procrastination, exercise, nutrition, sleep.

00:47:31

And it just felt like it came out of nowhere to me

00:47:33

that it's like these two chapters kind of muddied,

00:47:36

or sorry, this chapter kind of muddied into two topics

00:47:38

that I don't know if it should have been two chapters or not,

00:47:40

but it felt kind of strange to me.

00:47:43

- Yeah, it is a little bit weird.

00:47:45

- I like their one connection to some more current things

00:47:51

was the ideal spacing intervals.

00:47:53

And that is, so spaced repetition.

00:47:57

So you'll see programs like RemNote comes around

00:48:00

and RemNote's purpose is to try to help you

00:48:01

with spaced repetition, which I think that was pretty cool.

00:48:04

So that was a good tie in.

00:48:06

- Yeah, there's, I mean, I know you use Obsidian either too.

00:48:10

There's different plugins and things that you can do

00:48:12

that sort of thing with those apps.

00:48:14

And that's the value of something like read wise,

00:48:17

in my opinion, I don't use read wise for book notes,

00:48:19

but they do have like the spaced repetition stuff.

00:48:21

So there is something to be said for that.

00:48:24

I think if you're really trying to like ingrain this stuff,

00:48:27

though, one of the big things that they touched on,

00:48:29

but really didn't hit hard is you got to exercise.

00:48:34

You got to be active every single day.

00:48:36

They talk about how exercise is critical for learning

00:48:38

because it produces that brain derived new,

00:48:41

neutrophic factor.

00:48:42

Is that what the name is, the BDNF?

00:48:44

Where is it?

00:48:46

- Yes, brain derived, neutropic factor.

00:48:48

- Yeah.

00:48:49

And then what that does is that actually promotes

00:48:53

the dendrite spine production.

00:48:55

So we kind of glanced over this,

00:48:57

but like the way that the neurons wire together

00:48:59

is they have these spines at the end

00:49:02

of the little octopus arms.

00:49:05

And when you exercise those spines, the prickly parts,

00:49:09

that allow the things to latch together

00:49:11

and create the links, like there's more that,

00:49:15

there's more of those spines that get produced.

00:49:18

They're more effective.

00:49:20

So if you have more of those spines in there,

00:49:22

they're stickier, essentially.

00:49:24

The links get forged a little bit less actively.

00:49:29

Like you don't have to work as hard

00:49:31

in order for those things to click.

00:49:35

- All right, ready, move to four?

00:49:36

- Let's do it.

00:49:37

- So how to maximize working memory and take better notes.

00:49:41

Now, this is another one of those sections

00:49:43

where I thought Mike is gonna have lots of opinions on this

00:49:46

because it said take better notes.

00:49:49

I was like, I wonder what he's gonna say here.

00:49:51

So let me give you the overview on it

00:49:53

and then we can dive in.

00:49:55

So one of the key points here is that

00:49:57

the brain has two separate types of memory.

00:49:59

So you have got working memory.

00:50:00

And for those of you who like computer analogies

00:50:03

or metaphors,

00:50:04

'cause that's another part of this book they talk about,

00:50:06

this is the RAM, this is the memory that's quick access.

00:50:09

And it's happening all the time.

00:50:11

And then you have your long-term memory

00:50:13

and your long-term memory is your hard drive.

00:50:14

And that's where you store things permanently

00:50:17

to keep them around a longer term.

00:50:20

So they say true learning only takes place

00:50:23

when things are moved from working memory

00:50:25

to your actual long-term memory.

00:50:27

So we're gonna move from working memory to long-term memory.

00:50:31

So then they start talking about the attentional octopus.

00:50:34

So you brought the octopus in.

00:50:35

And I thought this was actually pretty clever.

00:50:37

In turn, the attentional octopus.

00:50:39

And they say that it's got slippery arms.

00:50:40

When our working memory situation,

00:50:42

the octopus is holding things in its thing,

00:50:44

but things are slipping around

00:50:45

and they're moving all around

00:50:46

and it might get stored, it might not get stored.

00:50:48

And then at some point, that's gonna shift over.

00:50:51

And we're actually gonna move that into a place

00:50:53

where it's not into that slippery phase.

00:50:55

And I may have messed up the backend of that analogy.

00:50:59

But then they give ideas to basically

00:51:02

help make the best use of working memory.

00:51:04

And they've given a couple of different ideas there.

00:51:06

And then they give ways to actually work

00:51:09

into long-term memory as well.

00:51:11

So some of those are simplify the material down,

00:51:13

break it into chunks, focus on the fundamentals,

00:51:16

translate into more understandable terms,

00:51:18

make task lists, put something on paper.

00:51:20

And then they transition into the taking notes,

00:51:22

taking into a section.

00:51:23

So you're seeing a little bit of a theme here

00:51:26

in terms of the way the chapters are laid out

00:51:28

to where they'll talk about these sciencey concepts.

00:51:31

And then they roll it into a how-to

00:51:33

and a more practical guide.

00:51:34

And sometimes I think it works better than others.

00:51:37

Their key here is that notes are a big part

00:51:40

of helping you move it into long-term memory.

00:51:42

Which for the most part, I agree with Rick.

00:51:44

When I go from just thinking about it to writing it down,

00:51:47

the writing it down and whether I ever go back to that again

00:51:49

is less relevant than the fact that it makes it more permanent

00:51:53

in my brain.

00:51:55

- Yeah, so what constitutes knowing something

00:51:59

is the follow-up question I've got here.

00:52:00

Because again, these are academics

00:52:03

and we're trying to recall information

00:52:05

to spit it back on a test.

00:52:08

Which is a valid form of doing something

00:52:13

with the information.

00:52:14

But I feel like once you get out of the academic setting

00:52:17

that has limited value, I was a really good test taker.

00:52:22

A lot of the stuff that they were talking about,

00:52:24

like the tactics and like breaking down

00:52:25

the different questions and things,

00:52:27

I naturally did that, but I didn't ever have

00:52:30

like a formal training or like the process,

00:52:33

this is how you do it.

00:52:34

It's just like, well, that's how you take a test.

00:52:36

That makes sense.

00:52:37

In fact, I was so good at taking tests

00:52:41

that on the ACT, I think I ended up getting like a 30

00:52:45

and I got like a 32 in the science section.

00:52:47

Had nothing to do with my ability to learn science.

00:52:52

It was my ability to take a test.

00:52:54

So I'm like, oh, I'm really good at science.

00:52:56

Well, I've kind of always wanted to be a chiropractor.

00:52:57

I'll go into, I'll go to college for biology.

00:53:01

And I just absolutely like, I worked my butt off.

00:53:05

There was one test specifically,

00:53:07

like I spent the entire Thanksgiving break in the lab,

00:53:09

like fell asleep during the study,

00:53:11

like in the lab on like the Friday or Saturday.

00:53:13

Now my professor comes in, he's like,

00:53:15

"Oh, I'm so proud of you.

00:53:15

You're gonna do awesome in this test."

00:53:17

I failed the test.

00:53:18

Like I just could not do, could not hack it

00:53:21

when it came to biology.

00:53:23

And that was kind of like a false indicator of like,

00:53:24

okay, you might be really good at this thing

00:53:26

because I could figure out naturally how to take the test.

00:53:30

So fast forward, you know, a lot of the stuff that I do now

00:53:34

in terms of being a creator,

00:53:35

that's a totally different application of information.

00:53:39

You can read all the books, you can have all the information,

00:53:42

you could spit back that, well, this is how you implement GTD.

00:53:46

That means absolutely nothing in the world

00:53:48

that I'm in right now because it's, well,

00:53:51

how do you actually apply that to make something new?

00:53:55

And not just like make something like,

00:53:56

"Well, here's my book notes from whatever."

00:53:59

And this is what David Allen has said,

00:54:00

but like putting your own spin on these concepts,

00:54:04

that's a totally different skill.

00:54:07

And so I feel like the taking better notes,

00:54:11

like, yeah, it's an important piece,

00:54:13

but the type of notes that you're taking

00:54:15

and then really what you're doing with those is important.

00:54:19

And you have to think through,

00:54:21

how am I going to use this stuff again in the future?

00:54:25

Because the default way, and I say default just because,

00:54:29

like, the perspective that they're sharing in the book

00:54:32

does not align with my goals and objectives

00:54:35

for taking notes at all, (laughs)

00:54:38

which means that my approach is very different,

00:54:41

which is why it's understandable that, you know,

00:54:44

creating concept maps is one bullet point

00:54:47

at the bottom of this one chapter in this very short book,

00:54:51

when really like, that's so important

00:54:53

to all of my productivity and creativity workflows.

00:54:56

- Well, and that would make sense to me,

00:54:59

to think about yours versus what they're doing,

00:55:01

you're trying to make connections between things

00:55:03

and then take those connections and make new content

00:55:05

out of that, right?

00:55:06

And that's interesting and relevant

00:55:08

and advances our way of thinking about it.

00:55:11

For their situation as academics,

00:55:13

and we roll into like test taking,

00:55:15

it's largely about recall and being able to apply that

00:55:18

in a confined set of problems or a confined context

00:55:22

that's related to a class or whatever that would be.

00:55:24

- Exactly.

00:55:25

- Which they're very, very different.

00:55:26

Like they are very, very different environments.

00:55:29

I teach my students all the time, you know,

00:55:31

one of the things I don't teach

00:55:32

is I don't teach specific software platforms,

00:55:34

I teach them how to learn software,

00:55:36

because I have no idea what they're gonna go do,

00:55:38

I have no idea what application they're gonna get into,

00:55:41

and it takes them a little while to wrap their head around

00:55:43

that that's like, oh, it doesn't matter

00:55:45

if we're modeling in Fusion 360

00:55:47

or if we're modeling in Tinkercad

00:55:48

or if we're modeling something else,

00:55:50

I need to understand what a revolution is

00:55:51

because revolutions happen in all those modeling platforms

00:55:53

and I'm gonna need to figure out how to do it

00:55:55

in all those platforms.

00:55:55

- You're right, but that's the thing is that application

00:56:00

with the digital economy that we're all going to work in

00:56:06

once we get out of school, that's less and less important.

00:56:11

Who cares what the information is

00:56:13

because when you're on the job,

00:56:14

you're gonna need to be able to write a good chat GPT query

00:56:18

or a good Google search in order to surface it quickly.

00:56:22

The thing that you're not gonna be able to reproduce easily

00:56:25

and the thing that's gonna add value, I think,

00:56:29

is well, what do you think about this?

00:56:31

Or how do you actually use that?

00:56:33

It's not just the recall,

00:56:36

in the cohort I'm going through,

00:56:37

I talk about three different levels of information

00:56:41

and there's the one level which is just the information

00:56:44

where I've got it in the archive and I can go find it.

00:56:47

That's the bare minimum and we've got technological tools

00:56:50

that can help us with that.

00:56:52

And then the next one is kind of revelation

00:56:54

where I don't even need to go look for it anymore

00:56:57

because I've internalized it and that's kind of

00:56:58

what they're talking about here.

00:57:00

But the top level I call applications,

00:57:03

what are you doing with it?

00:57:06

And so we are doing people into service

00:57:08

if we don't kind of push them in that direction.

00:57:10

That's what I'm trying to do with the cohort is like,

00:57:12

you gotta make something out of this.

00:57:14

I don't care if you don't think you're creative

00:57:16

and I don't care if you don't have a blog or a podcast

00:57:19

or a YouTube channel, you've gotta decide,

00:57:22

what does this mean to me and how am I gonna use it?

00:57:25

And if you're not gonna use it,

00:57:26

then it's not useful.

00:57:28

Chuck it and find some information that is.

00:57:30

- Yep, I agree, I agree completely.

00:57:32

All right, let's talk about memorizing.

00:57:34

So the next chapter is how to memorize.

00:57:36

And their key point out of this one is memorizing

00:57:39

key pieces of information releases mental power

00:57:42

so we can understand more complex concepts

00:57:44

and solve more advanced problems.

00:57:45

So they tie memorizing into almost establishing a foundation

00:57:50

that lets us do some of these more advanced things

00:57:53

that we've been talking about.

00:57:55

In general, I understand this,

00:57:58

even though I loathe memorization with a passion.

00:58:03

Like the idea of memorizing something

00:58:07

for the sake of memorizing it actually stirs up

00:58:10

some like frustration and maybe anger in me.

00:58:14

Now, what I think is very, very valuable

00:58:17

is if I work in a field and in the field,

00:58:20

there's a base level of knowledge I need to know

00:58:22

and I need to understand, but I don't call that memorization.

00:58:25

I call that learning the base level of knowledge

00:58:27

in the field, which I know that's a nuanced discrepancy there,

00:58:31

but it's like I'm not memorizing it just to memorize facts

00:58:33

so I can regurgitate it back to you.

00:58:35

I'm learning it because I'm going to apply it

00:58:38

so readily and so directly

00:58:40

that it just helps me apply it way faster.

00:58:42

And that's what I think really gets at the crux of it.

00:58:46

And I see students all the time

00:58:48

right having direct experience with this.

00:58:50

I see students all the time, what are they trying to do?

00:58:52

They're trying to memorize,

00:58:53

they're trying to pass the test and then dump

00:58:54

and they will 100% dump all of that information.

00:58:58

They could care less about ever keeping it in their brain.

00:59:01

Really, they just want to pass the test.

00:59:03

And this happens, I think more and more,

00:59:04

this is why I actually got out of biology and healthcare

00:59:08

and all any of those fields is because so much of that was

00:59:12

why does need to know everybody part in the human body?

00:59:15

No, like why?

00:59:17

Like what help does that give me at all?

00:59:20

But I see the balance in this, right?

00:59:21

Like actually learning and knowing things

00:59:24

and having a base level of knowledge,

00:59:25

they would call it memorizing in the book,

00:59:27

but actually having that base level of knowledge

00:59:29

does help you do things better.

00:59:31

So it's like if I can have an understanding of for me,

00:59:34

right, if I can have an understanding of material properties,

00:59:37

it helps me manufacture better.

00:59:39

I need to essentially memorize those material properties

00:59:41

because it helps me manufacture better,

00:59:43

it helps me design better.

00:59:44

So yes, I get that, but I kind of have a fundamental issue

00:59:49

with the way they position memorization as,

00:59:54

I guess the way they prioritize it,

00:59:56

the way they put it, they put it on a pedestal.

00:59:58

They run us through a bunch of different memorization

00:59:59

techniques, which I'm sure we'll get to here in a little bit.

01:00:03

But the first thing I want to do, Mike,

01:00:04

is I want to know what your thoughts are on memorization.

01:00:08

- Well, I don't do a ton of memorization,

01:00:10

but I do think that there's value in it.

01:00:13

However, I think there's like different levels

01:00:16

of memorization here also kind of going back

01:00:19

to like the three levels of information that I mentioned.

01:00:23

Like number one, let's just talk about like memorizing

01:00:27

scripture, I feel like that's valuable

01:00:29

because then I'm more likely to recall it.

01:00:31

Yeah, I can go search for it,

01:00:33

but sometimes it's more valuable to have it,

01:00:37

like tip of the tongue because I can use that

01:00:41

to make better decisions.

01:00:44

But there's another level here with memorization,

01:00:47

another example that comes to mind with like musical scales

01:00:51

because I've played guitar on the worship team

01:00:53

for a long time currently in playing bass.

01:00:55

And one of the things that really helped me

01:00:57

with bass in particular was understanding the scales.

01:01:02

Now, there was a point where I was taking lessons

01:01:06

and my teacher could say, okay, it's time to play

01:01:10

the B major scale and I could sit and I could think about it

01:01:14

and I could do it.

01:01:14

Like if he's walking through it

01:01:16

and I'm playing along with him,

01:01:17

then I could do it at the same speed that he did it.

01:01:20

But that doesn't mean that I have actually memorized it

01:01:22

to the point where I can use this in a live setting

01:01:25

because when we're playing at church, okay,

01:01:28

now we're going off the page and oh,

01:01:31

we just changed keys from B to E.

01:01:34

Well, let's think through what's the E scale.

01:01:36

I can't in the middle of the song play through the E scale.

01:01:40

At that point, I just got to know this is E,

01:01:42

this is the third, this is the fifth.

01:01:44

These are my options.

01:01:46

And I've gotten to the point now where I can do that live

01:01:52

and it unlocks the instrument.

01:01:54

It is way more interesting even for people

01:01:58

who are listening, like this is the difference

01:02:00

between somebody who is really good at an instrument

01:02:02

and someone who is okay.

01:02:03

And I can play the guitar in my dorm room

01:02:06

and people think it sounds cool, right?

01:02:09

There's a whole another professional level to be achieved

01:02:13

when you have really internalized these concepts.

01:02:16

But again, it's not just can you spit it back

01:02:19

when someone asks you or when it appears on a test.

01:02:23

So I think there's value in memorization.

01:02:26

I like the way they talk about how memorizing helps you

01:02:28

understand more complex topics better

01:02:30

and solve more advanced problems.

01:02:31

I mean, that is a hundred percent true.

01:02:33

When I understand one scale, it helps with the next scale.

01:02:36

And then the next scale gets easier,

01:02:37

but you still got to put in the work

01:02:39

in order to really internalize all those things.

01:02:41

And I don't think the verbal memory tricks

01:02:44

and the mnemonics are really the thing

01:02:46

that's gonna get you there.

01:02:48

You got to put in a bunch of effort.

01:02:51

But then also they talked about how,

01:02:53

I think it was this chapter that,

01:02:56

or maybe it was the chapter before, I can't remember,

01:02:58

but like, oh, no, it's in this chapter.

01:03:00

Half of your brain is involved in visual processing,

01:03:02

but only 10% is auditory.

01:03:04

Okay, so why are we focused on the verbal memory tricks?

01:03:09

And they do share some visual memory tricks here

01:03:12

to like, the images and memory palaces, things like that.

01:03:14

You know what else is visual and really great?

01:03:17

Mind maps.

01:03:18

(laughs)

01:03:20

Like, what do that?

01:03:21

Well, I'm not saying like,

01:03:22

oh, they definitely should have talked about it here,

01:03:24

but it just illustrates the point

01:03:26

that they're approaching this from a single perspective.

01:03:29

So you got to kind of weigh the stuff

01:03:31

that they're saying here,

01:03:32

and there's some really good stuff that they're saying here,

01:03:34

but then you got to figure out

01:03:35

how do I actually apply this for myself?

01:03:38

And the list of things that they're giving you

01:03:39

in this 117 page book is not comprehensive.

01:03:42

So take the concepts, figure out how to own it.

01:03:46

Yeah, so let's get into those verbal and visual

01:03:49

just a little bit more.

01:03:50

They say acronyms for verbal sentences for verbal.

01:03:53

So acronym would be like Rice Rest Ice

01:03:56

compression elevation when you twist your ankle.

01:03:59

Sentences are, which I had not heard this version of this,

01:04:01

but it works.

01:04:02

My very elderly mother just served us noodles.

01:04:05

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,

01:04:06

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.

01:04:08

(laughs)

01:04:09

The one that they completely missed

01:04:14

in the verbal section for me,

01:04:15

and the reason I say like, it's a complete miss

01:04:18

is because I use it with the boys all the time,

01:04:20

and it is crazy effective.

01:04:22

It's actually effective for me,

01:04:23

but songs.

01:04:24

Like we completely missed taking an idea

01:04:26

or taking a concept and turning it into a song.

01:04:29

I can't tell you the number of things

01:04:30

we've memorized in our house

01:04:32

based on putting some sort of musical melody behind it,

01:04:35

and then like, you know, just repeating it

01:04:38

and just singing it and it sticks in your brain.

01:04:40

And then next thing you know, you're singing it.

01:04:42

So I think that was a huge miss in this section.

01:04:45

Then the visual memory tricks, they say vivid images,

01:04:48

basically the more crazy, the more fun,

01:04:49

the more wild your image is,

01:04:51

the more likely you are to remember it.

01:04:53

And then I have never, I've tried this one,

01:04:55

I've never been able to get it work,

01:04:57

but the memory palace thing where you're like,

01:04:59

oh, I'm gonna walk through the door and on the wall,

01:05:01

there's the picture of this and on the thing.

01:05:03

And I think about like, nope, that's just not me.

01:05:06

Like I am not gonna memorize anything.

01:05:08

I'm not able to memorize anything

01:05:10

through a memory palace or a memory map

01:05:13

or whatever it might be.

01:05:14

So those are some of the things they threw out for us.

01:05:17

Oh, metaphor.

01:05:18

And then metaphor was the last one,

01:05:19

which I use metaphors all the time.

01:05:20

So that was a natural for me.

01:05:22

I do remember when I was in Toastmasters,

01:05:25

one of the, like they have different levels

01:05:27

and the top level is like the distinguished Toastmaster

01:05:30

and the DTM.

01:05:31

So one of the DTM's in my club had given me advice one time

01:05:35

of doing that sort of thing.

01:05:37

When you are trying to memorize a speech

01:05:40

where you are essentially walking through

01:05:42

a familiar place.

01:05:43

So I don't know if this is exactly the memory palace,

01:05:46

it sounded like it.

01:05:48

It's one of the things I jotted down though,

01:05:50

was like you're going through and,

01:05:51

okay, so this part of my speech is representative

01:05:54

of this part of my house.

01:05:55

And as I'm walking through the front door,

01:05:56

then I go to the next piece.

01:05:58

I did find that helpful,

01:06:00

but also that's my traditional approach to this was,

01:06:03

I'm gonna write out the speech word for word.

01:06:05

I'm gonna memorize the whole thing.

01:06:07

And that's why when I got into the competition,

01:06:09

I got up on the stage and I blanked out and I'm like,

01:06:11

oh man, this is really hard.

01:06:13

I gotta prove to myself that I can do this.

01:06:15

So entered the next contest that I could

01:06:17

and that was the humorous speech contest.

01:06:19

I think I told the story before.

01:06:21

So I did it mission accomplished,

01:06:23

but I kept advancing until the finals,

01:06:28

which was the whole state of Wisconsin

01:06:29

and then upper Michigan,

01:06:31

where I lost to a professional comedian.

01:06:33

So I didn't feel too bad about that.

01:06:36

But that was a helpful tool that I used

01:06:39

when I was going through all those different performances.

01:06:42

So I think maybe if the stakes are higher, it can be helpful.

01:06:44

- Yeah, when it comes to those type of things,

01:06:46

I'm much more improv than I am, than I am memory palace.

01:06:49

- Yeah, you're one of the tabletop X guys.

01:06:52

- Let's just improv our way through this.

01:06:54

Okay, so let's move to six.

01:06:56

We're gonna gain intuition and think fast.

01:06:58

So how to gain intuition and think fast.

01:07:00

In this section, they call out declarative learning

01:07:04

and procedural learning.

01:07:05

So declarative learning would be tied to working memory.

01:07:10

And it's basically those situations where

01:07:13

you're really just trying to learn like a,

01:07:15

the way I saw it is a specific thing.

01:07:17

You're not really trying to learn the connections, right?

01:07:19

So I'm declaring that I want to learn this topic

01:07:22

or this concept and you're trying to get that piece

01:07:25

of information.

01:07:26

When you get the procedural, now you're thinking about

01:07:28

like the links and trying to connect that

01:07:30

the long-term memory and how does that tie

01:07:32

into these other things.

01:07:34

So I guess maybe, and Mike, you can tell me

01:07:36

if you think this is the wrong analogy.

01:07:38

My declarative would be making my atomic note.

01:07:40

And my procedural would be connecting those atomic notes

01:07:45

to write a blog post or write an article

01:07:48

or whatever that might be.

01:07:50

Like that might be a way that I could think about

01:07:52

declarative learning and procedural learning.

01:07:54

Would you agree with that?

01:07:56

- Maybe.

01:07:58

I think you're probably right,

01:08:00

but I think that's not the best example

01:08:02

of the procedural learning.

01:08:03

- Okay.

01:08:04

- Because they talked about,

01:08:06

and I used to play Tennyson in college.

01:08:08

So they talked about learning to serve.

01:08:10

And the serve, if you really like break it down

01:08:13

into the component parts,

01:08:15

it's a very complicated motion.

01:08:19

And almost everyone that I've tried,

01:08:22

'cause I did Tennyson instruction

01:08:25

and coaching for a while too.

01:08:27

Everyone I've tried to like teach to learn to serve,

01:08:31

you have to like break down the individual pieces

01:08:33

and walk them through it once

01:08:34

and then basically say, okay, now just do it.

01:08:37

Like forget everything I just told you and do it.

01:08:40

And what they're talking about

01:08:41

with the procedural learning systems

01:08:43

is that's where you learn by doing.

01:08:47

And you do it enough,

01:08:48

and then it just kind of gets ingrained

01:08:50

and you don't have to think about it anymore.

01:08:54

So I think with like the notes and the creating the links,

01:08:57

you never really are gonna get to that level

01:09:00

of procedural learning where it just becomes something

01:09:03

that you do.

01:09:04

And then also I think related to this,

01:09:06

but not discussed in this book,

01:09:08

is the whole idea of like the visual rehearsal.

01:09:12

That we talked about a little bit in feel good productivity.

01:09:16

The mental modeling.

01:09:18

There's an aspect of like the procedural learning system

01:09:22

where you could just watch video

01:09:25

of the right way to do things

01:09:27

without actually having to practice it yourself.

01:09:30

And that gets translated, that gets applied.

01:09:34

And then you've watched it enough that you can do it,

01:09:38

you can do it without all the step by step,

01:09:40

this is how you do these sorts of things.

01:09:42

In fact, some people learn better that way.

01:09:45

My brother was kind of this way.

01:09:47

He would, I was the oldest in a family of three boys.

01:09:51

My younger brother was four years younger than me,

01:09:53

and then my youngest was four years younger than him.

01:09:55

So my youngest brother was watching us play sports

01:10:00

since he was really little.

01:10:01

And by the time he actually got to play,

01:10:03

he just knew how to do it.

01:10:04

And he was the best soccer player out of anybody,

01:10:07

because it just, it seems so natural to him.

01:10:10

And it wasn't that he was this phenomenal athlete,

01:10:13

it was just that he had practiced this over and over and over again.

01:10:16

He ended up working with a coach

01:10:18

who really leaned on this, this concept too,

01:10:20

of like watching the right video.

01:10:22

You know, you videotape yourself doing something the right way,

01:10:25

and you're trying to like change a stroke or something,

01:10:27

and then you watch that video over and over and over

01:10:28

and over and over and over again.

01:10:30

And then the next time that you go to play,

01:10:32

it's automatic, like what happened there?

01:10:34

I don't know, my brain just created this image

01:10:36

of this is the way that we do the thing.

01:10:38

And then it did the thing without me having to think about it.

01:10:41

- And I like the way they tie into that too,

01:10:43

'cause you said it without saying the word they use,

01:10:45

they use the black box metaphor, which yes,

01:10:49

I mean it actually, it very much is that

01:10:51

I had never thought about it from a kids learning things

01:10:55

from other kids standpoint,

01:10:56

but that makes a ton of sense to me too,

01:10:58

where procedural learning is like,

01:11:00

oh, I watched somebody do it so much

01:11:02

that I just kind of know how to do it,

01:11:03

because I learned through their experience,

01:11:05

and I learned through what worked and what didn't.

01:11:08

The thing it, this tied to me with the,

01:11:10

they talk about using both systems later on in the chapter,

01:11:15

and that the step-by-step is the declarative,

01:11:17

and then the procedural is the more intuitive

01:11:21

picking out patterns.

01:11:22

And what I got to thinking about was like,

01:11:24

the cliche 10,000 hours gets you to mastery.

01:11:27

What are you doing there?

01:11:29

Like you knew the process way, way earlier.

01:11:31

You knew the procedure way, way earlier,

01:11:33

but then you just had to do, and you had to figure it out,

01:11:36

and you had to intuit your way through,

01:11:38

and if you do that enough, and you do that enough,

01:11:40

you get to mastery, and that's that 10,000 hours,

01:11:42

so that you're building that procedural system.

01:11:44

So I actually liked this chapter,

01:11:46

I thought this chapter clarified these two points pretty well,

01:11:49

and brought in something new

01:11:51

that I hadn't thought about before,

01:11:52

so I'm a fan of this chapter.

01:11:55

- Me too.

01:11:55

- All right, so let's go to seven.

01:11:57

So seven is how to exert self-discipline,

01:11:59

even when you don't have any.

01:12:01

So self-discipline, they call it out.

01:12:04

One of the things I liked is they called it out

01:12:05

as a limited resource.

01:12:07

You know, that it's something you can run out of, if you will.

01:12:11

They say the best first strategy

01:12:14

is basically just try to limit the amount that you need it.

01:12:17

Right, so it's like, don't try to have more,

01:12:20

don't try to get more, just try to limit the amount

01:12:22

that you draw on that self-discipline,

01:12:25

and I don't remember the definition

01:12:26

or the distinction between the two,

01:12:28

so Mike, if you could help us out on that,

01:12:29

like I'm thinking here willpower will be the same way, right?

01:12:32

Like, okay, my willpower is limited

01:12:35

in terms of the gas tank, right?

01:12:38

There's only so much in there.

01:12:39

So therefore, if I can just get into situations

01:12:41

where I don't need the willpower,

01:12:43

don't buy the chips, don't buy the ice cream,

01:12:45

whatever it might be, that's a much easier way

01:12:47

than trying to say like, no, I'm going to resist that

01:12:50

every time I walk past it, you know, going through the kitchen.

01:12:53

Then they tie into something that we've tied into before

01:12:56

on Bookworm and my short time being a co-host on here

01:12:59

is Goldwitzer's research, where Goldwitzer says,

01:13:03

hey, you're much more likely to do something

01:13:04

if you have a plan, you decide when, where,

01:13:08

and how you're going to do these things.

01:13:10

I thought this was a good section.

01:13:13

I thought it was a little more concise section

01:13:15

in terms of they hit the point well,

01:13:18

and then they were able to get out.

01:13:20

So I was overall, I was pretty pleased with this chapter.

01:13:23

- Yeah, this may be my favorite chapter

01:13:26

in the whole book, to be honest.

01:13:28

Partially because of the statistic

01:13:30

that they shared about Theodore Roosevelt.

01:13:32

Do you remember how many books he wrote?

01:13:34

I don't remember the, 150,000 for some reason

01:13:37

it's coming into my brain, but I don't know if I'm right.

01:13:38

- Well, I don't know the total number,

01:13:40

but I do remember the cadence,

01:13:42

where even when he was president,

01:13:43

he was reading a book a day.

01:13:45

- That's crazy.

01:13:47

- That's awesome.

01:13:49

Something to aspire to, I guess.

01:13:51

- When they're tying at the very end,

01:13:53

which is like, why did he do it?

01:13:55

He loved to read, right?

01:13:56

Like, yeah, there's really, you know,

01:13:58

he just loved to do it, so.

01:14:00

- Yeah, well, so that is kind of,

01:14:02

the reason they used Theodore Roosevelt in the first place

01:14:04

was he's kind of the poster child for self-discipline

01:14:09

and they tell a little bit of his story

01:14:11

how he was the sickly little kid

01:14:13

and he just disciplined himself to the point

01:14:15

where he was able to overcome a bunch of that

01:14:18

and basically anytime that he was told he couldn't do something,

01:14:22

he's like, I'm gonna figure out a way to do it.

01:14:24

So there's something to be said about that,

01:14:27

but the larger point that they're making in this chapter

01:14:29

and you kind of alluded to it was the best way

01:14:32

to practice self-discipline or to act in a disciplined way

01:14:35

is not to have to use it

01:14:37

and design your environment essentially.

01:14:40

They didn't say it that way,

01:14:41

but design your environment in a way

01:14:43

that you don't have to exercise that discipline

01:14:46

or activate the willpower all the time.

01:14:50

And that's a really a powerful concept.

01:14:53

I don't think they did it justice here.

01:14:55

And now I've read like entire books on this.

01:14:58

There's a whole big section in the extended mind

01:15:00

by Annie Murphy Paul, which is really, really good on this.

01:15:04

And I think that that is,

01:15:05

if you're gonna try to practice one thing from this,

01:15:07

that's the takeaway is consider your environment,

01:15:11

consider the choices that it is kind of encouraging you

01:15:15

to make and then figure out how you can tweak your environment

01:15:18

such you make the types of decisions

01:15:20

that you want to follow through on.

01:15:22

And they also talk about habits in here

01:15:26

and how habits are kind of mental autopilot,

01:15:28

but the applying the habits idea

01:15:32

to the environmental design,

01:15:35

there's another great book that we've covered

01:15:37

for a bookworm called Tiny Habits,

01:15:38

which speaks directly to that.

01:15:40

So everyone's kind of read atomic habits.

01:15:42

That's the big popular one

01:15:43

that's been on the New York Times bestseller list forever.

01:15:47

But the basis of James Clears book

01:15:51

is the research done by a guy named BJ Fogg,

01:15:54

who is the person who wrote tiny habits.

01:15:56

And so there's lots of visuals in there,

01:15:58

which are great.

01:15:59

They show like, if you have a lot of ability to do something,

01:16:03

it's easy to do, your motivation is high,

01:16:05

then the prompt is gonna succeed at this point in the curve.

01:16:08

And so you can kind of apply the environmental design idea

01:16:13

to create the situation where you either follow through

01:16:18

on the habits that you want to do,

01:16:21

or you can kind of reverse engineer this.

01:16:23

So if you want to break a bad habit,

01:16:25

you can make it harder to do.

01:16:26

You can not buy the cookies and keep them in the pantry

01:16:29

because you can go reach for them.

01:16:32

And there's some really extreme examples

01:16:35

of that type of stuff.

01:16:36

Like I remember hearing a story one time

01:16:37

about a guy who wanted to not watch TV as much.

01:16:41

So what he did is he removed the batteries

01:16:46

from the TV remote.

01:16:48

So TV remote is still on the coffee table

01:16:50

that every time he sits down and turn it on,

01:16:52

"I gotta go get batteries from the kitchen

01:16:54

"if I really want to watch TV."

01:16:55

And that was enough friction that he didn't do it.

01:16:58

He read the book instead or whatever he wanted to do.

01:17:01

So lots of really good stuff in here.

01:17:03

But again, if you're gonna get any sort of value from it,

01:17:06

you gotta dig deeper.

01:17:08

- Yeah, and it's funny 'cause I didn't even take any notes

01:17:11

on the habits section because I've read atomic habits,

01:17:14

I've read tiny habits, and those were just so much more

01:17:18

rich and valuable for me that I didn't even capture

01:17:22

anything there on habits.

01:17:25

- Yeah.

01:17:26

- All right, moving on to eight.

01:17:27

So let's talk about motivating ourselves.

01:17:29

So this one's how to motivate yourself.

01:17:31

What I like here is they call out the fact that

01:17:34

motivating yourself isn't just about

01:17:38

how much you want something.

01:17:40

It's about how much effort you're willing to put in

01:17:42

to actually get the thing.

01:17:44

And I don't know if I've never heard that before

01:17:46

or I've never heard it presented in that way.

01:17:48

But man, that I think that was a really powerful statement.

01:17:51

It's like, oh, okay.

01:17:52

And the way I've thought about it before is like

01:17:54

action versus intention where motivation is this action

01:17:59

or sorry, this intention side.

01:18:01

And then I have to actually move it over to action

01:18:03

in order to make something out of it.

01:18:04

Well, they kind of smush those two together here.

01:18:06

And when they say, how much effort are you willing

01:18:07

to put out there, then they give advice

01:18:10

on how to build and maintain your motivation,

01:18:12

find value in your studies.

01:18:13

And again, they link it back to school.

01:18:16

So find value in your studies, work to experience mastery,

01:18:19

set goals, and then work with others.

01:18:22

They reframe here, so they talk about a section

01:18:24

where they reframe the task to identify all the benefits.

01:18:28

So let's take this task and let's get some benefits

01:18:30

out of there, reward yourself, which we've heard,

01:18:33

for most of heard many, many times, it's like,

01:18:35

oh, if I do the following things,

01:18:37

I get this reward when I'm done.

01:18:40

I like to the mastery connection here,

01:18:42

where I agree with them that like,

01:18:44

if you can demonstrate to yourself that you're growing

01:18:47

and you're learning and you're developing mastery,

01:18:50

you are able to kind of see yourself moving forward

01:18:54

and then that motivation will encourage.

01:18:56

And it's kind of like that snowball rolling down the hill.

01:19:00

Consider setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow.

01:19:02

We saw that, like that was one of my actionatives

01:19:04

from last time is reframe those setbacks

01:19:06

or those failures into what they mean

01:19:09

or what they might mean in terms of opportunities to grow.

01:19:11

Goals, they broke them down into long-term milestone

01:19:14

and process goals, and then they hit smart and night,

01:19:18

they hit smart, which I immediately went to,

01:19:21

Ali Abdahl's nice goals, which I like a lot better

01:19:24

than smart goals and called those two things out there.

01:19:27

So that's the high level of the chapter overall.

01:19:30

I thought it was pretty good.

01:19:32

Probably the weakest section for me was the way they discussed

01:19:37

the goals, long-term milestone in progress,

01:19:40

not that it was bad, but it was just a matter of,

01:19:42

I thought it was a very simple and high level

01:19:46

way to talk about goals.

01:19:48

And again, for this context, it's probably good,

01:19:50

but for folks who have thought about it more,

01:19:53

I just didn't think it was deep enough.

01:19:55

- I agree, although, but the goal stuff specifically,

01:20:00

again, I don't think that that's really

01:20:04

where they should be concentrating the effort anyways.

01:20:08

I do like the emphasis on motivation.

01:20:11

A while back, I had this inkling that motivation

01:20:16

is more important than willpower,

01:20:18

because you hear the stories of these tiny little moms,

01:20:22

their kid gets caught under the car

01:20:24

and they're able to lift the car off the kid.

01:20:26

How does that happen?

01:20:27

It's not willpower.

01:20:29

At that point, you are motivated to do the thing,

01:20:34

so you do the thing.

01:20:35

And it may have actually been impossible

01:20:38

if you had sat and thought about it,

01:20:39

but the motivation was high enough.

01:20:40

So obviously, you don't wanna be in that constant

01:20:43

state of fight versus flight, but if we could really

01:20:46

figure out how to manage our motivation,

01:20:49

like we could probably do a lot more.

01:20:51

Going all the way back to procrastination stuff

01:20:52

at the very beginning.

01:20:54

So I put out a call to the bookworm audience

01:20:56

and I asked for book suggestions on the topic of motivation.

01:21:01

And there was one that was really good

01:21:02

called Master Your Motivation by Susan Fowler.

01:21:05

So again, there's a whole book that goes a lot deeper

01:21:08

into these concepts that they're just touching on here.

01:21:11

But just an example of how this kind of maps

01:21:13

in Master Your Motivation, they talk about

01:21:15

how there are three things that we need to thrive.

01:21:17

Choice, connection, and competence.

01:21:19

And so one of the things that jotted down here,

01:21:21

the way they said it is a feeling of mastery

01:21:23

is a powerful motivator.

01:21:24

Well, yeah, that's the competence piece.

01:21:27

But the choice and the connection

01:21:28

are also important aspects here.

01:21:30

So they didn't really get into that.

01:21:33

They did talk about how it's motivated by dopamine.

01:21:35

Maybe a little bit?

01:21:37

I don't think it's entirely.

01:21:39

So I don't know, I guess this is the danger

01:21:42

of when you write a book based on your experience.

01:21:45

Like you really need to, if you wanna present

01:21:47

a full picture of some of the stuff,

01:21:49

you gotta do a ton more research.

01:21:52

And maybe they did the research

01:21:53

and they just cut out a bunch of the stuff

01:21:54

'cause they wanted to keep it real short and practical,

01:21:56

which that's fine.

01:21:58

That's a valid approach, but it's not the one I like, I guess.

01:22:02

- Yep.

01:22:05

Okay, so now Mike, this is where the book,

01:22:08

I don't wanna say like is done for me,

01:22:10

but I did not get a ton out of nine, 10 and 11.

01:22:15

So I thought nine, 10 and 11 were light,

01:22:17

how to read effectively, how to win big on tests,

01:22:20

and then how to be a pro learner.

01:22:22

So I'm okay with kind of lumping these three together.

01:22:25

If you're okay with lumping these three together,

01:22:27

it all just depends on how you want to,

01:22:31

how you wanna approach this.

01:22:32

And it wasn't that they were bad.

01:22:35

It was just a matter of like, I thought we got

01:22:38

even lighter in these sections for me.

01:22:41

- Sure.

01:22:42

Well, I think chapter nine, how to read effectively,

01:22:45

obviously in a podcast called Bookworm,

01:22:46

this could be its own section,

01:22:48

but they don't do a great job of explaining this, I think.

01:22:53

One of the things that set out to me here

01:22:56

is that when you're finished right at three cents summary,

01:22:57

that's actually something that I've added to my book notes,

01:23:01

when I bring them over into Obsidian,

01:23:03

I force myself to write a three cents summary.

01:23:05

So I think that is a valuable tip there.

01:23:08

But then they talk about how annotating

01:23:10

is a great strategy for active reading,

01:23:12

but the way that they described annotating,

01:23:13

I don't think I'm gonna use.

01:23:15

But essentially, this is what I do with the mind maps

01:23:18

that I create, I have the emoji system.

01:23:19

So they advocate for important ideas,

01:23:21

relationships between concepts,

01:23:23

your own examples of references,

01:23:24

information you don't understand or need clarified,

01:23:27

summaries that keep paragraphs, potential test questions.

01:23:30

Again, my categories are gonna be a little bit different,

01:23:32

but essentially I like that idea

01:23:33

of figuring out what's actually useful

01:23:35

from this information that you just consumed.

01:23:40

- All right, can I stop you?

01:23:42

- Yeah.

01:23:43

- So this is where one of my action items comes from this book.

01:23:45

And it may be the only action item from this book.

01:23:47

And I'll elaborate more when we start talking about

01:23:50

the next book and where we're gonna go.

01:23:52

How should I annotate?

01:23:54

So I'm gonna read this next book

01:23:56

and I'm going to intentionally not highlight,

01:23:58

typically I'm a highlighter,

01:23:59

which they told me in this chapter,

01:24:01

I'm passive and essentially doing a terrible job.

01:24:04

So I'm going to annotate this next book.

01:24:06

So give me the mic Schmitz,

01:24:08

here are the key steps to annotating

01:24:11

while you read or annotating

01:24:13

to get something out of this book.

01:24:14

- That's hard to answer.

01:24:18

So for me, it's gonna be based on figuring out

01:24:22

your own system for like the how to read a book concept.

01:24:26

So that's essentially figure out

01:24:28

what are the arguments the author's making

01:24:30

and then you're trying to decide what of this actually matters.

01:24:33

But I do agree that just highlighting things

01:24:36

regardless of how much progressive summarization you do,

01:24:39

sorry, Tiago, is a passive exercise.

01:24:43

So really what I try to do when I do my mind map notes

01:24:47

is instead of just jotting down,

01:24:49

these are the key ideas so I can spit them back

01:24:51

when we have a conversation on bookworm,

01:24:53

I'm forcing myself to kind of think through like,

01:24:56

do I agree with that?

01:24:57

What do I like about this?

01:24:59

What do I not like about that?

01:25:00

And I try to incorporate more opinions as I go.

01:25:03

So I think the very basic level,

01:25:05

if you're doing this with just the physical book

01:25:07

and a pen would be as you see something, underline it.

01:25:12

Okay, but then on the margin,

01:25:14

like putting a little opinion note as to why you underlined it.

01:25:19

I do this with the stuff that we go through

01:25:21

for our men's group.

01:25:24

I've got a discipleship group that we go through,

01:25:26

the Ed Cole material.

01:25:27

And so I've gone through these books,

01:25:28

maybe 10, 11, 12 times.

01:25:30

There's like 12 books all together

01:25:31

and we just keep going through them over and over again.

01:25:33

But every time I go through them,

01:25:34

I get something new.

01:25:35

Every time I go through them, I buy a new book.

01:25:38

We read a chapter for the week, I underline things.

01:25:41

And then because I'm leading the group,

01:25:43

I often will put like questions in the margins

01:25:46

that I wanna ask my guys.

01:25:48

And it's kind of a thing now where people,

01:25:50

I'll ask a random deep question and they're like,

01:25:54

yeah, I knew you were gonna ask that one when I read that.

01:25:57

(laughs)

01:25:58

So predictable, you're so predictable.

01:26:01

Okay, so I'll try that.

01:26:03

One of my action items for this week is to,

01:26:07

when I read this next book,

01:26:08

I'm gonna annotate it and ask interesting questions

01:26:12

and I'm gonna try to make my own opinions

01:26:14

out of what the author is saying.

01:26:16

- Now chapter 10, how to win big on tests.

01:26:21

This one I don't really have anything for.

01:26:24

I don't think this really applies to me.

01:26:27

But maybe just briefly we could say that they advise

01:26:30

to practice with old tests whenever you can.

01:26:33

And that's probably a good idea.

01:26:35

I'm kind of curious if you make your old tests

01:26:37

available to your students, you give them that as a resource

01:26:40

or if you would recommend the strategy for people?

01:26:43

- I do not.

01:26:44

So I recommend the strategy, right?

01:26:45

If you can, but that has really less to do with learning

01:26:49

and it has more to do with just understanding

01:26:52

the style of your professor.

01:26:54

- Yeah. - And they call that out here.

01:26:55

Like they don't, like tests.

01:26:58

So here's my problem with chapter 10.

01:27:00

I hate tests.

01:27:01

I think tests are bogus in terms of what do they actually

01:27:06

demonstrate to me in terms of your learning.

01:27:08

So this is the educator side of me.

01:27:09

I'll stop here in two seconds.

01:27:11

I'll be on a set box for two, for two seconds.

01:27:13

But it's like, I think they have value in terms of

01:27:15

rote knowledge and we can do that.

01:27:17

But I don't think they do a lot in terms of telling me

01:27:19

what you're actually capable of doing or unpacking

01:27:22

really what you're capable of thinking

01:27:23

because there's so many limitations on it.

01:27:25

I have this amount of time.

01:27:26

I can only ask this many questions.

01:27:27

I can, you know, and like, I can only set them up

01:27:29

in certain ways.

01:27:31

So therefore this whole chapter rubbed me the wrong way

01:27:33

from the very, very beginning because the goal was to do

01:27:36

well on tests, the goal wasn't to learn.

01:27:38

And I think that undermines of what we're doing.

01:27:41

So that's the short answer to your question.

01:27:44

(laughing)

01:27:45

- Cool.

01:27:45

- I think one of the things I liked out of this chapter though,

01:27:48

was they say focus on the process rather than on the end goal.

01:27:51

And I really like that idea.

01:27:52

It's like focus on, I'm gonna study for three hours.

01:27:55

Don't focus on, I'm gonna get an A on the test.

01:27:57

But that has much less to do with tests

01:27:59

and it has more to do with goal setting, right?

01:28:00

Like set the habit, don't set the goal

01:28:04

because you can't really control

01:28:06

whether you're gonna get an A on a test.

01:28:07

You can control whether you study for three hours

01:28:09

but you can't really control whether you get an A on the test.

01:28:10

So that ties us back into smart and nice

01:28:13

and all those other things.

01:28:16

So now 11 was how to be a pro learner.

01:28:18

And really the piece I took away from this,

01:28:23

I think their main piece out of here

01:28:24

was metacognitive thinking or metacognition

01:28:27

and then self-regulated learning.

01:28:28

And the four steps they call out are understand the task,

01:28:32

set goals and plan, learn and then monitor and adjust

01:28:36

which makes sense, right?

01:28:37

Like that's what we're gonna do.

01:28:38

We're gonna figure out what we're doing.

01:28:40

We're gonna plan for it.

01:28:41

We're gonna learn from it

01:28:42

and then we're gonna adjust that process.

01:28:45

- Yeah, so the whole idea of metacognition

01:28:47

is interesting and topic to me

01:28:51

but again, they don't really get into it.

01:28:52

I will call out they did define it,

01:28:54

well, they didn't actually define it this way.

01:28:56

They described it this way.

01:28:58

But what I jotted down was metacognition

01:29:00

is an extra brain outside your main one

01:29:02

that thinks about thinking.

01:29:03

So obviously that has links to like

01:29:05

second building a second brain,

01:29:07

Tiago Forte.

01:29:08

I think that's not really what metacognition is.

01:29:14

Like it can be helpful.

01:29:17

And I like the idea of a second brain.

01:29:19

I don't really believe in the promise

01:29:22

of just build this system

01:29:25

and then you'll get all the insights.

01:29:29

But that's one of the reasons I like connected notes apps

01:29:31

like Obsidian is that you can kind of visualize

01:29:33

how these things can connect together outside of your brain

01:29:36

but I've seen that same process actually work

01:29:39

before I had those apps

01:29:41

just by collecting better dots in the first place.

01:29:43

So there's definitely something there

01:29:46

but they do give you a piece of advice here

01:29:49

which I think is very helpful

01:29:50

to become more metacognitive

01:29:52

start asking higher level questions.

01:29:55

I believe if you ask the right questions

01:29:57

the answers usually become clear

01:29:58

and we don't spend enough time asking questions.

01:30:01

We need to spend more time thinking about

01:30:04

just open ended about things.

01:30:05

It's why I do the personal retreat stuff

01:30:07

every couple of months

01:30:08

and that's been really, really valuable.

01:30:10

So I think that's a key takeaway

01:30:13

and it fits very well with the theme of chapter 11.

01:30:16

You wanna be a pro learner?

01:30:18

Ask better questions.

01:30:19

And always be asking questions.

01:30:22

You've gotta be curious.

01:30:23

If you're not curious,

01:30:24

if you're just trying to collect the informations

01:30:26

that you get the A on the test

01:30:28

you're doing yourself a disservice.

01:30:30

Any time that you come across something

01:30:32

that you don't really understand

01:30:33

that's an opportunity to learn something

01:30:35

that should be exciting to you.

01:30:36

You should be curious about those things

01:30:39

and those opportunities are everywhere for us

01:30:41

but if you take the approach

01:30:42

kind of like fixed mindset approach of

01:30:44

I have to learn all the things

01:30:47

because I need to know all the things.

01:30:49

If I don't know all the things

01:30:50

I might be in trouble, I might fail.

01:30:52

That's dangerous.

01:30:54

So there is like a switch that needs to be flipped there

01:30:57

but that's a great admonition to end the book.

01:31:01

- Well and I think you talked about it

01:31:04

in terms of, how do I say this?

01:31:07

You talked about it the way I understand medical cognition.

01:31:09

So I had a really good friend who did a bunch of research

01:31:11

in medical cognition for my grad program.

01:31:14

And you talked about it that way.

01:31:16

It's much less in my mind that second brain thing.

01:31:19

That's a system for organizing information

01:31:22

and implementing thing.

01:31:23

It's much more about the okay, I'm going into this class

01:31:26

and what am I trying to get out of this class?

01:31:28

Because what I'm trying to get out of this class

01:31:29

will determine the way I think about this class.

01:31:31

And when you got to the end there

01:31:32

and you're like, if I'm trying to learn everything

01:31:34

that's ever possible to ever know about the human body,

01:31:38

okay, is that the right thing I should do?

01:31:39

Or should I learn the core connections?

01:31:42

Oh, this system interacts with this system in this way

01:31:45

and this and this and this way.

01:31:46

And it just depends on what you go into.

01:31:49

But most people don't go to that level.

01:31:51

They go to the level of, you tell me what I need to know.

01:31:54

I'm gonna then do those things.

01:31:56

Why am I gonna do those things?

01:31:57

Because you told me I needed to do those things, right?

01:31:59

And then they don't go any medical cognitive level higher

01:32:02

than that about how am I gonna use this?

01:32:04

How might I apply this?

01:32:05

What do I get out of this?

01:32:06

So yes, I think your thinking on medical cognition

01:32:10

is absolutely right.

01:32:11

And it's definitely not the second brain philosophy.

01:32:14

It's much more of the, just take a level up

01:32:18

and think those hard questions

01:32:19

and think about those things.

01:32:20

So yeah, cool.

01:32:21

All right, so the last section that they have here,

01:32:24

it's not actually numbered as a chapter,

01:32:26

but it's a checklist.

01:32:28

And the way I interpreted this is basically

01:32:31

it's a summary of the key points.

01:32:33

Exactly.

01:32:34

Of all that chapters, right?

01:32:36

So basically they told us what they were gonna tell us

01:32:39

in 11 chapters and then they summarized it all

01:32:42

and they plopped it at the end and they said,

01:32:44

and here you go.

01:32:46

Here's our last little summary.

01:32:47

So effective, good, not a problem with it,

01:32:50

but it's really just a summary to walk away with.

01:32:55

Yep, 100%.

01:32:57

All right, good.

01:32:57

So we made it through.

01:32:59

At this point, we need to talk about action items.

01:33:02

So would you like me to go first, Mike,

01:33:04

since it's my book?

01:33:06

Go for it.

01:33:07

All right, so I may only have one action item

01:33:09

to this book and it is what you and I talked about,

01:33:14

which I'm honestly blanking on right now, annotating.

01:33:16

Okay, whew, okay guy, I got that.

01:33:18

So it's annotating and here's why it comes out.

01:33:21

I am going to read the next book

01:33:24

that we're going to read for Bookworm

01:33:26

as a physical paper book.

01:33:29

I don't ever do this, right?

01:33:32

I also intentionally did not buy this book.

01:33:35

I got this book from the library,

01:33:38

which would prevent me from highlighting it.

01:33:40

So I'm not allowed to highlight this book.

01:33:42

And I did this on purpose because it's like,

01:33:44

okay, I need to set up these things,

01:33:46

so therefore I don't default to my old style.

01:33:50

Because what I typically do is I typically highlight too much,

01:33:53

then I summarize and I summarize and I summarize, right?

01:33:55

And try to get down to the key points.

01:33:57

Well, now I can't do that.

01:33:59

So if I'm going to take notes on this book,

01:34:00

I have to use an external mechanism to take notes on this book.

01:34:03

So I'm going to read in one section

01:34:05

and then I have to either use a mind map

01:34:08

or a separate notebook or a note sheet in obsidian,

01:34:12

something to take notes on this.

01:34:14

So that is my action item for this book

01:34:17

is I'm going to read a physical book

01:34:19

and I'm going to annotate that book

01:34:20

and see if I think it's a better system

01:34:22

than my current system for Bookworm.

01:34:24

(laughs)

01:34:26

- All right.

01:34:27

Well, I would encourage you to annotate,

01:34:30

but get a book that you own.

01:34:33

So maybe do it this way for the next one,

01:34:35

but don't write it off if it doesn't work.

01:34:37

Like there's different methods.

01:34:39

One of the more popular ones that I think is pretty brilliant

01:34:42

for this type of thing is creating

01:34:44

like your own personal index in the back

01:34:46

where you basically just jot down

01:34:47

like the pages with the big ideas.

01:34:49

So then you can go look at, oh, when I read this,

01:34:51

here's 12 things that really stood out to me.

01:34:54

I don't do that because I do the mind map stuff, but.

01:34:57

- Maybe I can do that with an index card, right?

01:34:58

I'll throw an index card in the back.

01:35:00

I can do that with an index card, okay.

01:35:02

- Yeah.

01:35:03

- Another helpful thing with context for that, by the way.

01:35:05

Sean Blong told me one time

01:35:06

whenever someone would recommend a book to him,

01:35:08

he would, he does the index in the back,

01:35:10

but he would also get an index card

01:35:13

with the person who recommended the book to him

01:35:15

and put that in the thing.

01:35:17

'Cause that's additional context.

01:35:18

Like, well, why do I even have this book?

01:35:20

Oh, well, Mike recommended it.

01:35:22

I really appreciate Mike's recommendations.

01:35:24

So that adds more credence to the ideas, you know?

01:35:26

So anyways, my action item comes from chapter four

01:35:32

on taking better notes. (laughs)

01:35:35

They didn't, I mean, there wasn't a whole lot

01:35:37

in that chapter that I really liked,

01:35:39

but they did mention split notes.

01:35:42

So you've got the notes,

01:35:43

and then you've got kind of your annotations about

01:35:46

what you took notes on, on the side.

01:35:49

And the version of that that I immediately thought of

01:35:52

was this like Cornell notes style,

01:35:56

where you've got the notes and then kind of the annotations.

01:35:58

Like the footnotes essentially on the side

01:36:00

instead of at the bottom of the document.

01:36:02

I also purchased the Cornell notes plugin

01:36:06

for Obsidian from TFT Hacker.

01:36:09

So I've got that already.

01:36:11

I may as well give this a shot. (laughs)

01:36:13

I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do with this.

01:36:16

I don't even know what scenarios I'm really gonna try

01:36:18

to work on this with.

01:36:20

I guess I could start if I'm gonna be writing things

01:36:23

by putting in footnotes and then just have those appear

01:36:25

on the side.

01:36:25

Maybe if I do that once or twice,

01:36:27

it will spark some insight

01:36:29

and this will gain some traction,

01:36:30

but I'm really not expecting a lot from this one.

01:36:33

I just, well, I have that.

01:36:34

I may as well give it a shot.

01:36:36

- Have you done Cornell notes ever in your life?

01:36:39

- I have not.

01:36:40

- Okay, so my suggestion to you is go look up,

01:36:43

something quick, something easy, a five minute video

01:36:45

or some little tutorial on it.

01:36:48

It's a procedure for some people,

01:36:50

it works really, really well.

01:36:52

So like some of my students in class

01:36:54

will use Cornell notes or a Cornell notes system

01:36:57

and it's very, very valuable to them

01:36:58

'cause it gives them a way to organize information.

01:37:01

And then what you find is that some,

01:37:03

or a lot of people will lose track of the things

01:37:05

they wanted to ask or the things they got confused on

01:37:08

and there's a whole section there of like,

01:37:09

oh, these are the things I need to ask next class.

01:37:12

So for a class situation, it makes a lot of sense.

01:37:14

I'm not sure how it's gonna work for a book.

01:37:15

So I'm actually trying to,

01:37:16

or I'm actually intrigued to hear

01:37:18

how that goes for a book.

01:37:20

- Well, I don't think it's gonna work for a book at all

01:37:22

to be honest, but as I was thinking about

01:37:24

the writing process and I've got a plugin already

01:37:28

for like footnotes, I could see that being helpful

01:37:31

to have those instead of at the bottom of the document

01:37:34

on the side.

01:37:36

So I guess I'm kind of banking on as soon as I try that

01:37:39

and I see it on the side,

01:37:40

that that's gonna trigger something in me

01:37:42

to want to create more of those,

01:37:44

but I'm not optimistic.

01:37:46

- Okay. (laughs)

01:37:47

- Understood, understood.

01:37:48

All right, so now we move on to style and rating.

01:37:53

It's my book, so I will go first.

01:37:55

Overall, the style, we've talked about this

01:37:58

a couple of different times.

01:37:59

It was set at a level, I think, for folks

01:38:02

who really haven't thought about this very much

01:38:05

and they're really just getting into learning

01:38:08

and approaches towards learning

01:38:10

and some of these high level concepts.

01:38:12

I agree with Mike, although I don't think

01:38:13

I was set it this way coming into it.

01:38:16

Very student focused book, right?

01:38:18

Very, very driven on the student.

01:38:20

For those reasons, it drops down on my rating scale.

01:38:25

I liked that they were clear.

01:38:29

Like, there wasn't anything that was difficult to understand.

01:38:31

I thought their examples were pretty good

01:38:33

in terms of their examples.

01:38:34

I thought they did a good job coming in

01:38:35

and summarizing at the end,

01:38:36

so you could kind of just see it one more time

01:38:39

as you were going.

01:38:40

But overall, I'm probably gonna give this book a three.

01:38:45

Because I think the material was good

01:38:50

and it was not inappropriate material, right?

01:38:54

So to move down to a two for me,

01:38:55

I think we have to, inappropriate's probably the wrong word,

01:38:58

but we have to actually be,

01:39:00

I'm not good with the content.

01:39:01

I was good with the content in this book.

01:39:03

I just wasn't good at the level that it was written

01:39:06

or at the amount of depth that they went into certain things

01:39:09

because I wanted more.

01:39:11

So I'll give it a three.

01:39:13

- All right, well, I think that I have two separate ratings

01:39:18

for this book.

01:39:19

If you are a student,

01:39:23

I think it is probably a four star book.

01:39:25

- Okay.

01:39:26

- And I think that in the,

01:39:30

you would probably know better than I would,

01:39:32

but I think a lot of students,

01:39:36

they're not productivity nerds.

01:39:38

Like that's something you learn once you get out

01:39:40

into the real world because it's a survival mechanism.

01:39:44

- Yes, absolutely.

01:39:46

- So there's a lot of stuff in here that if I'm a 20 year old,

01:39:50

this is brand new first time I've heard about the Pomodoro

01:39:53

technique and a lot of the concepts in this book,

01:39:56

then this could be revolutionary in my,

01:40:01

in the world that I know exists.

01:40:04

For myself, for probably a lot of people in the bookworm

01:40:10

audience who are not students,

01:40:13

I think you nailed it, that it is a three star book.

01:40:18

It's all right.

01:40:20

There's some interesting stuff in here.

01:40:24

It's not all, well, I knew that already.

01:40:28

I really like the visuals with the octopus arms

01:40:31

and the forming the links and the chains.

01:40:34

That's gonna stick with me and I feel like that's valuable.

01:40:38

Is it gonna change anything that I'm doing?

01:40:40

No, but had I read it four or five years ago, maybe.

01:40:44

So I don't know, like I don't think it really

01:40:48

left a dent for me, but I think for the right person,

01:40:53

this could be a great primer to the productivity world.

01:40:59

Like as a first entry into this type of material,

01:41:05

this could be valuable.

01:41:07

It's still probably not the first thing that I would recommend.

01:41:10

I'm having trouble thinking of, you know,

01:41:12

if someone were just getting into productivity,

01:41:15

what would I recommend?

01:41:17

It's definitely not gonna be getting things done by David Allen,

01:41:20

although that's probably most people's entry

01:41:22

into this sort of stuff.

01:41:24

And again, like that's perfectly fine

01:41:26

for the right type of person.

01:41:27

That could be revolutionary.

01:41:29

I'm having trouble filling in that blank.

01:41:32

I feel like there is need for that sort of thing,

01:41:37

but this isn't, it could have been, it would be nice.

01:41:41

You know, if I could, oh, this is, you know,

01:41:43

you're just getting into productivity,

01:41:45

you gotta pick up this one.

01:41:47

The science-based tools to become better at anything,

01:41:49

like that subtitle applied to a different book,

01:41:52

I feel like is able to deliver on that promise,

01:41:56

but this book didn't quite do it.

01:41:58

It's not to say that it's bad, but...

01:42:01

- I'm sorry, I really liked the way you called out

01:42:03

the fact that it was a primer.

01:42:06

I would have never gotten to that word,

01:42:07

but man, that actually makes a lot of sense.

01:42:09

Like this is a primer on this stuff.

01:42:11

- Yeah. - That's a great word.

01:42:12

- Yeah. - But it's not even the best primer,

01:42:16

I think, or at least it's not the ideal version

01:42:18

of the primer.

01:42:20

There's a different version of this book

01:42:24

that is better for that specific use case.

01:42:29

I don't know exactly what it looks like.

01:42:32

I don't know who wrote it, but it's gotta be out there.

01:42:35

- It's gotta be out there, right?

01:42:37

- Yeah.

01:42:38

- All righty, so now we are at the stage

01:42:41

where we think about upcoming books.

01:42:43

So Mike, what are we working on for the next episode?

01:42:47

- Well, I had originally said "Influence"

01:42:52

by Robert Childini because I do wanna read that.

01:42:57

However, I'm going on vacation shortly,

01:43:00

so we've got a short turnaround for this next book,

01:43:02

and I am not reading 570 pages in the next week

01:43:06

when I'm trying to wrap up a cohort and everything else.

01:43:08

- So Mike suggests that book, right?

01:43:10

And we start looking at it and I go,

01:43:12

"Mike, do you know this book's like 600 pages?"

01:43:14

And I was like, "I don't think I can pull that off

01:43:17

"in that amount of time."

01:43:17

He goes, "No, the last one wasn't that long.

01:43:20

"Why is this one that long?"

01:43:22

So they did a major revamp on this book

01:43:25

between the edition you read and now.

01:43:27

- Yeah, and it went from basically 300 pages to 600 pages.

01:43:32

So it doubled in length, and I did not realize that.

01:43:35

And I said, "Oh yeah, we'll just do the updated one

01:43:37

"because you always do the updated one."

01:43:38

- Yep, yep.

01:43:40

So we're gonna put that one on the back burner for now.

01:43:43

I am going to pick a book that I've been wanting

01:43:46

to read for a long time though,

01:43:47

and that is "Six Thinking Hats" by Edward De Bono.

01:43:51

The international bestseller that has changed

01:43:53

the way the world's most successful business leaders think.

01:43:56

And I think that this kind of breaks down

01:43:59

each one of the hats is like a different perspective

01:44:01

in terms of thinking about your business.

01:44:04

And so that naturally is kind of an interesting topic to me,

01:44:08

but I feel like the six different perspectives

01:44:12

could lead to a very cool conversation.

01:44:15

So it's a pretty short book.

01:44:18

Well, there's a bunch of chapters,

01:44:20

but it's like 160 pages, not 560 pages.

01:44:24

So I'll be able to finish this one before next week

01:44:27

when we have to record again.

01:44:29

- Perfect.

01:44:30

Perfect, that worked for me too.

01:44:31

And when we switched to this one, I was like,

01:44:33

"Okay, this is much more in the style

01:44:35

"for the short turnaround."

01:44:37

So that was really good.

01:44:40

- What are you picking after that?

01:44:41

Do you have one?

01:44:42

- So I meant to talk to you about this before,

01:44:46

and I totally blanked on talking to you about this before.

01:44:49

So we're gonna go ahead and do this live,

01:44:50

and we're gonna see what you think.

01:44:51

You kind of soft approved it before.

01:44:54

So let's see if you're still on board with this one.

01:44:56

- Or if I was just being nice,

01:44:59

trying to get you to come talk to you about this.

01:45:00

- Which if you were, that's fine and I'll go find another one.

01:45:03

But I think it would be fun to read "The Inevitable"

01:45:06

by Kevin Kelly, right?

01:45:07

And that was the understanding the 12 technology forces

01:45:10

that will shape our future.

01:45:11

What do you think?

01:45:12

- Let's do it.

01:45:13

- Are you interested in that one still?

01:45:15

- Yeah, I read a different Kevin Kelly book.

01:45:17

I can't remember if it was for Bookworm

01:45:19

or if it was just a gap book, but I really enjoyed it.

01:45:21

And "The Inevitable" is kind of the one

01:45:23

that was referenced as like,

01:45:24

this is the definitive work by this guy.

01:45:26

So I think this makes a lot of sense.

01:45:29

And I think it's probably a version of this topic

01:45:34

that I know you really wanna talk about

01:45:36

that will still be interesting to the audience.

01:45:38

- Yes.

01:45:39

So just so you know, in the background, right?

01:45:42

I'm new, right?

01:45:43

I'm coming into this and I start throwing books at Mike.

01:45:47

And he knows the audience way better than I did the audience.

01:45:49

So I'm learning and everything going.

01:45:51

And I think this is a good version for you all.

01:45:54

So hopefully that's true.

01:45:56

And if it's not, feel free to give feedback.

01:45:58

And I will learn as much as I can from that feedback.

01:46:02

So that's "The Inevitable" by Kevin Kelly.

01:46:06

Mike, do you have any gap books that you're reading right now?

01:46:10

- Not before the next episode.

01:46:12

However, I'm gonna probably read a whole bunch of gap books.

01:46:14

Well, I'm on vacation.

01:46:15

So maybe I will have some to report back.

01:46:19

- Okay.

01:46:20

And then mine is going to be the exact same gap book

01:46:22

I was working on before.

01:46:23

It's called "Triumph of the Lamb."

01:46:25

And it's because I did not make as much progress

01:46:29

in that as I needed to.

01:46:30

And I wanna keep reading that.

01:46:31

So is there a specific definition of a gap book?

01:46:34

Like, is there like a hardcore definition

01:46:36

like of a gap book?

01:46:38

Like do I have to finish it in the gap?

01:46:40

- No, you don't.

01:46:42

And you don't even have to finish it.

01:46:44

There's no rules with these gap books.

01:46:45

- Okay, I just, I went.

01:46:46

- In fact, that's a general rule that is worth calling out.

01:46:50

Life's too short to read bad books.

01:46:52

So there's plenty of them out there.

01:46:54

If you're trying to read one and it's just not clicking,

01:46:57

feel free to put it down, come back to it later,

01:47:00

or don't, completely up to you, pick up something else.

01:47:02

(laughs)

01:47:03

- Yeah.

01:47:04

- Just find things that are gonna,

01:47:06

gonna tickle your curiosity as we talked about

01:47:08

in this episode.

01:47:09

That's the important thing if you really wanna learn.

01:47:11

- Well, and I can tell you that the one that's next

01:47:13

on the list, but I won't call it a gap book yet.

01:47:15

At some point I will, but it's called "Every Good Endeavor"

01:47:17

by Timothy Keller.

01:47:19

That's the one I need to read that one for an actual project.

01:47:22

So it's gotta be a gap book here.

01:47:23

I'm gonna pretty soon.

01:47:25

(laughs)

01:47:25

- All right, cool.

01:47:27

Well, thanks everyone for listening.

01:47:29

And if you are reading along with us,

01:47:32

pick up "Six Thinking Hats" by Edward Dabano.

01:47:35

And we will talk to you in a couple of weeks.