7 Tips For Learning Anything On Your Own

Learning things on your own is hard. Maybe these tips will help.

00:00 Introduction
00:42 How to make specific learning goals
2:03 What are the key skills?
3:21 Gathering learning resources
4:02 A note on scheduling
4:48 Making the best use of feedback
8:12 Watch out for time-sensitive learning goals
10:15 When to make a change

REFERENCES

On creating meaningful learning goals, see:

To read more about metacognition and illusions of knowing, see:

To read more about Goodhart's Law and other ways that metrics can backfire, I highly recommend:

Muller, J. Z. (2019). The Tyranny of Metrics. Princeton University Press.

CREDITS

The Youtube channel example was Mathematical Visual Proofs: @MathVisualProofs

The textbook example was "University Physics" - widely regarded as one of the best basic physics books out there. Young, H. D., Freedman, R. A., & Ford, A. L. (2016) Sears and Zemansky's university physics. Pearson education. 14th Edition. There's more recent editions as well.

The Magic player was Kenji "NumotTheNummy" Egashira, his channel is here: @NumotTheNummyYT

[TIS]

1. Get Specific
2. Identify Key Skills
3. Get Good Resources
4. Make a Schedule
5. Get Valuable Feedback
6. Be Careful with Goals
7. Revise the Plan

[piano_depois_dos_]

This is excellent.
From my experience, I particularly agree with NOT setting time-sensitive learning goals. It is counter-intuitive, but I learned that in most disciplines, a few topics will take most of the time and most topics will take no time (but we can't know which topics are time-consuming until we have learned them).

[zaidalruwaishan]

Hey Dr. Keep, I think the advice to pull from multiple sources is underrated, especially for subjects like philosophy where interpretations of what the ancients really meant differ in important ways, even amongst experts.

[jeffreyturley]

I'm leading an agile software development team and all the strategies you described are core practices for us. Somehow I never thought of it as a learning experience but of course it always has been: we know how to code, but we consult a subject matter expert to help us find WHAT to code. We hold regular retrospective meetings to see if the process is working, and tweak things that aren't. I'm interested to see what my team thinks of this one, whether they draw the same parallels I have.

[nomadicwolf]

Some of the greatest 13 minuts I've ecer spent on YouTube. Thank you. Incredible insightful.

[Raffa]

Such a great video! "I don´t think people study experts enough". That´s so true, man.

[chri-k]

Lack of direct feedback is probably the main reason people find learning languages more difficult than other things

[KyleHohn]

This is such a great video! I couldn’t believe how few views it had

[tarunarachmad]

thank you for your video. As a person who is not good at socializing, I can still learn through books and YouTube videos or e-courses. Even though learning by yourself is not perfect, it can be done by anyone and is useful.

[GustavoSilva-nyjc]

Excellent! My eye opened for this only recently, how much tougher is to do it alone, you're basically a pioneer. I had this epiphany when i was watching Ironmouse play Fear and Hunger, the game was made to go blind and explore for yourself, but i was like "hey, you're too calm for this!!! And fast!", she was going straight to the right answers. Reason being her friend who introduced her to the game schooled her in how to play and what to expect so there was none of the intented lost, confusion, terror and experimentation, sure, she was much more productive but it was executing more of honing skills than problem solving skills.

When i was younger i thought i would be much better alone cause i wouldnt be chained to a style, a coach's mindset or limited knowledge and lets be honest, im much smarter. But that happened cause i never had good teachers so i had to develop more exploration skills than honing skills, i felt too controlled too, that's why i was smart while knowing nothing. I was a stubborn, skeptic and rebel brat.

[dominic.h.]

I haven't been exactly going out of my way to search how to learn things, but as someone with both dyscalculia and ASD, I found all advice I stumbled upon near useless.

This video on the other hand could be a rough summary of my methods for every single time I succeeded learning something, to which one or the other condition I have was an impediment. I still can't memorize the fretboard after six years of playing daily, and I don't think I will ever be able to "get" the hierarchy of the different surface properties in 3D development, but now I'm curious to see whether this channel has something in store for me I haven't considered yet, that would lead to a breakthrough.

Thank you!

[judgemongaming]

The fact that this video has less than 1 million views is CRIMINAL.

[luanBes]

I was surprised when you mentioned Magic the Gathering, I definetely wasn't expecting it. It was like when Brandon Sanderson mentioned it during his lecture. I frequently discover here and there that a youtuber I follow plays the game, it's a surprisingly common experience.

[KathySierraVideo]

Ohhhh be still my geek heart… you brought Goodhart’s law into this 🙏👏🔥😍. Another question I like as both thought experiment and Actual Practice Activity… “How could I exaggerate the mistake I’m making?” In terms of neuroplasticity “triggers”, sometimes taking a flaw (or a stuck pattern) as extreme as you can in the direction OPPOSITE “ideal” helps the brain and body self-organize a better response vs. us trying to “tell” ourselves over and over how to move that body part “correctly.”
Physiotherapists sometimes call this “feed the flaw.” I use this with the horses (my athletes are all furry four-legged) all the time, and my husband uses this when coaching his golf students.
At the least, it sends novel sensory info, because it’s usually doing the thing we’ve tried hard NOT to do. But in movement, especially, I just trust the movement system to gain new “insights” from that exploration. Kinetic chains are too complex for humans to understand, but I can trust that provoking it in this way connects dots in the brain/body I’d never have achieved by TRYING to converge on “correct.”
(It freaks people out at first, but then they are soooo delighted 😀. Took awhile for my horses to be OK with my unexpectedly pushing them way off-balance on the side of a slope 😁)

[e-genieclimatique]

in brief:
In this video, the speaker provides 7 tips for learning something on your own:

1. *Be specific about what you want to learn*: Break down your goals into smaller, more manageable tasks.

2. *Identify key activities*: Focus on the core activities that will drive learning forward, such as practicing proofs in math.

3. *Use multiple resources*: Leverage at least three resources to gain different perspectives on a topic.

4. *Schedule learning sessions*: Spread out learning sessions over time for deeper, long-lasting learning.

5. *Seek feedback*: Obtain input from mentors, teachers, or online communities to improve your skills.

6. *Set realistic goals*: Avoid setting time-sensitive learning goals, as they may not accurately reflect your progress.

7. *Revise your plan: Regularly assess and revise your learning goals, resources, and schedule.

The speaker emphasizes the importance of being open to being wrong, as learning on your own is an exploratory process. While learning independently can be challenging, it can also be deeply fulfilling and rewarding.

[andersoncubillos]

Recently discover your channel. It is incredible helpful!! thank you for all that meaningful and incredible information that you share.

By the way, is always better to learn from someone else. But as you know, not everyone can afford it. I think that one of the advantages of learning something by your own is that test your real interest in the subject you are learning.

And if you learn enough by yourself, you will reach a point when you realize that the only way to go further is with the guidance of someone else. So you probably would have a better criteria to choose a tutor and would be more motivated to study with that person, and probably would ask better question and extract better information from your teacher.

I think learning by yourself is a good starting point for any ability you want to achieve. After that you would decide if it worths to do it with a tutor. Or if you want to change and do something else.

[AaronMartinProfessional]

This is a bloody brilliant video and seems to apply for learning acrobatics just as well to any other skills mentioned. 🙌

[alant]

I had a giant list of things i thought i wanted to learn, but turns out for the most part, I'd rather spend time playing video games or sleep. And then there are things i often catch myself thinking about even while playing video games or sleeping. I wouldn't have noticed it if i didn't devote time to learning each thing on the list, and eliminating them one by one.

[markmilan]

I believe in learning through entertainment as if you become addicted to whatever you want to learn and your journey becomes a joy-ride.

[silpheedTandy]

oh god; youtube recommends me your video (because youtube knows i'm learning a foreign language), and now i offhand discover that you're an mtg player! it's like when i had two different friend groups that i thought were completely separate, and it turns out that they knew each other this whole time! next thing you're gonna tell me is that you're into soap operas, too...