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6 Principles to Get More Done in Less Time — Transcript

by Justin Sung · 3,627 words · 529 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00In this video, I'm going to show you how
0:01you can get higher grades while studying
0:04less, especially if you're in
0:05university. I do this by showing you
0:07three things every student does that you
0:10need to stop doing because it's a
0:12complete waste of time and what you
0:14should actually be doing instead. For
0:16me, doing this helped me cut down my
0:18studying time by over 80%. It allowed me
0:20to graduate medical school and rank
0:22first my master's degree, all while
0:24working full-time. So if you want to
0:26study less and get higher grades then
0:28the first thing that you need to avoid
0:30doing is note dumping
0:34of the tens of thousands of students
0:37that I have coached over the years. This
0:39is one of the most common most tragic
0:41habits that you can have for learning.
0:43Note dumping is what I call it when you
0:45just put things down in your notes just
0:48because you feel like you need to have
0:50it down. There's usually this general
0:52belief that if I write it down in my
0:56notes, I'm going to learn it and
0:58remember it. Even though you probably
1:00know that that's not actually true.
1:02People who note dump tend to have a lot
1:04of notes and they spend a lot of time
1:06writing those notes. And the way you can
1:07tell whether your note-taking is
1:09effective or if you're just dumping is
1:12write down your notes, spend your time,
1:13and then a week later test yourself. How
1:16much do you actually retain? and how
1:18deep and nuanced is your knowledge and
1:20ability to use what you've learned. For
1:22most people, they will retain less than
1:2550% of it and it's usually very
1:28superficial knowledge only and that is a
1:30clear sign of note dumping. And so while
1:32note takingaking is useful, note dumping
1:34is a complete waste of time and I
1:36explain what the difference between
1:37those two actually is. So if we think
1:40about how we actually learn, it
1:41basically goes like this. We have
1:43information that comes into our brain
1:45and then our brain thinks about it. And
1:47this thinking is something that we call
1:49processing. Based on how high quality or
1:52low quality the processing we do is aka
1:55depending on how we think about the
1:57information that's come in, that's going
1:58to influence how well it's stored into
2:01our memory. And this is a process that
2:02we call encoding that goes into our
2:06long-term memory. So if we want to have
2:09knowledge and expertise and develop
2:11skills and use our knowledge to answer
2:14questions and solve problems, we need to
2:16have a high quality of knowledge at a
2:19high level of retention inside our
2:23long-term memory. And to do that, we
2:26need to have high quality processing. So
2:28when we write notes, the idea is that it
2:31allows us to think more freely and more
2:34easily because we're not just holding on
2:36to everything inside our brain. When
2:37you're note dumping, you are actually
2:39saying this processing is too hard. It
2:42takes too much mental effort. It's too
2:44complicated. I don't know how to do it
2:46properly. So, I'm going to avoid
2:48processing it. And instead, I'm just
2:50going to take the information and just
2:52chuck it directly into my notes, which
2:55now makes me feel like I'm learning cuz
2:58I feel like I'm doing something
2:59productive, even though we haven't
3:01actually achieved the ultimate goal,
3:03which was having that knowledge in our
3:05long-term memory. And so note dumping is
3:07a really serious problem because not
3:10only does it take a very long amount of
3:12time without actually producing much
3:14memory because our memory is so poor, it
3:17actually gives us extra work to do in
3:19the future by having to relearn the
3:21things that we're constantly forgetting.
3:23And so while it can be effortless and
3:26fast and feel great to type super fast
3:28into your perfect notion template,
3:31what's the point? it will be a better
3:32use of time, even if it takes a little
3:34bit longer, to think more about what
3:37you're writing and make really great,
3:39effective notes rather than note
3:42dumping. And I'll give you some tips on
3:43what you can do to make that happen
3:45later in this video. The second thing
3:46you need to stop doing is something that
3:48I call paint and pray.
3:53Painting and praying is basically when
3:56you take your highlighter and you go
3:59through your textbook or your coursework
4:00or whatever it is and everything that
4:02you think is important for you to learn,
4:04you highlight and then that's it. And
4:06you just hope that somehow the act of
4:08highlighting has put that information
4:10into your brain. And I am just as guilty
4:13as all of you. In fact, I even took
4:14these notes. These are some of my notes
4:17from when I was in my first year of
4:18university. And you can see pretty much
4:20the entire page is highlighted. So why
4:23does just highlighting not work? Well,
4:25if we go back to the diagram that I drew
4:27just before, you can see again in order
4:30for you to learn stuff. You need to
4:31process and you need to think about it.
4:32So with highlighting, it's kind of like
4:35writing notes except it's even easier
4:37and even less effortful because you
4:38don't even have to write any notes. All
4:40you have to do is just highlight it and
4:42it makes you feel good. The point of
4:44learning isn't to make you feel
4:46productive. It's to get information into
4:48your memory. And highlighting and
4:51painting and praying is one of the
4:53greatest learning sins because it
4:55creates the paradox of learning. You're
4:58deciding that something is important
5:00enough for you to highlight it while at
5:03the same time not being important enough
5:06for you to actually do anything useful
5:09to keep it in your memory. you are
5:11basically highlighting all the things
5:14you are deciding you will forget. Now
5:17obviously no one is studying
5:18deliberately trying to forget. It's
5:20usually because you don't know of a
5:22better alternative and I will cover
5:24those after the final thing that you
5:26need to stop doing. The third one and I
5:28might offend a lot of people with this
5:29one is you need to stop abusing flash
5:32cards.
5:36Flash cards using tools like Anki or
5:38whatever other flashcard app you want to
5:40use are fantastic tools. They're
5:42fantastic softwares that create a very
5:46specific type of learning. But that
5:48doesn't mean it is the solution to all
5:51of your learning problems. Just because
5:53a screwdriver is a great tool does not
5:55mean that it is the only tool you need.
5:57And in fact, if you see someone trying
5:58to build a house with nothing but a
6:00screwdriver, you would say that that is
6:02probably not very effective. Could they
6:05succeed?
6:07Maybe with enough time. Flash cards are
6:10great for remembering tiny little
6:13discrete facts and details. They are
6:16terrible for higher order knowledge like
6:19problem solving or having discussions or
6:22writing essays. But even if you do use
6:24them the right way, there's actually
6:26another problem with using flashcards
6:28that most people do not talk about. And
6:30this is the fact that you start entering
6:32into recognitionbased learning. When we
6:35talk about retrieving information from
6:38our long-term memory, this is the
6:40process called retrieval.
6:42Often there are two ways that we can
6:44think about this. One is recall and the
6:47other is called recognition.
6:50So recognition means that for example,
6:53if I show you this highlighter, you can
6:55look at it and you can recognize that
6:57it's a highlighter. If I show you a
6:59coin, you can recognize that it's a
7:00coin. Recall is far more than just
7:04recognition. It's saying that if I show
7:06you this highlighter and then you close
7:09your eyes, you would be able to then
7:11draw out this highlighter accurately
7:14from your memory. It's the same thing
7:16with knowledge and the things that you
7:17learn. It is one thing to recognize
7:20something that you've studied before, a
7:22fact or the right answer for a question,
7:25and it is another thing entirely to be
7:28able to recall that from your memory
7:31without help and prompting. And the
7:33issue is that when you do higher levels
7:35of repetition,
7:37you start going more and more towards
7:40recognition and further and further from
7:43recall. So, if you have a few flash
7:44cards and you've repeated them six or
7:46seven times, you're actually starting
7:48now to just train your ability to
7:50associate that question on that flash
7:53card with the answer on that flash card.
7:56And a red flag warning sign that this is
7:58happening to you is if you can answer a
8:00flash card without even having to fully
8:03read the entire question. You've simply
8:05recognized the first few words and
8:07understood, oh, I know what flash card
8:10this one is. And for this flash card,
8:12the answer is this. And you can see that
8:14that is not the way that you need to use
8:16your knowledge unless you're being
8:18tested exactly the same way as your
8:20flash card. So if you study the way that
8:22I used to, which was like note dumping
8:24everything into flash cards and then
8:26letting flash cards do the heavy lifting
8:28of all the learning, you're going to be
8:30wasting an incredible amount of time.
8:31And eventually you're not really even
8:33studying for an exam anymore. You're
8:35just playing a game to get your flash
8:37card number down to zero. And everything
8:39I've talked about so far actually comes
8:41back to this diagram that I drew earlier
8:43where we're understanding what needs to
8:45happen for learning to occur. And when
8:48we don't know how learning occurs, we
8:51just use whatever techniques feel simple
8:53and easy that other people tell us are
8:55effective. And often the easiest way to
8:56do that is just to take the things that
8:58we are forgetting
9:00and just repeatedly smash them back
9:02through into our brain using volume and
9:05time as the only variables. And that is
9:08why it is incredibly crucial. In fact, I
9:10would say it is impossible to study less
9:13and get better results without thinking
9:16about learning as a system of
9:18techniques. There are things that you
9:20can do here before you even collect the
9:22information and consume it. The way that
9:25you consume the information, there are
9:26techniques to optimize that. There are
9:28lots of things that you can be doing in
9:30the processing part that you can
9:32optimize so that you're able to encode
9:34the information better and that your
9:35long-term memory is improved. And there
9:38are things that you can do to reduce the
9:39amount that you forget and make your
9:42retrieval
9:44more effective so that you're not
9:46spending all of your time just
9:48constantly relearning things. And if you
9:50have never thought about learning as a
9:53system and you're not sure what you can
9:56do at each point and where your
9:57strengths and weaknesses are as a
9:59system, then I'd highly recommend
10:00checking out the free quiz that I've
10:02developed, which goes through and asks a
10:04bunch of questions about how you consume
10:07information, how you process it, how you
10:08write your notes, how you prime
10:09yourself, and it will give you a score
10:12that actually tells you which parts of
10:14your learning system are holding you
10:16back the most. It takes two or three
10:18minutes to do, but you will learn things
10:20about your learning system and where you
10:22are wasting time that took me months to
10:26figure out. So, if you're interested in
10:27that, you can check it out. I'll leave a
10:29link for you in the description below.
10:30Now, we've covered all the things that
10:31you need to stop doing. So, let's go
10:33through to the things that you should do
10:35instead. The first thing that you need
10:38to do as much as possible is pattern
10:43mining. It's really simple. get a bunch
10:45of information. So, let's say that the
10:48information here is these pens in my
10:49hands. And you ask yourself, how are
10:51these things similar to each other? How
10:54are they related to each other? And by
10:56looking for patterns, you're helping
10:58your brain form connections. And those
11:01connections are what form memory. And
11:04here's the beautiful part is that the
11:06connections and the patterns you find
11:08don't even need to be very meaningful.
11:11If they are meaningful and then they're
11:13relevant for you, that's the best case
11:15scenario. But even just the act of
11:18deliberately looking for patterns and
11:21relationships and similarities and
11:23differences and grouping things together
11:26forces your brain to connect information
11:29in a more effective way, which means
11:31better memory, more effective, less
11:34wasted time. Now, here's my pro tip.
11:36When do you pattern mine? because you
11:38can't do it for like literally every
11:39single word that you read. As a tip,
11:42anytime you feel overwhelmed,
11:46like there's so much information that
11:48this information is going to start
11:49slipping out of your brain, pause and
11:51mine for the patterns. And what will
11:53happen is that the information that
11:54you've just consumed that's complicated
11:57and overwhelming and there's lots of
11:58different parts to it. As you see
12:00patterns, you will find ways to simplify
12:03it. You might think of analogies and it
12:06will help you to break down this
12:07complicated thing into more simple
12:09components. Basically, you're taking
12:11this overwhelming set of points and by
12:15finding the patterns between them,
12:17you're able to group them together. So,
12:20instead of having 16 overwhelming things
12:23that you need to remember, it's just
12:25four groups of four. Efficient learners,
12:29people that can get great grades while
12:32spending very little time are able to
12:34find patterns more quickly. And the more
12:38you try to find these patterns, the
12:40better your ability to find these
12:41patterns will become and the smarter you
12:44get. The second thing you should do is
12:47higher level testing.
12:52An example of lower level testing is
12:54like just doing a bunch of fact recall
12:57flashcards. If you are practicing for a
12:59pure fact recall exam, great. If you're
13:02testing for something that requires you
13:04to use your knowledge in a little bit
13:05more of a complex way, you need to
13:08practice how you will play. And I
13:10actually want you to think about the way
13:12that you study in terms of the grade
13:16that it unlocks for you per hour that
13:19you spend on using that method. And this
13:22is a really useful way of thinking about
13:24learning. The fastest path to getting
13:27the highest grade is focusing on
13:30everything except the fact recall first.
13:34Let me draw this for you. This is going
13:35to make it very obvious. The red boxes
13:38are every possible question and fact
13:41that you will be tested on. When you sit
13:43an exam and then you get a question that
13:45asks you about like a bigger concept or
13:47solving a more complicated problem, it
13:50often involves you needing to know about
13:52multiple different concepts and multiple
13:54different facts and using them together.
13:57Let's say for example, these are the
14:00four facts and concepts that we would
14:02need to know. we are able to spend some
14:04time testing our ability to answer this
14:08box and then we move on to a different
14:10kind of higher order testing method like
14:13a different kind of problem that uses a
14:15different set of facts and concepts and
14:17so we test on this spread here and by
14:19the time we've covered the major
14:21concepts and the big picture ways that
14:24they might ask us tricky questions or
14:26solve complex problems we've done
14:28something that looks like this. You can
14:30see we haven't covered everything that
14:32we need to cover. Like these boxes here,
14:34these are still empty. But by testing a
14:36few big areas in a connected way, we've
14:40been able to test our knowledge at a
14:42much wider level. And so we cover a
14:45higher percentage of possible problems
14:48and questions that we might get asked.
14:50And the thing is testing in this way
14:52takes time. It is more time consuming to
14:55test our ability to solve bigger
14:57problems than it is to test ourselves on
14:59learning a single fact. But most people
15:02spend the early part of their studying
15:04or the entirety of their studying just
15:07focusing on learning each individual
15:09fact. And what if this fact is not even
15:12tested in the exam? In that case, the
15:15time we spent on learning that fact is
15:17almost a waste of time completely.
15:19Whereas, it's almost guaranteed that
15:20they're going to test you on these major
15:22concepts. And by studying for these
15:25major concepts with these major
15:27relationships, you will probably also be
15:29able to answer some of those individual
15:31fact recall questions as a side effect.
15:33And because you are testing these
15:36together and looking for patterns and
15:39testing the relationship that they have
15:41with each other, you are forming more
15:43connections, which means that the memory
15:45here is actually stronger, which means
15:47that you forget it more slowly. Unlike
15:50spending all of your time on isolated
15:51factory call where by the time you have
15:53actually finished learning this and then
15:55you are now memorizing this one, this
15:58one is already starting to be forgotten.
16:00And so by the time you're finished this,
16:02you need to go back and then learn this
16:03one all over again. And that's how you
16:05get stuck in a spiral of neverending
16:08memorization because your ability to
16:11memorize new content is matched by how
16:14fast you forget what you've already
16:16learned. And then half of the things
16:18that you study don't even come up in the
16:20exam anyway, and you wonder why you
16:22couldn't answer that tricky curveball
16:24question. So rule of thumb, spend 70 to
16:2680% of your time learning the bigger
16:30concepts, testing yourselves with
16:32problem solving, writing discussions,
16:35testing your ability to connect the
16:36information together. The isolated
16:38little details that are left out at the
16:40end, you can cram that stuff in and put
16:43that into your flash cards. In fact, for
16:46some of my more recent assessments, they
16:48don't even test me on my factory call at
16:50all. So, all my classmates that spent
16:54time like writing notes and then doing
16:55flashcards to memorize stuff, that
16:57knowledge just like never became useful.
16:59Now, here's the final thing that you
17:00need to do to be more efficient. Use the
17:03confidence compass.
17:08If you do practice questions as part of
17:10your preparation, great. Practice
17:13questions, actually testing yourself,
17:15especially under test conditions, is a
17:17phenomenal, awesome method of
17:19preparation. Keep doing it. But it can
17:21be better. And it all comes down to how
17:23you use your answer sheet. The way you
17:25use your answer sheet can completely
17:27make or break how effective testing
17:29yourself can be. Because let's say that
17:31you answer the question and you're
17:32feeling a bit iffy about it. You don't
17:34know if it's right or wrong. And then
17:35you check the answer and then you
17:36realize it's right. You feel good about
17:38yourself, but you shouldn't because you
17:40didn't feel good about your answer. That
17:43means there is a gap in your knowledge
17:46there. So, if they ask you about that
17:47concept in a slightly different way,
17:50maybe you get it wrong. Or maybe you
17:52answer it and you're feeling confident
17:53about it and then you check the answer
17:54and then it's wrong. And then you read
17:56the answer and you think, "Oh, yeah, of
17:58course that makes sense. I just made a
18:00silly mistake." No. The most important
18:04thing, you got it wrong, which is your
18:06confidence. In an actual exam, your
18:08ability to detect a silly mistake and
18:11correct yourself is going to be based on
18:13your confidence. If you make an answer
18:15and you're confident that it's correct,
18:17you're more likely to miss something.
18:20And so, you need to really look into why
18:22you felt confident in the first place.
18:25That is the bigger problem. And so, here
18:28is where the confidence compass comes
18:29in. Do your practice questions. But
18:32before you check the answer sheet, mark
18:35down next to every single answer how
18:37confident you feel about that answer.
18:40Then, and this is the part that takes a
18:42little bit more time, make your own
18:45answer sheet until you feel like you
18:48don't even need an answer sheet anymore.
18:50You want your confidence for every
18:52single answer you put to be at 100%. You
18:55can then check your answer sheet with
18:56the official answer sheet if they are
18:58available. And if you notice any
19:00differences, then that's a really
19:02worthwhile gap for you to look into as
19:04well. But this sequence of testing
19:05yourself, writing answers, assessing
19:07your confidence, making your own answer
19:09sheet to make your confidence 100% and
19:12then checking that with a real answer
19:13sheet and looking for differences is a
19:16perfect stack of cognitively optimized
19:20techniques. It leverages and multiplies
19:23several learning science principles on
19:25top of each other to force your brain
19:28into a more efficient state of learning.
19:30It does take a little bit of time to use
19:31the confidence compass technique, but
19:33for every hour you spend using it. There
19:37are very few other things that you can
19:39do that will drive up your grade more in
19:42the same amount of time. So, stop doing
19:44this, start doing this, and that is how
19:47you can get better grades while studying
19:49less. Now, if you want to watch some
19:51more videos on how to study and learn
19:53more efficiently, then you might be
19:54interested in this video right here.
19:58It's on the paper, right? Right there.
20:00You can see it.

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