Learning Pyramid
Why aren't you learning as much as you could?
I am a rather slow reader; actually, that’s something I would like to change soon, and I am looking at Tim Ferris’s method to do so (this method I found in his book here). If anyone has any ideas, feel free to discuss them in the comments.
Since speed reading is not my strength, I often turn to audio, audio books, podcasts, etc.
Even though my retention is pretty good and I can listen to a lot of great topics and conversations, after about 2 years, I realized that nothing about my life had changed.
I know that you can’t just listen but that you also have to do, but I felt as if I always needed more information to do the thing I wanted to do. I got to read that book, listen to that podcast, and then I’ll know.
Then I stumbled onto this, the learning pyramid. Some say it is false, and some say it is accurate; for me, it allegorically feels very true.
The core principle is that if you only listen to something, you are only going to retain about 5%, and then so on and so forth until you get to actually teaching others.
This is the basis for why I have started the Koru blog.
I want to learn as much as I can, so I do still listen, but I have found myself listening far less to things. I have implemented a habit-tracking system in my life so that it is easier to start and manage the new things I want to adopt.
I have also started the habit of physically reading a part of a book every day, to again increase that percentage. and I have also started writing out the things I learned.
My process has gone from, in one ear and out the other, to, in one ear, peaks interest, writes it down, makes note of it, puts it in habit tracker so I don’t forget it, puts it in the next or recent blog, and moves onto the next thing.
I can honestly say that my retention has increased; it's hard to say how much, and I am still not great at it in any way. But practice makes perfect; it’s about the journey. I hope you found that helpful.
