We often do things the way we were taught, not because it’s the best way to do it. By keeping you mind open to new ideas and a little amount of research, you could be surprised by the vastly superior and more productive techniques that you can discover, that can boost your productivity and efficiency.
I often see people hitting balls endlessly at the golf driving range with the wrong technique. They are taking Massive Action, but that action is not aligned with their long-term goal of becoming a better golfer. If anything, it is making them worse since it is reinforcing the wrong swing.
Sunil Saxena – Author – Massive Action equals Massive Results
Every skill has it’s own special requirements, which is where it is virtually impossible to list out the right techniques for specific skills. Additionally, since we all learn in different ways, the right technique for one person may end up being the wrong technique for someone else.
The important thing to keep in mind, is that before you get into the intensive practice and action phase, you spend adequate time experimenting and trying out different techniques, to find the technique that works the best for you.
Top Books on the Right Learning Technique
These books are all great pointers with relation to the great importance of learning in the right, vs the wrong or almost right ways.
The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything…Fast
Authors: Josh Kaufman,
Most people don’t get past the first few hours of learning a new skill. In this book, Kaufman gives you a cheat-sheet that will help you acquire faster. He trains you to use the first 20 hours to focus and pick up a habit. His step-by-step techniques will help you learn even the most complex tasks and simplifies learning for everybody.
How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens
Authors: Benedict Carey,
Throughout your life, you’ve been told to use a quiet place, switch off the music devices and build a strict routine if you want to do well in your tests/presentation. On many occasions, this simply does not work. In How We Learn, Carey gives you realistic and research-proven strategies that will improve your learning with much less effort.
The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence
Authors: Josh Waitzkin,
Becoming a World Champion in two extreme disciplines — chess and Tai Chi — made Josh Waitzkin realize that it isn’t chess or Tai Chi that he is good at. Rather, it is the art of learning. In this book, he uses his own life to explain how emotions can be used to fuel your creativity, how your weaknesses can be made into strengths, and many more life-changing lessons.
Now, Discover Your Strengths: How to Develop Your Talents and Those of the People You Manage
Authors: Marcus Buckingham,Donald O. Clifton
Most people focus on their flaws and focus excessively on fixing them. Buckingham and Clifton give you a new approach to a better life — focus on your strengths instead. Their program will help you identify your true talent and hone it until it becomes your biggest strength.
Novice to Expert: 6 Steps to Learn Anything, Increase Your Knowledge, and Master New Skills
Authors: S.J. Scott,
Wall Street Journal bestselling author, S. J. Scott helps you develop a talent, without having to spend too much time or money. In Novice to Expert Scott trains you to dedicate your free time to building a skill and practicing it. He eradicates the role of an instructor in your life and proves the power of self-learning.
Other concepts on Learning Skills, Productivity
Batching
Batching is where you gather all similar tasks and do them all at once. By completing them this way, you can maximize your focus on one type of task over a period of time, and therefore greatly increase your productivity on that particular job.
Learning Tips
Investing time and money learning new skills is incredibly important, but are you investing sub-optimally. There are learning processes and techniques that can supercharge your learning, and some errors that can act as impediments to your learning progress.
Continous Self Learning
Our requirements of knowledge are constantly changing – driven by new responsibilities that we take on and constant changes that are taking place in the marketplace. The only way to remain relevant and at the top of our game, is through a process of continuous and constant self-learning.
Eliminate > Automate > Delegate
We get so tied down in mundane day-to-day and other routine activities, that it becomes virtually impossible to find the time to work on our more important strategic and longer-term goals. There is a simple solution – ELIMINATE > AUTOMATE > DELEGATE.