But, most of all, I learned through one simple method: I took over 100,000 photos that first year. I never enrolled in a photography class. I didn’t read books on how to become a better photographer. I just committed to relentless experimentation. This “learning by doing” approach embodies one of my favorite chapters in this book and Scott’s third principle of ultralearning: directness.
Passive learning creates knowledge. Active practice creates skill.
“In many fields a year of focused work plus caring a lot would be enough.”
Barone’s strategy was simple but effective. He practiced by working directly on the graphics he wanted to use in his game. He critiqued his own work and compared it to art he admired. “I tried to break it down scientifically,” he explained. “I would ask myself, ‘Why do I like this? Why don’t I like that?’” when looking at other artists’ work. He supplemented his own practice by reading about pixel art theory and finding tutorials that could fill gaps in his knowledge. When he encountered a difficulty in his art, he broke it down: “I asked, ‘What goal do I want to reach?’ and then ‘How might I get there?’” At some point in his work on the game, he felt his colors were too dull and boring. “I wanted the colors to pop,” he said. So he researched color theory and intensively studied other artists to see how they used colors to make things visually interesting.
Exacerbating the trends caused by computers and robots are globalization and regionalization. As medium-skilled technical work is outsourced to workers in developing nations, many of those jobs are disappearing at home. Lower-skilled jobs, which often require face-to-face contact or social knowledge in the form of cultural or language abilities, are likely to remain. Higher-skilled work is also more resistant to shipping overseas because of the benefits of coordination with management and the market. Think of Apple’s tagline on all of its iPhones: “Designed in California. Made in China.”
METALEARNING: FIRST DRAW A MAP. Start by learning how to learn the subject or skill you want to tackle. Discover how to do good research and how to draw on your past competencies to learn new skills more easily. FOCUS: SHARPEN YOUR KNIFE. Cultivate the ability to concentrate. Carve out chunks of time when you can focus on learning, and make it easy to just do it. DIRECTNESS: GO STRAIGHT AHEAD. Learn by doing the thing you want to become good at. Don’t trade it off for other tasks, just because those are more convenient or comfortable. DRILL: ATTACK YOUR WEAKEST POINT. Be ruthless in improving your weakest points. Break down complex skills into small parts; then master those parts and build them back together again. RETRIEVAL: TEST TO LEARN. Testing isn’t simply a way of assessing knowledge but a way of creating it. Test yourself before you feel confident, and push yourself to actively recall information rather than passively review it. FEEDBACK: DON’T DODGE THE PUNCHES. Feedback is harsh and uncomfortable. Know how to use it without letting your ego get in the way. Extract the signal from the noise, so you know what to pay attention to and what to ignore. RETENTION: DON’T FILL A LEAKY BUCKET. Understand what you forget and why. Learn to remember things not just for now but forever. INTUITION: DIG DEEP BEFORE BUILDING UP. Develop your intuition through play and exploration of concepts and skills. Understand how understanding works, and don’t recourse to cheap tricks of memorization to avoid deeply knowing things. EXPERIMENTATION: EXPLORE OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONE. All of these principles are only starting points. True mastery comes not just from following the path trodden by others but from exploring possibilities they haven’t yet imagined.