Again, here is a letter of insights and inquiries from M, a great example of a "proactive learner", who, by following that practice will, for sure, succeed in whatever he does in life.
My answers are in bold between brackets: [ ].
Hello, Keith!
How are you? How is it going with the book?
It has been some time since our last conversation, and I was targeted to study one area of the life management, but in the learning process, I again had some difficulties with the information understanding, which led me to search for an effective and productive way of learning.
I asked myself “How to learn and apply the information on the site in the most productive way?” [This type of question is what a proactive, high responsibility person would ask.] [My previous “learning” was mostly a “pleasurable reading”, and sometimes I was lost in “the sea of the information” and I had to return for rereading that made difficulties for moving forward. Again, from your previous answer to my questions I discovered “Effective Learning” that has changed the approach of my studies. [Indeed, this is something I should make sure I point to early on in the process, since it is one of the core skills that enable the learning later on in the chain of causal steps that lead to success. Effective Learning. It is actually the fourth piece in The Only Sure Path To A Great Life, which I provide as a "path" to follow, which hopefully is very helpful to people as it answers the question "what's next?".]
Here will be some insights from my side that might help your readers get more benefits from your site and make their studies more productive and effective. [Here, he is thinking while he is in the process of learning. Of course that process helps to learn better, since the knowledge is being actively used, and thus integrated.]
1. I would recommend reading the “Learning section” it will save a lot of time and energy in the future and helps to make studies more effective. [Great observation/conclusion. I will enter that in my taak management system, for me to be sure it is pointed out earlier in the process. ]
2. Try to use in your studies the SQ3R method it will help increase the productivity of your studies. [Amen! I have chosen to speed up my "pleasure reading" of books by using the technique of reading the first sentence of a paragraph to see if I need to bother reading the paragraph, as I realize there are some details I can skip over and speed up my process with no loss - while saving time for more useful things.]
3. Select the important information and copy it into your notebook or diary. In my experience, I have found the most productive way, is to create the MS Word document of the actual learning section and then to copy the important information. When one will need to revise the information, he will have a short version with the main ideas. [This is excellent. Indeed, learning is a process of "harvesting" and honing in on what is needed to go forward to get results - and not just some accumulation of information! It might seem too time consuming to many, but it is a high payoff activity!]
4. And the most important part is “making dots” from the selected text and then connect them, see example below.
“Concept 1: Unless you learn enough "dots" (information), you cannot "connect the dots" of how to effectively get the results you want in your life. You need to get to where you know enough to actually get the results - and to avoid the common mistake of stopping short -where you know "about" something, but not enough to get the actual result. The point of life is to get the results - and to avoid the frustration of not quite knowing enough to implement successfully.” [You've got the point of it all, as in The Power Of Completion. Stopping short is one of the main causes of people not progressing more than a mere fraction of how far they could go!!!]
In my experience, this approach helps learn the information and when one needs to revise it, he/she just need to “scan” with eyes the “dots” and all information comes together in logical sequence. [Yes!!!]
I hope that this small insight will help to someone and make his learning process and progress more enjoyable and effective. [Yes, thank you!]
And of course, I will have some questions that I have found during the process.
Q. 1. “Tests are only objective measures that let us know where we are and, when we couple that with where we want to be, they help usdetermine the path to get what we want out of life. – How to understand what do we really want? How to test yourself for a path determination? [Good question. Often, I seem to notice, it is difficult at times to start from scratch and just to "think things up". So questions have to be asked like "what have I always liked to do" or "what causes am I interested in" or "what is the purpose of my life, or of life". You might try My 100+ Dreams List - Start Here and link from that page into the (overdoing it) piece called DreamBook and also into the My Ideal Life Workbook.]
Q. 2 “SQ3R” Go back in higher and higher levels until we reach "sufficient mastery" at Level I. – What is the Level I? [I did leave that hanging a bit, as I have not really laid out a good framework for all the levels. I do define Level 1, indeed, as the level at which you can actually be competent enough to get good basic results. Roughly it corresponds to the idea of The Spectrum Of The Mastery Of Life - The Road To Experiencing Life Fully, powerfully, With Ultimate Happiness (whew!). Going up the learning spiral one level at a time is discussed in the sidebar of Learning/Achieving Programs.]
Q. 3. “The only purpose, and the only indicator of effective learning, is to enable one to get the results one truly would wants in an informed life.” – How to understand what will be better for you? How to find that? And, what is “an informed life?” [A good way to decide what might be best for you is for you to identify where things are not working well in your life or where you are not attaining the results you would like to attain. You would list them as you think of them and then prioritize, by estimated benefit level, and do them in that order. Some things stand out as being high priority for almost everyone - and that is identifying and then correcting beliefs (follow the program for learning and doing this) - becoming a master at this has a great payoff per hour invested. And, yes, I did leave "informed life" rather undefined and nebulous. An informed life would be one where you are paying attention to areas of life that matter to you and reading and finding more current information to supplement your current knowledge. (I subscribe to lots of blogs, some particularly great, that keep me informed, so you might do some subscriptions and even subscribe to video channels on YouTube that you find interesting. You will be automatically notified in the case of the blogs, but you'd have to look at YouTube to see the latest for the postings of new videos of interest to you.) Further, I would say that "informed" means getting information that is of relevance only, as being generally informed in everything is a rather esoteric goal that is non-practical. Also, I would equate the informed life to one where one achieves greater and greater levels of wisdom in all areas of personal happines and running one's life and in whatever skills one needs for one's earning of a living.]
I hope that this information will be useful for someone who really wants to manage his life! And, I hope for your feedback.
Take care!
M
[Thank you, M, for being a great example for others to follow and for your insights and inquiries!
Keith]
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