Phase II: The Learning Loop

Sonmez’s 10-step is divided into two phases: the research phase

(steps 1–6) and the learning phase (steps 7–10).

The best way to understand it — I think — is by starting

backwards​. First, we’ll look at the second phase, the learning
phase. Then, we’ll go back and look at the research phase.

First, something to understand: ​Acquiring information is

not learning​.

You can’t learn to write novels, ride a bike, wrestle, fill out
spreadsheets, or write Java code by reading textbooks.
Textbooks can help, but they only work ​when combined with
practice​.

Sonmez:

“If you want to learn something, what should you do? Well,
​ ou’ll learn best when you take action​ and
ultimately, y
you’ll reinforce that learning and gain a deeper understanding
when you take on the task of teaching what you learned to
someone else. Your efforts on self-education should be focused on
trying to ​get to the point where you can actually be
involved and do something as early as possible.​

In other words, practice should come before theory.

Well, let’s not get too theoretical here, but the key idea is that
there are many things that can’t be expressed verbally​.
Textbooks and teaching can help transfer verbal knowledge, but
they can’t transfer non-verbal, ​tacit​knowledge. That stuff can
only be picked up through practice.

What’s more, we can only understand some things ​after​ we’ve

built a “web of context” that comes from experience. This is why
rock climbing theory is much easier to understand after you’ve
spent a few hours in the gym. This is also why you probably
ignored your parents’ (sincere and wise) warnings of “Don’t
date that girl she will destroy you.” You have to get burned to
understand.

This is also why it’s kind of funny that we go to school ​before

we’ve had much experience in the real world. Only later do we
say, “Man, I wish I’d paid attention in Ms. Smellyfoot’s history
class.”
 Now, let’s look at the actual steps.

Step 7 & 8: Get Playing ASAP

One of the best ways to build the above “web of context” is to
play. Our goal is to get playing as soon as possible:

“If you can gain enough knowledge about a subject to start

playing around, you can tap into the powerful creative and
curious nature of your own mind. ​We tend to absorb more
information and develop more meaningful questions
about a thing when we’re actively playing​. … Baby
animals tend to play a lot and through that play they learn
important skills they’ll need to survive. Ever watch a baby kitten
learn to hunt mice? ​We, too, learn by playing, by actively
doing without really knowing what we’re doing​.”

Actually, there are some theories that play evolved for this
specific purpose — to help young animals practice the skills
they need in the real world. Play fighting is a safe way to get
ready for real-world fighting.

So here are the steps:

 ● Step 7 — Learn enough to get started.
● Step 8 — Play around.

Nobody reads the whole game manual before they start playing
a video game. Likewise, when I started rock climbing, I just
made sure I had a few basic rules (keep your weight on your feet
and stay close to the wall) before I started playing around.

Step 9: Learn enough to do something useful.

Playing around gives us the context and tacit knowledge to go
back and do more verbal, analytic learning:

“In step 8, you played around and hopefully came up with some
questions that you couldn’t find answers to on your own. Now is
the time to answer those questions. For this step, you’ll go
through all the resources you gathered and learn … in depth.”

If you’re a climber, this may involve doing a Google search to

figure out how to solve a problem you couldn’t figure out how to
solve. Maybe you need to develop more technique? Or was it a
strength problem?
 For programmers, this may involve figuring out the syntax to do
something that — while you were playing — you couldn’t
figure out how to do.

Step 10: Teach

The final step is to try and teach what you’ve learned:

“[Teaching is] the only way to know for sure that you’ve learned
something, and it’s a great way to fill in the gaps in your own
learning as you try to explain it to others. It’s a process that will
cause you to really dissect and understand the topic you’re
learning about in your own mind as you organize the
information in a way that will make it understandable to others.”

Teaching helps us (a) check whether we actually understand

something and (b) “lock in” our knowledge, committing it for
the long term.

Oftentimes, I think I understand something, but I won’t be able

to express it in writing. This is a sign that I don’t understand the
subject as well as I thought. It’s a humbling experience.
There are many ways to “teach”. You can write blog posts like I
do. You can try to explain something to friends. You can even
talk to yourself as you walk (okay, I admit I do this). You can
record videos on YouTube. And so on.

Phase I: The Research Phase

Now, let’s go back to the first phase of Sonmez’s 10-step system.
Honestly, I find these steps kind of boring, so let’s just speed
through and just get the basic intuition.

While steps 7–10 above should be repeated over and over, steps
1–6 should only happen once. They’re the prep phase to help
you get started on the good stuff (actually learning):

1. Get the big picture ​— Scan articles, table of

contents, Wikipedia pages, etc. to get an idea of what
the field is about.
2. Determine scope ​— Limit the size of what you want
to learn. “Physics” or “philosophy” is too wide and will
take decades. “Classical mechanics”, while still wide,
might be a bit easier.
 3. Define success ​— Make a clear goal for your
learning so you’ll know when you get there.
4. Find resources​ — Gather resources from the
internet, libraries, forums, etc. that might be useful for
your learning project.
5. Create a learning plan ​— Use what you learned in
the previous steps to make a plan.
6. Filter resources ​— With your plan in mind, narrow
down your resource list (Step 4) to the most important
essentials.

I don’t agree with all of this list. (For example, I’m not a big fan
of either defining success or detailed plans because, in the real
world, your definition of success changes as you learn. Also, in
many fields, it’s really hard to measure success.)

But here are the parts that I do like:

● Start with a big picture understanding.

● Avoid the ​collector’s fallacy​. The real learning comes
from practice, not from having the best tools or
resources.
● Get to Phase II (the learning phase) as soon as possible.