Acquire Any Skill in 100 Hours or Less: The Learn-Do-Think Framework
Balance consumption, producing, and reflecting.
Most people fail at learning new skills.
It's not lack of motivation or discipline. They follow a failed process for developing new skills without even knowing it.
Pretend you wanted to learn how to write better AI prompts.
I know exactly what you would do, because I used to follow the same process.
You would open Google or ChatGPT and ask your question
Then you would read a few things on it. You might even take some notes.
Finally you'd might actually go and apply what you learned by trying it out.
Success right?
Well, I don' think so anymore.
How much did you learn? Can you generalize what you just did to new contexts? Can you connect what you now understand to your previous framework of how the world works?
Is there any lasting skill development or did you do the equivalent of cramming for a test the day before?
If you want to acquire a skill fast, you need to also Think about what you Learn and what you Do.
The Learn-Do-Think cycle is how you acquire any skill in less time.
Learn is the most common and familiar phase. We consume content from various sources to get a sense of what the world says about how to do something. Some people even take notes.
This phase is about gathering ideas of things to put into action.
Do is taking action. You produce, build, and try what it is you just learned. Most people can stay stuck in passive consumption phase, so doing is a huge leap forward.
Doing allows us to see determine what works and see the gaps in our theoretical knowledge.
Think is the crucial step most people are missing. This is when significant jumps in learning can occur. But first, you need to STOP the learning and doing.
Give yourself a break from consuming and trying. You need space to Think. It's easy to get caught up filling your brain with new information or being busy always doing.
Thinking requires you pause and reflect.
Thinking about what you learn and do is the most important step.
It's also the hardest, which could be why so many skip it.
During the Think phase, you need to take space and reflect on all levels. Ask yourself these questions:
What's working well? What's not?
What's the most important next step?
What gap do I need to fill that's blocking my doing?
Zoom out some more and answer these meta-thinking questions:
Am I solving the right problem?
Am I learning from the right sources?
How does this new skill relate to other things I know?
The goal of the Think phase is to reflect on what you've Learned and Did so that you can plan where you go next.
Without taking the time to Think, it's easy to get caught in the hamster wheel and make little to no progress. Or worse, make progress on the wrong thing.
Try the Learn-Do-Think framework the next time you want to develop your skills.