Ramses Oudt Profile picture
15 Jan, 9 tweets, 2 min read
You can learn from any book.

Start by skimming, then dive in, before going down the rabbit hole of a topic. Keep the three reading stages in mind, and you'll learn something in every reading session.

🧵 Prefer tweets? See my essay in the thread. Image
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

—Francis Bacon
You can learn from any book, but that doesn't mean you should.

To make the most use of your time, you need to know what parts of a book are useful—if any. Learn to judge a book by more than its cover.
In the classic and aptly titled work How to Read a Book, we can find the different reading stages.

Know when and how to apply them, and you'll learn something in every reading session.
Apart from elementary reading, these are the levels:

• Inspectional reading
• Analytical reading
• Syntopical reading
Inspectional reading.

You should start every book by skimming it. Look at the headings, pictures, and try to pinpoint the author's blueprint of the book. After this reading stage, you decide if and what to read. Now you're tasting.
Analytical reading.

If you decide to read the book carefully, you should dig deeper— classify the type of book, figure out the core message, connect the ideas, and pinpoint the problem the author is trying to solve. Now you're swallowing the book.
Syntopical reading.

Reading widely about a topic is the deepest level of reading. By turning the language of different authors into your own words, you get a deeper understanding of the topic. At this stage, you chew and digest.
These steps look simple, but they progressively take more effort.

Instead of directly plunging in, use your time wisely by moving from one stage to the next.

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More from @rroudt

18 Jan
Write every day to become a better thinker.

Publish every day to force yourself to write. It won't be easy, it won't always be pretty, but you'll always learn.

Five writing tips to help you ship your work daily.

🧵 Prefer tweets? See my essay in the thread. Image
Writing daily has many advantages. Writing every day is also incredibly hard—you need to find the time, inspiration, and courage to ship your work. It gets easier, but never easy.
In the previous two weeks, I've written and published one short essay every day. I've laughed and cried (yes). Writing became easier and then double as hard. But, there's always a lesson hidden in my struggles.
Read 10 tweets
17 Jan
Want to become an effective learner? Do the metacognitive loop.

Inspired by @ness_labs' Collector to Creator course, I wrote an atomic essay on how to think about thinking—and how it makes you a better learner.

🧵 Prefer tweets? See my essay in the thread. Image
How do you learn best?

If you want to become an effective learner, you need to get an answer to that question—fast.

There are many ways to learn, but only a few work. Finding the right learning approach can be difficult—unless you use the metacognitive loop.
Metacognition is thinking about thinking, learning about learning, and knowing about knowing.

By going through this process often—making it a loop—you'll become a better thinker and learner.
Read 9 tweets
14 Jan
Strive to become 1% better every day.

Small habits snowball into big changes. If you keep showing up and adjusting based on what you learn, success is a matter of time.

An atomic essay is about how I dropped 45 kg by steadily improving 1%.

🧵 Prefer tweets? See the thread.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” —Will Durant

Small habits cause big changes. If you improve by 1% every day, you’re 37 times better after a year. Simple improvements function like compound interest—it snowballs.
I stumbled upon the principle of small, daily improvements when battling prediabetes. Having to lose 45 kg (99 lbs), I had to make a radical change in my lifestyle.
Read 10 tweets
14 Jan
Writing helps you to learn.

Reading @david_perell's Monday Musings newsletter this week, three quotes on writing stood out to me.

🧵 A short thread on writing to learn.
"Writing is humbling because you realize that you don’t understand things you thought you were an expert on."

Writing is the ultimate bullshit filter.

Until you try to explain something, you don't know if you grok it.
"Writing things down is a portal to the highest levels of thinking, which is why mathematicians have the whiteboard and writers have the page."

Clear writing is a mark of clear thinking.

If your writing is muddy, that means you have more learning and writing to do.
Read 5 tweets
13 Jan
When you teach, you learn twice as fast.

Stop hoarding knowledge; share it freely if you want to help yourself grow. Teach to learn.

In today's #Ship30For30 essay, I show why teaching is a valuable learning tool.

🧵 Prefer tweets? See the thread. Image
When learning on your own, it's easy to fool yourself into thinking you understand.

If you can't apply new knowledge immediately, teach others—you'll remember it better, and discover if you truly grok it.
Good teaching stands or falls with preparation.

Know:
1. The gist of the idea.

2. When the idea does and doesn't apply.

3. Stories and examples of the idea in action.
Read 8 tweets
12 Jan
Don't learn languages—acquire them.

You'll never become fluent by studying grammar and memorizing vocabulary. You only become fluent in a language if you stop learning and start immersing yourself.

My five language acquisition principles 👇

🧵 Prefer tweets? See the thread. Image
Do you learn languages, or do you acquire them?

Most people acquire their native language but learn foreign languages. Brainwashed by school, adults ditch the natural approach for artificial materials that never lead to fluency.


Be different if you want to become fluent.
Throw away your apps, books, and courses.

All you need is a lot of exposure to your target language. Immerse yourself and rewire your brain. Let the language become part of you.
Read 11 tweets

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