Time Management Tuesday: The Ultralearning Wrap-up

I began my Time Management Tuesday arc on Ultralearning by Scott Young back in October. Of last year. I actually finished reading the book two months ago, continued to write up blog posts, and have been "working" on my ultralearning plan for about five weeks.

Ultralearning describes a method of quickly learning new skills and information, something writers often have to do while researching material. I think Ultralearning will be most useful for someone who has never done any kind of learning/research project. Quite honestly, in the time I've committed to studying this book and trying to apply it to my history learning, I could have probably done the research I wanted to do using my hit-or-miss methods from the past.  But researching this learning method could change how I learn other things in the future.

The Ultralearning Blog Posts

Here is an annotated round-up of the blog posts I've done about Ultralearning.

• Write What You Know and Ultralearning. Why writers might want to do an ultralearning project.
• Principle 1. Metalearning. Learning about how to study your subject. Learning "how knowledge is structured and acquired within this subject; in other words, learning how to learn it." Interesting section of the book.
• Principle 2. Focus. This is essentially time management. We've done this.
• Principle 3. Directness. Involves tying your research to the situation you want to use it in.While I wasn't a fan of this chapter when I read it, one of the things Scott discusses is immersive learning. This is definitely missing from my ultralearning history project, right now. I haven't done a good job with that with this project. I think immersion is an important aspect of writing, and I can see why it would be helpful when trying to learn something, especially if you want to do it fast.
• Principle 4. Drills. I didn't see how I could use this with my history methodology project, but maybe something will come to me. And I can see how it would be helpful with other types of learning. Say, studying French, which I tinker with from time to time.
• Principle 5. Retrieval. This section was about using testing to improve your retrieval of material. Forcing yourself to try to retrieve material helps you to remember it. I didn't know how I could do this with my project at the time I read the chapter and blogged about. However, now that I am actually studying and trying to get started on a little writing, the outlining and character development I'm working on might be perceived as a pretest. It's at that point that I find out what I need to know and can go looking for that knowledge.
• Principle 6. Feedback. Different types of feedback on how you're doing with your learning project. I consider ways writers can get this. 
• Principle 7. Retention. Obviously, this is about retaining what you've learned. I argue that this isn't terribly important for writers, researching for a particular writing project.
• Principle 8. Intuition. I believe Young is talking here about getting to a point in your learning that your knowledge is broad enough that you don't have to think intently about it. But I can't be sure, because I found this chapter difficult.
  Principle 9. Experimentation. Getting to the point in your learning that you move past learning to something else. Doing something with your learning. This is another chapter I had to guess at.
• Principle 10. Your First Ultralearning Project. Making a plan. 

At some point, I'll report on what this project ended up doing for me.

My response to this book reminds me about how I felt about Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. (Try as I will, I can't find an Original Content post on Quiet.) I was not taken with that book, felt there was an intoverts-good/extroverts-bad vibe to it, for instance. However, over time the issues raised in it have had a big impact on my world view and the character-development for one of my unsold middle grade novels. I've gifted a copy to a family member and recommended it to others. I wonder if Ultralearning, in the long run, could end up being the same kind of post-reading experience for me.

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 10, Your First Ultralearning Project

Quite honestly, I think my experience reading Ultralearning by Scott Young would have gone much, much better for me if I hadn't done the equivalent of an ultralearning project before. But I've done at least two. I just didn't do them in a very organized way. So some of what I was reading in Ultralearning wasn't that novel to me. Also, I already have bad habits in place.

But here's how I'm applying the steps in this chapter to my present project.

Our Case Study: Step 1. The metalearning research, researching how history is studied. By the end of December I'd collected a lot of material. I stopped doing this kind of research at that point so I could get started using it at the beginning of the year.

Our Case Study: Step 2. Schedule your time. How much time you'll give to the project and when you'll do it. My plan at the end of December was to use my metalearning research in January and February. By then I wanted my character defined in terms of what he does with history and the part what he does with his knowledge in the plot to be determined. I planned to give some of my work time to this every week.

I originally thought of limiting this step to January, but I have a week-long retreat and a number of family things coming up as well as other work I want/need to do. So I'm not going to torture myself with an unrealistic deadline.

Our Case Study: Step 3. Execute the plan. Here's how some things went last month:

• One of Young's suggestions is to find a course syllabus for the subject you're studying. I had found and chosen a class syllabus for a 2013 UConn class called The Historian's Craft, which  was about the methods and tools of the historical profession. The course is described as being about "how history is written." I ordered a copy of one of the three course books, A Student's Guide to History by Jules R. Benjamin. I thought it was too pricie and ordered a used copy. And I waited until the beginning of January, the beginning of my study time, to place the order. So I lost two weeks of my study time waiting for that to arrive. Lesson learned.
• While I was waiting, I listened to a great podcast, So You Wanna Be A Historian--Historical Thought, Methods, Historiography, and the Historians Toolbox  at The Ask Historians Podcast.  I went through a podcast thing about four years ago, but am not a fan now because I find content quality varies a lot and they require concentration. I can't get much out of listening to a podcast while I'm doing something else. But who has time to just sit and listen to one? This particular podcast was over an hour, but I listened to it while on retreat last month. I took copious notes. I took names of historians to look up. It was great. I still have more paths I can pursue as a result of listening to this podcast.
• So, I get back home, my book has arrived, and I go to work with the syllabus. Here's what I found to be the case with working with a course syllabus when you don't have access to the class instruction that goes along with it: it's of limited use. Other readings were assigned for this class, some of which were only available through sites that could only be accessed by students or must have been handouts. The writing assignments were on the syllabus, but they didn't make any sense without having been in the classes. The book has been good, but I haven't gotten as much from The Historian's Craft syllabus as I'd hoped.
• I am doing a better job of organizing my notes than I have with other projects, but I really do have to keep reminding myself not to just dump everything into one file. 
• I've read some other material on my subject. And on and on.
• I have had some thoughts regarding my character and my plot as a result of my reading and that was the whole point. But I need to do some immersion on this research and writing project. My efforts were spread over too many goals last month. Just doing this a few hours a week may not have been the best plan. I've got three and a half weeks left in my scheduled time.

Our Case Study: Step 4. Review Results  Still to come

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 9, Experimentation

Almost done with this ultralearning arc.

Gail at a Van Gogh Exhibit

This chapter of Ultralearning by Scott Young begins with another lengthy case study, but this one is about Vincent Van Gogh, and I liked it. Van Gogh didn't take the traditional-for-his-time route to becoming an artist, which was to attend art school or apprentice in a studio. According to Young, Van Gogh was not perceived as having much talent and was considered odd. Thus he became a self-educator. Inspiring story.

Young's point with this chapter seems to be that true mastery of a subject comes when you've acquired enough skill that you need to move on from instruction to something else. You need to do something with what you've learned.

He gives examples of types of experimentation and how to experiment.

Our Case Study: The whole point of what I'm trying to do is to learn enough about a subject so I can use it as a jumping off point for fiction, to create a character, to create a plot point or two. So on the one hand, I will be doing something more with what I've learned. On the other, I don't think I can be described as experimenting with the field I've been studying. I'm not trying, for instance, to come up with a new theory of history. (Great Man Theory, Marxist Theory, Feminist Theory, etc.)

Hmm. My historian character is trying to take a nontraditional route to getting into his field. Maybe I should consider this Van Gogh business some more.

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 8 Intuition

This section of Scott Young's Ultralearning was incredibly difficult for me. For one thing, the chapter is an extended case study, and while I'm using my own project as a case study for dealing with this book, evidently I really dislike reading about them. More importantly, Young doesn't formally define intuition, assuming readers will know it, and this one didn't. It's a word I evidently had a connotative understanding of, but not denotative. For instance, I was a great one for saying something was counter-intuitive, seems wrong, without, it appears, really knowing what I was talking about. This comes from learning vocabulary from the context of your reading and not studying vocab. Don't let this happen to you.

Struggling to work out what was going on in this chapter may actually be an example of ultralearning. Another #@!! case study! This one with me.

Thank You Psychology Today

I skimmed big sections of this chapter because, as I said, I didn't like the case study. Then I went back and did a search of the eBook for "intuition." Then I started skimming again. Then I did an online search of "ultralearning" and "intuition." I found some sites where people had done elaborate reviews. Those people used "intuition" without defining it, also. Finally, I just googled "intuition" and found Intuition at good ol' Psych Today.

"Intuition is nonconscious thinking; essentially, the brain on autopilot. Scientists have repeatedly demonstrated how information can register on the brain without conscious awareness and positively influence decision-making."  "The automatic information processing that underlies intuition can be seen in something many people experience daily: the phenomenon known as "highway hypnosis." This occurs when a driver travels for miles without a conscious thought about the activity of driving the car."

So What Does It All Mean?

What I think Young is getting at here (using a long, long case study about Richard Feynman) is that after learners have acquired enough knowledge, they know it without having to think about it a great deal. Young says, "Whereas beginners tended to look at superficial features of the problem--such as whether the problem was about pulleys or inclined planes--experts focused on the deeper principles at work."

Is intuition related to what some of us used to think of as expertise, expert level skill/knowledge?

The amount of work I had to do to decipher this chapter illustrates a couple of things Young has talked about.

1. You can't always stick to the easy learning
2. Testing--I tested myself on intuition, couldn't answer the question, and worked on finding a solution. However, I cannot be sure the answer I came up with is correct.

Our Case Study: Intuition is probably something I want for my character. The question is: how much do I have to have in order to give him some?

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 7 Retention

I finished reading Ultralearning by Scott Young last month, and, as God is my witness, I'm going to finish blogging about it. Though it's going to take me another month to do it.

We've had a two-week break for goals and objectives, so I guess I'd better remind us all about what we're doing here. Especially since this is a blog post about retaining information.

As I said a few weeks ago,  Ultralearning  describes a method of rapid learning. (Saving time, see?) Research/learning new material is frequently a necessity in all kinds of writing. I use it not only to  provide background info in fiction but to inspire plot and characterization. Saving time doing this could be huge for writers, particularly this one.

Refresher On Our Case Study: I am planning an ultralearning project related to history, because I have a character who is a senior in college with a history major. I want his knowledge of history and, more importantly, how to do research to figure into the plot. The main issue I've decided I need to learn about is historical methodology. This now relates to one of my goals for this year.

Principle 7, Retaining What You've Learned

This chapter of Ultralearning is all about remembering what you're learning. This is interesting on a personal level, because our family members have been dealing with relatives with memory loss for many years. By "interesting" I mean "interesting in a disturbing way." Professionally,  I don't think memory/retention matters as much for writers as it does for those learning other things, like a language or a skill they'll actually be using regularly.

Retaining For The Long-Term

Our Case Study: In my particular case, I'm interested in learning historical methodology that I can use for a character and situation in one book. I don't need to retain a lot of this indefinitely. If I want to use this information another time and no longer have a good grasp of it, I can research it again, using whatever I do recall as a guide/jumping off point. A refresher.

I've done this before. Many years ago, I researched the Puritan era for The Hero of Ticonderoga. This past year, I wrote an adult book in which a contemporary figure is a Puritan fan. I used what I recalled from the original research to "inspire" sections, then quickly researched those points again.

If I learn something in my research/learning of history that I want to use again, after my initial project, I can do the same kind of relearning research.

Retaining For The Short-Term

I believe that retaining for the short-term is more important for writers doing the kind of learning I'm doing. By that I mean, remembering what we've learned during Week 1 while continuing to study into Weeks 5 and 6. Or to remember what we've learned researching prior to starting the writing project while we're into the actual writing.

Young says that procedural skills, which appear to be activities that involve learning a procedure (I had to research this, because Young doesn't actually say), are retained better than declarative knowledge, which is facts or information. So if there's some way we can turn basic facts into a procedure, there's a chance they will be retained longer.

Our Case Study: Ah...not a clue how I could do this. Or if it's even possible at all.

Personal Problem With Retention That I Wish "Ultralearning" Addressed

I have had a lot of trouble in the past organizing research in an easy-to-access-again way. All my notes have gone into a notebook in the past or, more recently, a computer file, where at least, I could use "find" to find something I recalled but would like some support for before using it. Young doesn't cover this aspect of studying.

Our Case Study: I'm thinking that if I use a course syllabus, I can create a notebook or computer file for that course, just as I would if I were taking the actual college course. In fact, I'd have to say my takeaway from Ultralearning so far is to try to treat my professional research the way I would a college major instead of just dumping info into the digital or notebook equivalent of piles.

In this particular case, I may also be more focused in my research. I am not randomly researching history but history methodology. That may help me to organize research.

Since I am actually into the research at this point, I can report that yesterday I carefully created a file for a particular article I was reading instead of just tossing any notes I wanted to make into a "methods" file. I hope that's an improvement.
 

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 6 Feedback

Let's pause here to remind ourselves (myself) why we're (I'm) doing this read for Time Management Tuesday: Ultralearning by Scott Young describes a method of rapid learning. (Saving time, see?) Research/learning new material is frequently a necessity in all kinds of writing. I use it not only to  provide background info in fiction but to inspire plot and characterization. Saving time doing this could be huge for writers, particularly this one.

Refresher On Our Case Study: I am trying to plan an ultralearning project related to history, because I have a character who is a senior in college with a history major. I want his knowledge of history and, more importantly, how to do research to figure into the plot. The main issue I've decided I need to learn about is historical methodology

Check out the posts to date on Principles 1 through 5.

Now we're ready to start on Principle 6, Feedback.

Young says feedback  is a common tactic for ultralearners. "What often separated the ultralearning strategy from more conventional approaches was the immediacy, accuracy, and intensity of the feedback being provided."

Remember, the last principle was testing, which ultralearners use as a learning tool, not an evaluation tool. Testing is arguably how traditional students get feedback, though they aren't able to do much with it, because there are rarely opportunities to go back and learn what the test results indicate they don't know. So what do ultralearners use as feedback?

Outcome Feedback

Outcome feedback tells you how you're doing but doesn't offer much about quality--whether you're doing better or worse. Traditional grades are outcome feedback or it can come from a group. Applause is outcome feedback. Book sales are outcome feedback. The feedback doesn't tell you why this is happening. Perhaps blog and website statistics are outcome feedback. You know the sites are or aren't successful, you don't know why.

This is often the only kind of feedback available.

Informational Feedback

Informational feedback can tell you what you're doing wrong but won't necessarily provide information on how to fix it. The examples Young gives--speaking a foreign language with a native speaker who doesn't understand you, getting applause, or not, from a performance--sounds similar to outcome feedback to me.

Corrective Feedback

Clearly, this is feedback that shows you what you're doing wrong and how to correct it. It's often only available through someone who knows more than you do. However, Young includes study materials like flash cards and solutions to problems as corrective feedback. You can use these to check your learning.

But that sounds like the last principle, testing. Unless you want to think of it as providing your own feedback.

Our Case Study: Remember, I am not trying to learn a skill like speaking a language or coding, two examples Young uses a lot in his book. I'm trying to acquire a basic knowledge of how a subject is studied. What kind of feedback do I need?

1. Have I comprehended this correctly?
2. Am I correct in applying it to the character and situation in my book?

How will I get this feedback? Once again, I will be using what I learn in a writing project. The classic ways for writers to get feedback are:

1. Writers' group
2. Beta readers
3. Response from agent
4. Working with editors
5. Response from reviewers/readers 

If writers can find beta readers who are knowledgeable in the field they studied to write their book, they can get some targeted, corrective feedback. The same is true if reviewers know the field. That feedback will be coming way too late, of course.

I can't think of anything new for providing myself with feedback as a result of reading Ultralearning.

However, I am now considering a story idea about a writer who goes mad doing research, continuing with it for years and years. And years. And a little longer. I'm pretty sure that's been done. Though I haven't researched the topic yet.

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 5 Retrieval. Or Testing

Okay! This week our Ultralearning read (which we are doing to help us learn to learn/research faster) deals with retrieving what you've studied/learned. To cut to the chase, author Scott Young says research has determined that testing yourself is a stronger way of remembering material and being able to retrieve it, better than reviewing material before a test or creating a concept map. (writing out concepts in some kind of organized diagram) Putting aside testing's use in traditional education as a method of evaluation, it appears that the effort to retrieve information from the mind the way you do with a test is a learning tool, itself.

Difficulty plays a part, also. "Low-intensity learning strategies typically involve either less or easier retrieval. Pushing difficulty higher and opting for testing oneself well before you are 'ready' is more efficient."

Our Case Study: Something I can use! Don't avoid the hard stuff, Gail! Which, you know, I would.

Interesting point here--Testing ("practicing retrieval") before you've learned material can be helpful in retaining it once you do acquire the information, possibly because your mind has been sort of forewarned and will look for/recognize the information when it is exposed to it. However, you still have to decide what things you want/need to learn in the first place, and thus pre-test yourself on.

Our Case Study: While this makes sense to me, how can I make it work for me? I do not know.

I have finished reading this book, which means that I can make some progress trying to apply the techniques to my project, for future reports.

You might want to check out Scott Young's blog.

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 4 Drills

In this section of our Ultralearning read author Scott Young is talking about using drills to attack your weakest point. I didn't foresee this being useful for writers or for researching a concept like history, versus skills like language, coding, or woodworking. (Someone's doing that at our house.) However, he starts with another long case study, this one about Benjamin Franklin, how writing had a big impact on many things he did, and how he consciously worked to improve it as a young person.

The idea that "one component of a complex skill determines your overall level of performance" is the reasoning behind using drills. Don't spread your energy over all the skills needed for the task until you've got this one down. That will make the learning faster in the long run.

Our Case Study: My feeling is that I need to get the history issue down and that will make things fall into place for the plot of the project I'm working on. So you could say history is the skill I need to drill. However, it isn't a skill, it's a knowledge base, and I'm struggling with coming up with a way to drill history. Especially since Young says drills should "simplify a skill enough that you can focus your cognitive resources on a single aspect." (Did my high school math and French teachers know that?)

Young's strategy behind drills: Determine the weakest step in what you need to do, analyze it, and deliberately practice it. It should be something  that "governs the overall competence you have with that skill, by improving  it you will improve faster than if you try to practice every aspect of the skill at once."

Our Case Study: History is the weak step in my writing project, so I have been analyzing it and collecting material to learn about it. Maybe drill ideas will come up after I get to that.

Drills for ultralearners shouldn't be as mind-numbing as they are in traditional education because we have identified what we need to know, ourselves. "...carefully designed drills elicit creativity and imagination as you strive to solve a more complex learning challenge by breaking it into specific parts."

Our Case Study: That last part sounds wonderful. I'm just not seeing how I can come up with drills around learning methodologies for studying history.

I'm not even halfway through this book. Other projects and holidays have put this on a back burner. I'm also feeling that the time I'm using reading this thing could be better used reading the materials I've collected on my subject and looking for more. 

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 3 Direction

Today I continue with my study of Ultralearning by Scott Young, which I am trying to use to learn historical material for a character in a new fiction project. I have now reached Principle 3 of ultralearning, directness

What We Mean By Directness Here

          Young says:

• "Directness is the idea of learning being tied closely to the situation or context you want to use it in."                  
• "Directness is the hallmark of most ultralearning projects." 
• "...the learning activities are always done with a connection to the context in which the skills learned will eventually be used."

Our Case Study: I've been focusing on collecting material to study (read) about Franco American history, my character's interest area. However, the aspect of what he knows that's going to impact the plot is his knowledge of metalearning--how to learn history. In terms of directness, I should be collected materials related to that.


You have to be careful to keep the directness issue in mind, because it's easy to fall into easier learning strategies, like watching videos of lectures instead of doing problems or, in my case, reading about Franco American experiences instead of the nitty gritty research skills that my character will actually need. Today I'm wondering if the Franco American business is necessary at all.

Transference

 

This was pretty interesting. Transference occurs when learning something in one situation, like high school, can be transferred to another, say, college or real life.  Young says a lot of research indicates that not much of this happens with traditional education, and that that has been known for over a century. (Google "transfer of learning." It's a thing.)

Transfer happens all the time but not in organized, instructional ways. Young argues that transfer doesn't occur through traditional educational situations because formal learning is so indirect.

Our Case Study (and for all writers): Determine what I actually need and focus directly on that. Research can become a real rabbit hole for writers, in which we burn off a lot of time studying up on a subject and very little of what we've learned gets transferred to the page. It happens to me a lot.

Tactics For Direct Learning

Young describes four, but I'm only including the two that I think are best for our purposes. By which I mean, of course, my purposes.


1. Project-based learning. If you build your project around learning how to produce something, you ought to learn how to produce that thing, at least. Studying in general can give you a lot of background information that may not transfer to that one thing you want to produce.

A project for an intellectual topic might be a thesis paper. This does apply the general learning to the topic of the thesis, but sounds a lot like traditional learning to me.

Our Case Study: Planning to use my research in some kind of article/essay, rather than a thesis paper, in addition to the fiction I'm doing the research for, might be a way to make my learning project-based. Using the same research for more than one form of writing is not an unusual writing plan.

2.  Immersive Learning. Surround yourself with a "target environment" in which the skill is practiced. This exposes you to situations in which the skill applies. Joining communities of people who are engaged in the same learning can have a similar impact. It encourages constant exposure.

Our Case Study: I started following #history and #historicalresearch on Twitter, with two Tweetdeck columns dedicated to these hashtags so I can find new info tweeted quickly. Not so helpful yet. I also am following historians who I think might tweet about the kinds of historical research that could be useful to me. I tried to join a couple of historical Facebook groups, one of which appears to have rejected me. (I'm in with the other one.) The rejecting group was academic and you had to give some information about yourself to convince them you were one of them. My undergraduate minor in history did not do the trick, nor were they moved by my interest in historical research for fiction. But, ha-ha on them, because this is still info for this blog post!

I also didn't take down the group's name and now can't find it on Facebook, which either illustrates an issue I have with doing research or indicates they are hiding from me. And may have been correct to pass on my request to join them.

What Has Reading This Book Done For You, Gail?

1. Well, so far I've learned about metalearning, (Principle 1), and how it applies to what I'm doing. I've actually used the term in the first chapter of the project I'm working on. 
2. Then I've focused on what I actually need to learn, (Principle 2) and collected material for my study. In fact, I've done that a couple of times, because I changed my mind about what I should be focusing on. This is the kind of thing I would have done anyway. Though I've also been known to do mini-researches as I'm going along in a project and questions come up. My hope is that more organized research will mean I don't do that.
3. This week I've been working on tying my research/learning to my project. I have to say, I find this kind of iffy. Directness seems as if it could have been tied in with focus. One mega principle instead of 2. But I probably wouldn't have joined that history Facebook group (the one that would have me) and following historians on Twitter (which is like putting a positive spin on stalking) without the reading I did in Ultralearning.

Yes, this does seem to be moving along slowly. I am working on a big submission issue this month as well as short-form work. I am not being focused and direct with this particular project.

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 2, Focus

At the beginning of his discussion of Principle 2, Focus in Ultralearning, Scott Young begins with another case study. This one is about Mary Somerville, an eighteenth century wunderkind in math and languages who did a lot of self-teaching because she lived in the eighteenth century and who wanted anything to do with educating a woman back then? I'm not that fond of other people's case studies, especially when they involve people who make me feel like a slacker.

But here is the important point in Young's material on Somerville: Putting aside the whole eighteenth century issues, she was dealing with a life that many writers deal with today...childcare, maintaining a home, and living within a network of friends and family. Young says of her and her situation: "I'm more interested in the kind of focus that Somerville seemed to possess. How can one in an environment such as hers, with constant distractions, little social support, and continuous obligations, manage to focus long enough not only to learn an impressive breadth of subjects, but to suchdepths that the French mathematician Simeon Poisson once remarked that 'there were not twenty men in France who could read [her] book'?"

Well, Young says that people face three "struggles with focus": starting, sustaining, and optimizing quality of focus.

 

Failing to Start Focusing (Procrastination)

Oh, wow. If there's one thing we know about here at Original Content, it's procrastination. So I'm just going to jump to what Young says we can do about it.

• A lot of procrastination is unconscious. Try to recognize that you're actually procrastinating and not doing marketing for writing that hasn't been produced yet or networking again and again and again. Make recognizing procrastination a priority.

• Give yourself a short period of time in which you have to work on a new task. Most of what we don't want to do with a task won't take all that long. Forcing ourselves to work for five, ten, fifteen minutes could be enough time to actually get us into the project and over the worst of the part we were putting off. The Swiss Cheese Method of time management!
• You can then progress to the unit system or segmented time program. Break your worktime into units during which you have to work. You get a break between units. This is a classic time management technique.
• Use a calendar to plan when you have units of time you can use to get started. I recalled recently that when I restarted writing after having children, I worked forty-five minutes, four evenings a week. That's how I wrote my second published short story. 
• If you find that you're procrastinating on using the units of time you've charted out on your calendar, go back to the beginning and work for five minutes, then give yourself a break. Begin again. That's kind of a zenny thing, I believe.

Our Case Study: My particular learning project involves coming up with the historical, or historical process, knowledge a character in a book I'm working on must have in order to be able to have an impact on the not completed plot I'm working on. Need was a big part of getting me started. I felt I couldn't proceed with the overall writing project until I'd acquired this knowledge. Also, knowing that I want to continue with the overall project because I want to bring material to my writers' group each month is a motivator in getting started on the learning project. Accountability.

Failing To Sustain Focus (Distraction)

First off, a couple of things we've discussed here before:

• Maybe you won't be studying in flow, according to Young:  Working in flow is a type of concentration that involves achieving a state of effortlessness, even enjoyment, with your work. It happens with writing, on occasion, anyway. You're not distracted. You're maybe not thinking a whole lot. Work is just sort of flowing because, particularly with writing, you know so much about what you're doing. Young says that may not happen with ultralearning. Learning, particularly if you're learning a skill like a new language or coding with specific goals, requires deliberate practice and feedback. Maybe too much thinking?
• Studying in units of time: Young says researchers have found that people retain more new information if they're working in multiple periods of time rather than one long one. That is similar to the research that shows that efficiency in workers declines after a few hours. The really positive angle with this information is that with both studying and writing you can make progress using small chunks of time. You don't have to give up because you don't have days to commit to the program.

Okay, now, the three reasons we struggle to sustain focus while learning (or probably doing anything else):

Your Environment as Distraction: Phones. Internet. TV. Writers know these are issues, and even methods of fleeing from the stress of working. (We just did the stress book for Time Management Tuesday, remember?) Young says, though, that many people don't realize these things are distracting them, just as they don't realize they procrastinate. He suggests we be aware of our working environment and test what works best for us.

Your Environment Related To Our Case Study: Sadly, Young doesn't mention children and sick family members as environmental distractions. Personally, I have found that far more difficult to work with than phones, Internet, and TV, which are relatively easy fixes. Perhaps he covers that elsewhere in the book.

Your Task as Distraction: Certain activities, or learning tools, are more difficult to focus on than others. For instance, are you using videos, podcasts, or books as learning tools? Some are easier to focus upon than others.

An interesting point Young makes is that some tasks are less cognitively demanding than others. I would think that would mean they are easier to focus on, but Young says, no, they can be harder to stay focused upon, because the more difficult tasks are harder to do on autopilot. Autopilot is when you're more likely to become distracted by other things.

This probably explains why I gave up listening to podcasts years ago.

Your Task Related To Our Case Study: I still have to come up with my learning tools. Clearly I need to do some thinking/planning on this point.

Your Mind as Distraction: What Young is talking about here is unrelated worries and problems. Upcoming appointments...holidays...your day job...the meals you have to plan and then find time to cook every day for the rest of your life. Young's suggestion for dealing with this will sound familiar if you've ever tried meditation: Recognize these random thoughts and then bring your mind back to the task at hand. He quotes a meditation teacher from a mindfulness research center who says learning to let a thought come, recognize it, and let it go can instead of trying to suppress it can actually diminish it.

Your Mind Related To Our Case Study: I wasn't too impressed with this aspect of the book when I first read it yesterday. However, it does reinforce something Kelly McGonigal writes about in The Will Power Instinct, which is that having to bring a wandering mind back to the breath over and over again while meditating can develop the brain and impact impulse control. I just have to remember to do the catch-and-release thing while trying to focus.

Failing To Optimize Focus

I have to admit, I had problems with this section. Essentially, it sounds as if different tasks require different levels of focus, intense or more relaxed. It also sounds as if Young is talking about no focus breakout experiences for some creative tasks.

Our Case Study: I didn't come away with any new ideas from this.

My overall impression of the Focus section of Ultralearning: This section will be a lot more helpful if you know nothing about time management. If you do, there's not a lot of new information and what there is is subtle.

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Experiment/Case Study, Principle 1

As part of my research for a new project, which I wrote about in my last TMT post, I am reading Scott Young's book, Ultralearning, in which he describes a method for quickly learning sometimes complex subjects. "Quickly" is a relative term in this case, since he's often talking months, not days, and sometimes a year.

Can we fiction writers adapt some of his methods for the kind of research/learning we need to do to create characters, settings, and even plots? Inquiring minds want to know, right?

A Case Study/Experiment

Young starts out his book with some lengthy case studies, a model for many nonfiction books I've read the last few years. I'm at the 22% point in the book (yes, I am reading an eBook edition), and case study-type examples have continued to come up. So I thought that in my discussion of the book, I would use my own project as a case study. This will also give me an opportunity to immediately start trying to apply his material to my work. Thus, friends, I am not actually using research to avoid working. I'm not. Come on.

I'm going to jump right into a discussion of Principle 1, Metalearning.

Learning About Learning About Your Subject

Metalearning is learning about learning. It's not learning facts about your subject but "learning about how knowledge is structured and acquired within this subject; in other words, learning how to learn it." In the short-term, you have to learn about metalearning, learn  how to do it. In the long-term, once you've learned how to do it and have experience with the general skills, it should be easier for you to put together additional ultralearning experiences. This probably explains why Young has so many examples of people learning multiple languages. Once they've figured out how to learn one new language, it's easier to learn additional ones.

Metalearning involves:

• Seeing how a subject works
• Determining what kind of skills and information must be mastered
• Finding what methods are available to master those skills and information

To do that, you ask three questions.

Why Do You Want To Do This?

You need to know why you want to learn something so you can focus your project on exactly what matters most. Knowing this will help you evaluate different study plans to create one that fits with your goals. For writers--Are you learning this for a character? To create a world?

Our Case Study: I want to do an ultralearning project related to history because I have a character who is a senior in college with a history major. I want his knowledge of history and, more importantly, how to do research to figure into the plot.

Right now, I don't know what kinds of research he would know how to do or what his own historical interests are. He has a history podcast at this point, but I don't know what he does with it.

What Concepts, Facts, And Procedures Do You Need To Know/Learn?

• Concepts--Anything that needs to be understood. Concepts are ideas you need to understand in order to make them useful. Some fields straddle concepts that need to be understood and facts that need to be memorized. Young gives law as an example. I wonder if history isn't another.
• Facts--Anything that needs to be memorized.
• Procedures--Anything that needs to be practiced. Procedures may need to be performed without much conscious thinking, which was the case during my eleven years  studying taekwondo. (Probably not a candidate for ultralearning.) Last week I was reading about oral history. Interviewing for oral histories may be a procedure.

Once you have ideas relating to concepts, facts, and procedures, you can determine which areas will be the most challenging and search for methods and resources to overcome them.

Our Case Study: My  own traditional history study back in the day was long on facts, short on concepts and procedures. My reading of history since college has usually been books on specific subjects, not survey books. Meaning they were long on research and analysis. My guess is research is a concept and a procedure that a more serious history student than I was would be learning now. I fudged that.

At this point, I decided to look at my college transcript to see what I'd studied. I have a bit of a history background. Shouldn't that help me plan an ultralearning experience?

I was described as a secondary education major with a major concentration in English and a minor concentration in history. Because I was taking education courses and spent a semester student teaching, I probably didn't take the same number of courses in my major and minor concentration areas that traditional liberal arts students would have. Thus I have only seven  history courses under my belt. Which is two more than I thought I had.

American History to 1865
History of Western Civilization
U.S. History Since 1876
History of France
History of Greece
History of England
Another History of England
History of Women

I had some kind of fantasy about studying all history from the Greek period, which is why Greece is in there. Otherwise, except for the History of Women class, this looks very much like general western world history courses, something I wouldn't be particularly interested in now. Some of them may have been requirements, or they may have been part of my not very well thought out plan to study history in a linear way from the Greeks to the late twentieth century. Because back then, America and Britain would have been how people thought of studying history, and probably in a very generic wasp America and Britain sort of way. Oddly enough, I remember that History of Women class as being a stand-out in terms of American history content.

My shallow and all-over-the-place background in history is a problem for my present writing project. I want my character to have a particular historical interest by the time he reaches his senior year in college, and these generic western survey classes aren't going to be helpful. Or interesting.

Speaking of interesting: I thought to study Canadian literature when I was in college (it was offered at the University of Vermont when I was there) and was disappointed that two semesters of that didn't offer French Canadian lit in translation. But it never occurred to me to look for a Franco American history class. In fact, it may have been a decade after I got out of school before I even heard of the term Franco American.

Wait! Wait! I've got something! My history student is named LaSalle. He's descended from French Canadian mill workers. I've read Ghost Empire, How the French Almost Conquered North America by Philip Marchand, and I recently stumbled upon an independent historian in Maine who specializes in Franco American immigrant history in New England. Perhaps my character's field of interest could be Franco American history.

How You'll Use Resources, Environment, and Methods For Your Ultralearning Project

Benchmarking: Finding the common ways people learn the skill or subject you're interested in, so you can design a default strategy to begin. Benchmark-reference point.

• Look at the curricula used in schools to teach the subject. Can be a course list or syllabus for a single class.

Emphasize/Exclude Method: Go through your benchmarked materials and determine what you want to emphasize and exclude.

Our Case Study: I had already thought of checking out college history departments for courses on methodology and had even begun collecting and reading on-line articles on things like theories of history. But Young says, "The literature on self-directed learning, as typically practiced, demonstrates that most people fail to do a thorough investigation of possible learning goals, methods, and resources. Instead they opt for whatever method of learning comes up naturally in their environment."

Certainly I've been doing my benchmarking in a very haphazard way, stealing away time for it in bits and pieces. (For instance, I did some searching of New England college Franco American history sites while I was watching TV last night.)

Our Case Study Results From Principle 1: 

1. Coming up with a field of interest for my character is a big break-through, though it seems somewhat unrelated to ultralearning. It will, however, give me something to plan an ultralearning history program around. 
2. The benchmarking business confirms something I was already doing and encourages me to make a better effort with it.

I'm excited to find out what Principle 2 is.