The student has a very different attitude towards everything, as compared to the adult. At least for good students. A few differences are:
- The student assumes that every line he or she reads/learns/hears will help lead towards better insight and analysis, so he thinks about every little thing. He or she starts the semester without a clear sense of what’s going to be learned or what he or she will know by the time the end of the semester arrives.
- The student assumes that he or she will need to regurgitate minor little details, even if seemingly pointless ones, at a later point (that later point normally being called an “exam.”)
- The student assumes that he or she will be called upon to synthesize various facts into a larger whole at some point (that point normally called a “paper.”)
So it turns out that these three skills are very useful in all work professional contexts. What these imply, at a higher level is:
- Everything you hear, ask yourself how that changes your understanding of something: the situation around you? The people and their desires and incentives and preferences and personalities? The upcoming tasks you need to do?
- Mastering the little details is the first step towards mastering the “bigger picture.” Too often in work contexts, you assume you can look up little details later. But you know what your boss or client love? When they ask a question and you just remember and know the key details off the top of your head.
- Synthesizing little facts into a bigger argument is often called: “strategy.” But that’s what it amounts to. College papers are merely not-even-minor league practice for that.
But from those abstract lessons, one key suggestion emerges, in addition to your notes: it’s really useful to keep “learning docs.” Just copy and paste interesting facts, observations, and things you learn into a Google doc, as you hear them. That’s it. Look at the advantages of doing this:
- First, you will forget what you learn. Keeping track helps you not just remember it, but allows you to look it up when needed.
- Second, while I’ve often advocating meeting notes—often you’ll want to look something up, but you won’t remember which meeting it was, nor the particular word used so you can’t search your files. So it’s effectively lost.
- Third, sometimes, you’ll want to review everything you’ve learned on a topic. Maybe it’s to prepare for a meeting. Or synthesize some ideas. Or for inspiration. Or to look back on how much you’ve learned.
- Fourth, memorization is a particular use case of reviewing what you’ve learned that is very under-rated. It’s hard to understand an article if you spend half of the article trying to figure out what all the acronyms mean and looking up each one. If you understand clearly all the crazy acronyms, your brain is freed to focus on the content yourself. And not just with acronyms, but principles and lots of other useful work-related facts.
Emotionally, keeping learning docs has value as well. It’s a bit like crossing items off on to-do lists: it gives you a sense of accomplishment and from that, inspiration to move further ahead. Compare ending an experience with lots of knowledge in your head vs. ending an experience with a book you wrote, 5 minutes every day, while going through that experience. Ten years later, which experience will you remember the details of more fondly? Or which one will you remember at all? The one that gave you a book.
