Skip to main content

The Feynman Technique Model to learn better

The Feynman Technique is a Mental Model named after Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize Winning Physicist. It is designed as a technique to help you learn pretty much learn anything - so understand concepts you don't really get, remember stuff you have already learnt, or study more efficiently.
The Feynman Technique was actually a big inspiration for this blog - I try and apply this to a lot of the concepts and Mental Models that I write about.
The technique can be broken down into four easy steps, but first a quick video from Scott Young that sums it up very simply.

Learn Faster with the Feynman Technique 

So now for a recap of the steps:

Step 1

Write the name of the concept at the top of a blank piece of paper.

Step 2

Write down an explanation of the concept on the page. Use plain English. Pretend you are teaching it to someone else (e.g a new student). This should highlight what you understand, but more importantly pinpoint what you don't quite know.

Step 3

Review what you have pinpointed you don't know. Go back to the source material, re-read, and re-learn it. Repeat Step 2.

Step 4

If you are using overly wordy or confusing language (or simply paraphrasing the source material) try again so you filter the content. Simplify your language, and where possible use simple analogy.

Conclusion

That's it. A simple and powerful technique to ensure you can rapidly learn and retain new concepts and information. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What is procrastination and get rid if that?

I will become an IAS officer. For that, I need the best books available in the market. I need to be enrolled in the best training institute. I need the advice of a few successful candidates. I need a separate room in my house. It must have a comfortable study table and an Airconditioner. I must have the fastest wi-fi and the best laptop to study. I must take a week's break and enjoy the fullest before I start my preparations. It's too late now I will plan for the “holiday” tomorrow. In the meanwhile, a poor auto driver's daughter was studying under street lamp from torn second-hand books at 3 am in the morning. Procrastination starts from- Putting conditions on a particular task. From the lack of urgency and non-compulsive nature of an activity. From the thought of having a perfect environment to do something. The wait for the perfect moment (which never comes) The thought of undervaluing the present moment. Fear of failures or facing complexit...

There Are Two Ways to Read — One Is Useless

Reading is telepathy, and a book is the most powerful technology invented. Homer, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Woolf, Hemingway — these are names without a living body. We can’t talk to them, nor touch them, but their thoughts are immortalized through the written word. Aristotle’s logic, Kepler’s astronomy, Newton’s physics, Darwin’s biology, Wittgenstein's philosophy — these are memes without living originators. They no longer champion their ideas, and yet, we still talk about them. Without books, humans would never have escaped the boundaries of space and time. Each new generation would have had to learn the realities of life for themselves rather having the luxury to build on the past; knowledge accumulation would have quickly dimmed towards an asymptote. Everything that we value in the modern world has its root in invention of writing. Everything that we have accomplished has come from reading. Even on an individual level, one of the most effective way...