Every once and a while, I come across a book that feels like it was written for me. “Ultralearning” by Scott H Young is one of those books. I have long had a passion for self directed education, and this book is essentially a guide to self study. The short review is simply this: I absolutely recommend this book to anyone who is looking to improve their learning skills. This goes doubly for people looking to engage in self study.
What is self directed learning or self study? Self directed learning is when someone takes a significant role in determining what, when, and how they learn a particular topic. This is often (but not always) outside the confines of a formal course or institution. For example, perhaps you decide that you are interested in learning more about physics, so you find some resources and begin to learn. That is self directed learning in a nutshell. Having the freedom to define which topics to study, which resources to use, and what schedule to adhere to can make self study fulfilling and flexible. However, these freedoms also bring challenges. Deciding which topics are important within an unfamiliar subject can be difficult. Wading through an ocean of textbooks trying to find the best one can make anyone envy the simplicity of an assigned textbook. A flexible schedule with no external deadlines opens the door for procrastination and distraction. Luckily, this book is here to help make the process easier.
The book opens with some general discussion of self directed learning and specifically ultralearning, an extreme form of self study. Through stories of the achievements of various ultralearners, the author lays out the case for self study. He also describes how the lessons he has learned can be applied by anyone to help improve their learning, in whatever form. The main meat of the book is dedicated to the Young’s nine principles. The principles cover various aspects of the learning process and provide a framework to think about while attempting to manage your learning. The principles are specific enough to actionable but general enough to apply to a wide range of circumstances and projects. Each principle receives its own chapter. The chapter first gives an overview of the principle and how it is applied, followed by some scientific evidence for why it works the way it does. The chapter wraps up with several real world stories of successes and failures, and, finally, a few tactics on how to directly apply the principle.
For example, principle number three is directness. The idea is that the best way to learn something is to do that thing, or as close to that thing as is possible to get. The book tells the story of someone who wished to become a great public speaker. Instead of just reading books on public speaking or listening to lectures, he dived in and spent the bulk of his time giving speeches and presentations. This let him directly practice the skill he wished to improve. If you are interested in learning physics then your time is best spent doing physics problems or applying physics concepts to real world situations rather than just reading about physics. Or if you want to learn to draw then you must pick up a pencil and start drawing. The issue is that skills do not always transfer easily from one context to another so for effective learning one should strive to make the learning context as close to the application context as possible. One way to apply this is to use project based learning.
The most useful portion of the book for me was the advice on planning a self study project. Things catch my eye easily and it can be tempting to dive in headfirst. Many of my projects have ended due to becoming lost or distracted. Taking the time to figure out exactly why I want to study a particular subject gives me a clear goal to keep me motivated. Planning out exactly which subtopics I need to hit gives me a benchmark for progress as well as preventing me from falling down a rabbit hole or becoming lost. Surveying different possible resources and finding advice from experts makes sure that the material is not too hard or too easy, and that nothing critical will be missed. Additionally, the emphasis on careful but steady progress I picked up from the book reminds me to balance the need to master each topic with the need to move on.
This book does not have some secret knowledge that is not otherwise accessible, nor does it claim to. However, it does have a large amount of sensible advice backed up by experience and research that will help you improve your learning. I was no stranger to self study when I found this book. It was actually a self directed learning project to learn abstract algebra that led me to get a degree in mathematics. After reading this book, my self study projects have been better planned and better executed, making them all the more enjoyable. The internet has made this the greatest time in history to self study. This book is an important tool in the toolkit of any aspiring autodidact.