The One Framework to Learn Anything Fast

Is there anything you’ve always wanted to learn? Swimming? Computer programming? Singing? Tying a tie?

We all have something we always wanted to learn but couldn’t find the time to – or thought it was too hard and gave up. But you see, you are always learning. Always have, always will. Learning is what has allowed us to come out of caves and into skyscrapers. It is the one thing that keeps everything from irrelevance; including you.

But, many of us have not learned this meta skill properly and still struggle with it, to the detriment of our careers, businesses and ultimately to our lives. The tools school gave us seem ineffective against the barrage of new advancements developing every day. If we don’t adjust to it fast, we will be at risk of going the way of the dodo in our jobs, our businesses and all our endeavors. 

Why We Can’t Learn Effectively

The problem most of us have with learning anything new can be boiled down to the following,

Not Planning Properly

When you start to learn something, for instance, swimming, there are so many moving parts and things to do that you get overwhelmed. You feel there are too many things to master to be good at this one skill.

You see that the swimmer first lunges into the water, controls his body movements, starts to float, starts moving through the water with perfect strokes and changes direction at will with coordinated movements of his head, hands, feet and torso; all this with a smile on his face, making you think he’s some kind of a genius.

You couldn't do that!! You’re no genius. Or are you? (We'll find out soon enough). 

Not Practicing Properly

Then, even when we overcome our fear of trying and brave the waters (pun intended), we fall pray to the next and more dangerous trap. That of malpractice. No, not the ones that doctors do; the ones that everyone from kindergarten students to middle managers do.

Malpractice, or improper practice leads us to dead ends and unfairly ends our dreams. Making us think that “we weren’t made for this in the first place”.

The problem is that the method of practice we’ve always been taught at school revolves around rote memorization. You drill something into your head long enough or do something long enough and you will learn it. The Brute Force Method. The Battering Ram. But this method is severely flawed. As your sixth grade math scores will attest.

But what can you do about these issues?

Here’s what..... 

How We Can Learn Effectively

Now that you know the problem, how do you solve it? How do you go about learning effectively in the best way possible?

Well, science has your back. And this is what it says,

Stage 1: KISSS

The response to the first problem of not planning properly is KISSS. Please withhold judgement and let me explain.

KISSS stands for,

You see, any skill, from swimming to flying has just a few critical components. Master those and you will be on a fast track to master the whole skill. This is the 80/20 rule in action.

Here is how it works, 

Key Variables: Identify the key variables behind the skill. What are the few elements of the skill that make up the whole? List them down.

Interactions of Variables: How do the variables you listed work together to produce the desired result? List the interactions down.

System of Processes: How do individual interactions lead to systems that make the skill come to fruition? List them down.

System of Systems: How does each system in the skill interact to produce the final result?

Skill Attainment: How do you practice the aspects above in a way that maximizes your learning effectiveness? This ladies and gentlemen, is Deliberate Practice. This will be covered in detail in the next section. 

So if you were to apply this technique to the following three skills, they would look something like this

If used properly, these techniques can yield amazing results in a very short amount of time.

Here’s proof: 

 Stage 2: Deliberate Practice

Now that you’ve broken down the skill into its components using KISSS, its time to start practicing. Deliberate Practice is a concept pioneered by the University of Florida Professor K. Anders Ericsson in his seminal papers on the subject. It is widely accepted as one of the leading theories of effective practice leading to expert performance.

The steps are as follows (For a more detailed description on each of the steps, read this article).

Here’s how Olympic Record Breaker Michael Phelps uses deliberate practice: 

Bringing It All Together

This process of planning the learning schedule using the KISSS framework and Deliberately Practicing towards your goal can be summarized into a central framework named ROALS (Rapidly Organizing Accumulated Learning Systems). 

How to Go About Implementing ROALS

Now that you have the framework, here’s a quick checklist to get you started planning out your learning journey using KISSS and executing using Deliberate Practice.

Setting Up Your Own KISSS Framework

Setting up Your Own Deliberate Practice Framework

Off you ROAL now!! Happy Learning :)

Where You Can Go Next

Books

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise: Book by K. Anders Ericsson on the science of high performance

The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills: Awesome practical guide to using ROALS to become an expert at any skill

Mastery: The author of the 48 Laws of Power outlines how masters throughout the ages did it

Power of Habit: Explains how habits develop the brain through basal ganglia and lead to success

Videos

4 Chord Song by Axis of Awesome: Musical band demonstrates how ONLY 4 chords can play every hit pop song ever

How to Learn Anything in 20 Hours: How one man learned to play the ukulele in 20 hours and learned to play every song ever (taking inspiration from the Axis of Awesome)

School in the Cloud by Sugata Mitra: Winner of the 2013 TED Prize and the inspiration behind the ROALS acronym describes how flipped classrooms are the future of education

Tim Ferriss Shares How to Master Any Skill by Deconstructing It: The master on how to use deconstruct your way towards effective learning and skill acquisition

Article

Tim Ferriss's DiSSS Framework: The master himself walks you through the DiSS framework for learning anything – one of the inspirations for the KISSS framework

Research Papers

The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance: The academic paper by K. Anders Ericsson that legitimized Deliberate Practice with scientific credibility

Free Ebook

12 Rules to Learn Languages in Record Time by Tim FerrissPractical application of ROALS to learn any language faster  

This article was originally published in Techonomics. A blog on strategies in career and business. For more strategic goodness, subscribe to our soon-to-be released newsletter, The Strategy Pill.