How to create a continuous carding learning system

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Lifelong learning or “lifelong learning” is an approach to education based on the continuous acquisition of new knowledge and skills. Nowadays, continuous learning is becoming not just a fashion and a whim, but a means of survival in a rapidly changing world. What was relevant yesterday is outdated today. The ability to quickly switch and master new things remains in demand. Constant, systematic training will help to keep up with the times. In this article we will talk about how to correctly set up the self-education system, how to make learning a habit and master new knowledge faster and more efficiently.

# 1 List the topics and skills you would like to master and prioritize them​

The very first and most important step in creating a self-education system is to understand what exactly you want to learn first. Make a short list of topics that you would like to delve into, for example: artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, modern / classical architecture, etc. Think about and write down the skills you plan to learn, for example: coding, profiling, sushi making, archery, foreign languages.

Prioritize correctly​

After you have decided what exactly you will study, you should rank the items on your list. It is necessary to understand what will be at the top of the pyramid. To prioritize, ask yourself a few questions, such as, "Will this skill help my career?"

It is convenient to do this in a spreadsheet and rate each item on a 10-point scale against all criteria, or you can simply rank them intuitively. Such a table will help you make a decision faster.

You will most likely want to cross off a few items from the list during the assessment process if they are not that important to your career at the moment, do not enthrall you enough, or are too time-consuming to master. Do not forget about the Paretto principle, because a list that is too bloated will not allow you to focus on learning efficiently, and you simply will not have enough energy and time for everything. It is worth limiting the number of skills studied in parallel to at least three, so you can be sure that you can pay enough attention to them and fully concentrate on self-education.

# 2 Find Out How You Learn Best​

The next step is to define your learning style, thanks to which you can master new knowledge faster and more efficiently.
Neil Fleming and Colleen Mills have proposed the following classification of basic VARK learning strategies:

1. visual (V),
2. auditory (A),
3. verbal or digital (R),
4. kinesthetic (K).

Accordingly, visuals better assimilate information in a graphical form: visualization, diagrams, infographics are important to them.

Audials perceive new things more effectively by ear, which means that their main tools are podcasts, live lectures or audiobooks.

The verbal strategy implies the presentation of information through the written text in the form of letters and signs, which means that in this case books and synopses will be irreplaceable. Practical actions help kinesthetics in mastering skills, it is important for them to touch everything, feel it on their own experience.
Of course, in reality, people use a combination of several strategies when teaching. However, one of them usually takes precedence over the others. Nowadays, many people choose the video format for training, and it is quite effective for most people, since it often includes all styles of presenting information except kinesthetic.

# 3 Find the Right Learning Resources​

What do people usually do when they want to know about something? That's right, they go to Google and put something like "programming for beginners" or "how to learn to program" into the search. With this approach, there is a high probability of stumbling upon not very high-quality material or spending time studying outdated techniques.
There is a more reliable and convenient way. Find someone who has already studied the area of expertise or has mastered the skill you need. This can be your friend or a specialist recommended by someone from the network. Take advantage of his experience to avoid reinventing the wheel and making stupid mistakes. Ask him to recommend some proven free or paid resources to help you learn.
Of course, what works for one person, even a very authoritative person, may not necessarily work for you. Experiment and try out several options according to your preference.

# 4 Make a class schedule​

Planning is our everything, especially in the field of education. You cannot control the education process if you do not know what and when you are going to study. Surely there is still work in your life and many other activities for which you need to allocate time, so you cannot do without a clear schedule. And sometimes you feel like you don't have time to study at all during the day, but this is not the case. Each of us is capable of finding an hour or at least 20 minutes a day and dedicating them to learning. To do this, you will have to sacrifice watching the next series or forget about social networks for a while. You can also find times when you are not busy with anything, for example: breaks at work, standing in traffic jams, queues, and so on. Fortunately, nowadays a spacious classroom and a personal teacher are not needed for learning, often just a smartphone is enough.

# 5 Find training partners. Better yet, a mentor​

Despite the fact that now you can study alone, it is more effective to do it in a company. There are a lot of advantages: responsibility to your partner gives you additional motivation, you can discuss unclear points with each other and, explaining something to another person, you yourself will better understand and remember the topic.

However, if you study on your own or with someone equal, you will not get feedback. You cannot be completely sure that you are doing everything right: you will make mistakes without noticing the catch. There is a way out - to look for a mentor. He doesn't have to follow your every step (self-education, after all). The curator will check you when necessary, find flaws and give advice. It'll be enough.

# 6 Set up your social media for learning​

Even if you are very focused on maximum productivity and become a digital minimalist, you still cannot completely stop using social media. And there is nothing wrong with that, especially if your news feed will help you in self-education.

Subscribe to those pages, channels, accounts that publish high-quality content on the topic that interests you, and do not forget to read / watch / listen. Spend your time on social media profitably.

This does not harm the systematic approach to teaching at all. Short posts and videos will help you constantly be in the right environment, which is very important for our brain, which quickly forgets what it doesn’t use. Educational content will allow you to always be in good shape and learn something new every day.

# 7 Share your knowledge and experience​

“A person who says he knows what he is thinking, but cannot express it, usually does not know what he is thinking,” - Mortimer Adler.

Perhaps the best way to truly master a subject or skill is to teach it to others. This idea is the basis of the famous Feynman method.

Richard Feynman was not only an outstanding physicist and Nobel laureate, he was also an unsurpassed teacher, able to literally explain the most complex theories on his fingers.

The Feynman technique consists of 4 basic steps:

• Step 1 - decide on the topic under study;
• Step 2 - try to tell it in simple words, based on the knowledge that you already have. Highlight the places where you lack information or are unsure about it.
• Step 3 - find the material you want, study it and fill in the gaps.
• Step 4 - Change your explanation of the topic according to the new data.

You can repeat steps 2-4 until your explanation is simple enough for any audience, even a nursery. Of course, it is not at all necessary to collect a real live audience. Your partner with whom you study is enough. Also, the studied material can be arranged in the form of an article / podcast / video for a blog. This method is also good in that it allows you to reach a wide audience and get feedback, which significantly affects the speed of learning.

# 8 Repetition is the mother of learning​

Using all the tips given, you can probably successfully master something from your list if you have the correct organization of the process, as well as the necessary diligence and patience. However, the system of continuous training cannot be considered fully debugged. The fact is that all the knowledge gained is sooner or later forgotten if not used. Moreover, according to the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, in a month you will remember only 10-20% of the information studied. If you don't want all your efforts to be wasted, you will have to repeat.
Expand your curriculum and add time to review what you learned. It won't take long, but it will provide you with a guarantee that the knowledge stays with you.

# 9 Don't stop and move on​

This is the key point of this article. The key one, because we are not just talking about learning, but about a system of continuous learning. At the very beginning, you made a plan of 1-3 points, and this, of course, is not the limit of your dreams, but just the volume of tasks for a certain period of time, for example, for a month or a quarter.

After completing it, you can draw up a new plan and study further, and so on all the time. Continuous growth is exactly what you are striving for, isn't it?

Correlate your educational goals with real ones. New knowledge and skills are just one of the tools to achieve them.

Over time, continuous learning will become a habit, become your lifestyle. You won't even notice that you are constantly learning, reading books or posts on social networks, watching videos on YouTube or listening to podcasts at home, at work, in transport, in queues, in special courses. Just take every opportunity and keep learning.

Summary​

So, the following steps will help you set up a continuous learning system:

• decide on the subjects and skills that you want to master;
• choose from them 1-3 items that you will study in one period of time;
• determine the most effective learning strategy for yourself;
• find the necessary resources, consult with knowledgeable people;
• make a regular schedule;
• find partners and / or mentors to give you feedback;
• make social networks your allies, share knowledge with others using the Feynman technique;
• do not forget to periodically repeat what you have learned;
• and of course, don't stop there - keep learning.