Confusion Compass: The #1 Learning Strategy to Learn Faster

As a learning coach, there is one strategy that I see only the best learners use. In fact, it's so powerful

that if I see someone using this strategy, I know that they're going to become a very efficient learner. And if

someone is not using this, >> [music] >> there's almost no chance. And while I

don't think there's anything as a best learning strategy for every single context, if I could only teach one

strategy to use for the rest of your life that allows you to learn faster and outperform 99% of people you'll ever run

into, it would be this. And the good thing is, it's very easy. I call this the confusion compass. Let's say you're

learning something for the first time. How do you know you're learning it well? Well, normally, if you're learning

something well and you're good at learning, then [music] it feels simple. You understand it, it feels manageable,

it makes sense in your head, you're not filled with confusion. Whereas, if you're not learning something very well,

[music] then you're always confused and it feels overwhelming. Right? Wrong. [music]

Learning should be confusing. But, confusion doesn't feel good. And so, here's what happens. Anytime we learn

any type of new information, whether that's upskilling for work, whether that's studying for an exam, anytime new

knowledge comes [music] in, your brain is just trying to figure out, what does this mean? What do I do with this? From

your brain's perspective, it's just data. It is just data coming in, but it doesn't know where to put that data. And

your brain asking, what should I do with this? Where do I put it? Where do I store it? How do I organize it? That

creates the feeling of confusion. Confusion is the symptom of learning. If you feel confusion, your brain is trying

to figure it out. If you don't feel confusion, your brain is not figuring anything out. And so, the analogy I give

is like a police detective trying to solve a murder mystery. There's all these clues that are up on the board,

the photo of the the car, uh the body of the murder victim, and they're looking at the spot, and they're trying to see

how the pieces all connect together. They're trying to solve the mystery. They're confused. They're thinking.

They're not sure what the answer is. And in their brain, they're highly active. They don't know how the dots connect,

but they're trying to connect them anyway. And that is exactly how it should feel when you're learning

something new. But the issue is, and this is where most people waste hours, days, months even, is that when they

feel this emotion of confusion, they just leave it there. It stays an emotion.

And we can't do anything with that. We can't do anything with just feeling confused. And so instead of just sitting

there feeling confused, feeling overwhelmed for hours, days, months, all we're going to do is use this

confusion compass technique to turn this into a targeted learning strategy. So, once we feel this emotion of confusion,

all you're going to do is ask yourself questions. These are the questions that, if you had

the answers to, you think it would help you be less confused. Write those questions down. Make a list, and then

just go and answer them. That is, as simple as it sounds, an entire learning strategy, and it is insanely effective.

So, give you some examples. Let's say I'm a software developer, and a new library has come out that I might be

using at work. I open up the documentation, I read through the website, and as I'm reading, I feel like

my eyes are glazing over. I'm getting bored. I'm potentially falling asleep. I'm not feeling any confusion

whatsoever. That's your first red flag. That means that you're not trying to connect the dots. So, if you're not

feeling any confusion, we need to engage in the process that triggers that confusion. And one of the easiest types

of questions that you can ask yourself to trigger that confusion is to put that learning in the context of the reason

you're learning it. So, So learning about this new software library because you're trying to apply it at a project,

ask yourself, how does this help me with the work that I'm doing? What are the implications on my work? And once you

start thinking about those implications, naturally, you start feeling a little bit more confused because you're looking

at this library and you're realizing it's very similar to another library that you're using. It's saying that

there's all these benefits, but you're not really sure why it's so much better than all the other alternatives. You're

meant to insert it as part of your workflow, but you're not really sure how it would fit into your workflow. You're

confused about how you're meant to work with this new knowledge, work with this new library. So you turn that confusion,

which is great now that you feel, into questions. How does this library compare to this library? What are the benefits

of it? How am I meant to implement this? What are the challenges to implementing it? How long is it going to take? How

much is it going to cost? What complexity is there? Maybe the reason you're confused is that you can't really

visualize it. So the question you would ask is, what are some use cases or examples that show how it has been

implemented? This is the confusion compass technique. And now by creating a clean list of questions, there are two

benefits. First of all, in turning that confusion into questions, you're forcing yourself to examine the gaps in your

knowledge. That alone helps your brain focus in and learn more efficiently. Number two, you now have a targeted list

of questions that if you were to answer, help you be less confused. And this process repeats. As you answer those

questions, you may be confused by the answers that you find and those trigger even further questions. And it is simply

this process of being confused, asking questions, and answering those questions that creates the cycle of learning. And

the faster you're able to engage in that cycle, the faster you can learn. The major issue is not that people don't

understand what they're reading or consuming. It's not that it takes them so long to find the answer. It's that

they don't even know what answers they need. They say generally confused and assume that if I just keep reading

through this documentation, if I just spend another couple hours on it, I will eventually figure it out. But if you do

that, you just become more overwhelmed. Because mentally, what's going on is that when you ask questions, you start

connecting things together in a way that makes sense. But if you're not asking these targeted questions, and you're

just reading more hoping that it's going to give you enlightenment, all you're doing is adding more and more data. All

you're doing is creating more points that are disconnected. There are more things to

be confused about. And when this happens, is when you go from just merely feeling confused to now feeling properly

overwhelmed. And although I've given you an example with software, this works for any body of knowledge, cuz it's just how

the human brain works. I use a strategy for when I'm learning about business, marketing, content creation, uh

medicine, AI, learning science, and almost every effective learning strategy that exists uses this cycle in some way.

And as a learning coach who has coached thousands of people for almost 15 years, I can tell that if someone is not able

to embrace confusion, trigger confusion, and turn that confusion into questions, there's not really any point teaching

them any other learning strategies, because this is the thing that is going to block them. Now, the confusion

compass is an example of a technique that is incredibly simple to perform, but it gives you a lot of bang for buck.

And that's really what learning efficiency is about. It's not about having uh an entire suite of connected

apps that are perfectly tuned to exactly what you need on every single day. It's about having simple strategies that just

work. And if you want to learn some more simple strategies that just work, a great place to start would be my free

weekly newsletter. These are fairly short emails that I write up myself, 3 to 5 minutes each with a practical

takeaway at the bottom. Emailed to you for free every week. They're the things that took me 15 years of trial and error

to learn, which I want you to learn in 5 minutes. So, if you're interested and you want to learn more, I'll leave a

link in the description below for you to sign up. You can unsubscribe at any time if you don't like it. If you're

interested in what I think is maybe the second best learning strategy that you can learn after the Confusing Compasses,

then check out this video here where I walk through my system for thinking on paper, one of the most life-changing

skills that you can learn. Guys, thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.