Post-it Note Learning Hack

The hack is designed as follows:

When you learn something new, write down some key points that describe what you learned in a meaningful way on a Post-it note, stick it somewhere on your monitor, desk, or laptop, and leave that sucker there for a few days.

That’s it. I’ll add to the idea, but in all honesty, I have many, much longer, unfinished posts that are cluttering up my drafts, and I wanted to get some sort of post out into the world for the first time. Something short, sweet, and to the point, like a sticky note.

You may be asking yourself, “Why did this guy emphasize that part in bold,” and to that, I first say, it is also italicized. Easy to miss that. Secondly, if the content is not meaningful, you will not truly learn anything.

I keep one Post-it note up on my monitor at all times. It describes the Feynman Technique. The goal of this aforementioned technique is to deepen your understanding of a topic that you are attempting to learn. As an individual who is in possession of a computer science degree, I come from a tribe of knowledge seekers who struggle to complete a technical statement without the crutch of a buzzword or two. Feynman (whose life is irrelevant to this post, but quite the interesting guy) attempted to learn via teaching. To do so, simply attempt to give a clear explanation of the topic you’re trying to learn. In doing so, you will find your own gaps in knowledge and understanding. Learn the portions that you struggled to explain, then try again. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

To cycle back to “short, sweet, and to the point hack”, I use the Feynman Technique to figure out what information is useful to have on a Post-it, and what jargon buzz words I can toss away. I have found that by simply having these concise explanations around (and with a little help from the wandering eyes of my close acquaintance ADHD), I can retain information without having to seek out a study session of sorts. More importantly, this strategy has allowed me to trust my knowledge, so hopefully, someday it can be put to good use.