Out of Overload

Sometimes you can glance at information, and it seems to flow into your mind. Yet other times you can read a page ten times and nothing happens. You might as well be in another room.

In today’s rapidly changing technology environment, it’s critical that you absorb information quickly. If you can’t, you’re at a competitive disadvantage. While you’re still untangling the technology, the other guys will be showing their first prototypes; while you’re sorting out the new tools, others will be releasing their first version. Accelerated learning is essential in today’s environment.

Learning is not a random event -- it has a distinct process. With the proper technique, learning can be faster and more long-term than you would have ever thought possible. Both your total recall and your information coverage can improve. On the other side, with the wrong process, zero learning is possible.

Most people experiencing overload have gotten sloppy with their learning technique. Too many things are pulling their attention, and they seldom have time for anything beyond simple reading.

You may already follow some of the following principles. Understanding the rationale behind them, however, will allow you to optimize what you are already doing and adjust when things get hectic.

Accelerated learning involves:

The Quest and The Forest

Before stepping through the principles, it’s useful to understand the context of your study and how it effects your learning. Technologists typically learn in two contexts: one called The Quest, the other termed The Forest.

The Quest

The Quest involves a specific outcome. Your project may require that you learn a unique technology, let’s say a certain chip command set, in order for you to proceed. This type of learning is sequential, and in a strange twist, the information is often discarded after the project is completed.

Quest style learning is project-oriented. The end result is more critical than retaining all the nuances and details encountered along the way. It's goal-directed learning with a focus on the end result, hence the heading: The Quest.

The Forest

The Forest context is characterized by the need to gain mastery over a body of knowledge. You may need to integrate an entirely new technology, and your success will be determined by the scope of your understanding. You must be able to see the forest through the trees.

If you’re involved in a Quest, you have the luxury of using and discarding information. If you’re constructing a view of The Forest, you want to retain and synthesize most of what you uncover. These differences lead to a variation on the principles for accelerated learning.

Good News

Getting back to the five principles for accelerated learning:

Let’s face the facts. Few technologists are going to follow five steps of anything for very long. Life isn’t that organized, and you’re already in overload.

So...once the five accelerated learning principles are explained, they’ll be reduced into two steps that you should be able to fit into your daily routine.

1. Attention.

In order to absorb information, the mind must engage on the topic. If you aren’t interested in the material, and if you don’t get your mind's attention, you will not learn very well.

The human mind is too good at discarding information for a casual approach to learning. As you drive down the street, most of the details of passing cars, shops, and landscape are discarded. There is too much to retain. Short term memory and selective perception lets humans throw away details. The mind only recalls things that catch its attention. Without interest, the information is discarded.

For optimal learning, it’s essential that the topic interest you. If a subject leaves you cold, but you still want to learn the information, you need to change your attitude towards the topic. Changing your view doesn’t require you to go against genuine feelings of dislike. It means examining the topic in a different light, with the hope of uncovering a dimension that catches your attention.

Attention and interest allow the mind to engage.

2. Connected information.

You will absorb new information fastest when it's tied to existing knowledge. For example, if you are familiar with modem protocols, a new modem data sheet will fit into your mind easily. You will absorb it quickly and recall it over time. Connecting new information to your current knowledge accelerates learning.

When no previous connection exists, you must create one. Most likely your knowledge base holds some general category related to the new topic. It’s possible you’ll have to review an old Physics text, or think back to your math days. When all else fails, an historical perspective can offer a chronological connection to the topic.

Individuals on The Quest need a strong connection of information. Because they are on a single-minded, pointed thread of research, a weak link disrupts the entire line of thinking. Each progression of thought must be grounded in previous understandings.

The Forest types, however, need not be as concerned with perfect connections. Since they will continue to collect and refine a body of knowledge, their connections will improve as they gather information.

3. Properly structured information.

This is big. Information must be structured in a way that it can flow into your mind. If the inherent organization of the information pushes your mind into overload, learning stops. The old learning curve goes flat line. There is no gradual decrease of understanding. Learning stops.

Faced with confusion, your mind has its own coping strategies. It will try to consolidate and reshape the information into a system that it can absorb. Unfortunately, this process is often slow, frustrating, and inaccurate. In high complexity areas, it may take years to settle on the right mental model. And, anytime the information changes, your internal model will be forced to rebuild itself.

Two simple rules, however, allow you to structure information so that it flows in your mind, almost as fast as it can be read. The rules involve organizing information into groups of seven or three. (This principle was also described in the Modeling section, covered in Chapter 7.)

The Seven and Three Rules

When information consists of item lists, they must be organized into groups of seven or less for the mind to accept them readily. If you exceed that number, you are going into overload. Instances with more than seven groups should be reorganized until there are seven or less groups.

(For a step-by-step description of the regrouping process, see the Modeling section, Chapter 7.)

The Three Rule

Decisions further limit the grouping structure, as decision points should be held to three items. For the mind to examine elements more deeply than just remembering them, it works best with three or less groups.

The Seven and Three Rule can be confusing. If you are simply recalling information, groups of seven will work fine; if you need to think through a complex decision, it will go more smoothly with groups of three. Sometimes you'll need to take a group of seven that you had used effectively for learning and reduce it to three categories for decision making.

(For a step-by-step description of the regrouping process, see the Modeling section, Chapter 7.)

4. Consolidation.

Your mind needs time to consolidate what you study. The ideal is to study for 45 minutes and then shift to an activity requiring no concentration for at least 15 minutes. Depending on the material, the necessary dead time might be longer. With the right consolidation, your retention and understanding levels will be higher than if you had studied straight through.

Finding consolidation time is difficult in overloaded environments. Most technical study is not a pure, undisturbed process. For those on a quest, learning gets mixed with active problem-solving and experimentation. Pure learning may take place in spurts of two or three minutes. In those circumstances, periods of three or four hours without a break might be the norm.

Whatever the length of the concentration period, however, the fact remains that a dead period is necessary for consolidation. Without that time, you may experience a 30 - 40% drop in efficiency. Dead time doesn’t mean shifting to another project. It means doing nothing.

When you’re in overload, doing nothing isn’t much of an option. To insert periods of dead time, you need to be clever.

Consolidation is easier if you are learning a whole body of knowledge (The Forest style). To understand an entire topic area, such as, component libraries or RISC architecture or LAN design, you're already setting aside time for study. You’re forced to structure your time to take notes, collect articles, and analyze your understanding. Adding 15 minutes of dead time is a minor adjustment.

Those on a Quest need to be more creative in their consolidation efforts. Since projects, by nature, are filled with interruptions, it's important to work quiet times into your operation at the slightest opportunity.

5. Follow-up.

In order to retain your grasp on the information you learned, some review is necessary. Refreshing the principles keeps them alive. Otherwise, your hard-earned knowledge will fade.

If you’re on a project quest, you won’t do much review. You’ll just never get to it. A case can be made for retaining your information, but finding time for it will be an uphill battle. So be it. If you’re putting most of your energy into projects, don’t worry about the review stage. You can always fall back on your documentation.

If, however, you’re building a system of information (The Forest style), review is critical. Your knowledge must be refreshed regularly or your base for new information will weaken. Absorbing information is not enough. You must retain it. If you don't, it’s like vacuuming without a collection bag.

Almost any style of review is adequate. Flipping through old notes, rereading your summaries, evaluating new books on the topic, or conducting training courses, they all work.

Traditional Memory Techniques

High technology concept thinking does not fit well with traditional memory techniques. Recall techniques are good for just that -- recall, but they can hinder consideration of complex technical problems.

Traditional memory triggers, such as, linked lists and scene associations add more information to your model. In the long run, these memory aids add more to remember. Tying optical fiber types to a living room scene can help you recall 15 types, but as you begin to conceptualize new arrangements, you have sofas and chairs bouncing around in your image.

These memory recall linking systems introduce a competing model into your thought processes. Your concept sketch of the circuit or the algorithm is the model you need to be seeing. Anything else in the picture is a distraction.

Model and Skim

When you’re in overloaded, there’s something about doing a five-step process that doesn’t sit well. It will feel like another chore. That needs to change if you’re going to weave the principles into your life.

Except for minor variations between The Quest and The Forest learning types, each of the five principles is key to accelerated learning. They can’t be reduced.

Combining them with modeling, though, simplifies implementation. The end result is so simple, it can be your life-line to accelerated learning, no matter how overloaded you become.

1. Attention.

The act of sketching out a model catches the mind’s attention. Even starting with little interest, by the time you’ve drawn up a few relationships, the subject has your attention.

2. Connected information.

By its nature, modeling connects information and concepts.

3. Properly structured information.

Once you notice yourself slipping into overload, you'll recognize there's too many items to absorb. It becomes a natural step to regroup and reduce the model’s complexity. You’ll find that working through the Seven and Three Rule each time isn’t necessary. For that reason, structuring doesn’t require a special step.

4. Consolidation.

After fitting in consolidation period for a few days, you’ll begin to pause after intense study naturally. The breaks and dead times will become part of your routine. Again, this isn’t a specific step.

5. Follow-up.

Review is a step you can't omit. If you have a working model sketched out, review can consist of a quick glance at the material. Skimming last month’s models once a week is not difficult -- it could be done in ten minutes, at the most. The key is the model sketches. There is no text to plow through, no reams of data to reread. The sketches save you. Set a time once a week to skim through your models, and your review is covered.

If you have absorbed and practiced each of the five steps, you can boil down the accelerated learning principles to:

1. Model everything.
2. Skim your sketches once a week.

Additional Reading

Make the Most of Your Mind by Tony Buzan. Simon and Schuster, 1984.

The Mind Map Book by Tony Buzan with Barry Buzan. Penguin Books, 1993.
This introduces the use of color to reduce overload in complex models.

What Smart Students Know by Adam Robinson. Crown Publishers, 1993.