If we learn to complete our learning loop at the rate of an earth's orbit, we save ourselves from squeezing our last drops of mental energy in the long haul.

The learning loop

When you first learn something, you often learn it at the abstract level.

These are the principles that hold true under the simplified condition. But then, you have to apply what you learn, fail, reflect, and adjust accordingly to your own situation. Here is when real learning happens: You know where, why, or what works or does not work, and under what conditions. You rinse and repeat.

We call this the learning loop.

Transfer of learning

As you continue to learn, you compile a bunch of theories and mental tools in your pocket and use these appropriately to serve you best. Often, the deeper we understand these mental tools, the higher chance we have of solving the problems creatively and intuitively. This is called transfer of learning.

But transferability does not just happen.

For the transfer of learning to occur, we need to complete one learning loop every day.

The ability to consistently iterate our learning loop in shorter cycles helps us learn at a faster rate and at a deeper level. Because we make mistakes frequently, we do not fall into the trap of the Dunning–Kruger effect where we falsely think that we understand something but in fact, we do not.

When we are immersed in learning like this, we increase our chance of being able to transfer our learning into another context. On the contrary, surface learning seems fast at first. But then, we find ourselves learning again and again in different contexts. Now, our existing knowledge is not only burdened but also unable to be built on.

The web of knowledge is what creates true expertise in the long haul. If we do not connect the knowledge, we do the math of addition and exhaust ourselves without real progress toward mastery.

When we complete our learning loop every day, we allow our knowledge to grow exponentially and ultimately solve more problems with less mental energy. Because our gut intuition is so strong now that we just need to think no more.