Optimizing Learning: Strategizing for a Brain Like Mine
🧠 Intro: Cognitive Optimization Starts with Awareness
I believe growth needs to be balanced — physical, intellectual, and spiritual. In this piece, I focus on the intellectual: optimizing how I think, learn, and remember.
It’s a systems-level reflection: How does my brain work? What slows it down? What amplifies it? This is my exploration of optimizing learning, memory, and strategy — based not on trends, but on self-observation and hard-earned insight.
🧪 Key Concepts I Had to Learn First
Before getting personal, I needed theory — to understand where my learning system was failing, and why. Here’s the core:
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Spacing Effect & Spaced Repetition: The foundation of effective long-term memory. I now understand why repeating at increasing intervals works, and how tools like Anki use algorithms based on Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve.
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Cognitive Load Theory: Split into intrinsic (complexity), extraneous (distractions), and germane (deep learning processes). I now recognize how distractions or poor strategy overload my working memory.
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Working Memory Capacity: Most people can hold 3–5 chunks. I tested mine — 3 is solid, 4 doable, 5 is chaos. People deceive themselves with hacks — I aim for honesty.
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Generation & Depth Effects: You remember more when you generate info, not just review. The deeper you process it — with meaning, connection, questions — the better.
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Desirable Difficulty: Learning must feel slightly hard. If it’s too easy, it doesn’t stick.
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Expertise Reversal Effect: What helps novices can hurt experts. It’s a key reason experienced learners should avoid overly guided material.
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Bloom’s Taxonomy: Knowing ≠ understanding ≠ mastery. Remembering is only the first step. Real learning is layered. Here’s the progression:
- Remember → You can recall it. Facts, terms, data.
- Understand → You grasp what it means. You can explain it.
- Apply → You can use it in a new situation.
- Analyze → You can break it down and see how it works.
- Evaluate → You can judge it. Argue for or against it.
- Create → You can build from it. Combine, design, invent.
Most people stop at step 2 and think they’re done. They’re not.
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Plateaus, Dips, and Leaps Model: Progress is not linear. Spikes in ability often follow dips in performance. Dips mean your system is testing new methods. Leaps mean it found one that works. Expect instability before breakthroughs.
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Spiral Learning Theory: Just because you didn’t “get” something the first time doesn’t mean you never will. Concepts return — richer, more meaningful, and ready for synthesis once your brain has built the scaffolding. Not everything lands on first contact.
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Forgetting Curve ≠ One Curve: Ebbinghaus studied how fast we forget meaningless noise — like “ZOF” or “BOK.” That curve drops fast. But meaningful abstract concepts — like “dychotomy” or “inversion” — decay much slower if you understand them. Bahrick showed that well-learned info (like languages) fades slowly. And Linton found that personal memories can last for decades. Forgetting isn’t about time alone — it’s about depth, structure, and meaning.
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Depth & Distribution Fight Forgetting: The more personally meaningful, deeply processed, and widely used the knowledge — the slower the decay. What the brain deems useful, it keeps.
Now — let’s go personal.
🔍 Discoveries About My Brain and Learning Style
Episodic vs Semantic Memory
My hippocampus is a beast. I remember conversations, places, moments. But names, terms, labels? Weak. Likely a sign of left inferior temporal cortex inefficiency. My memory builds internal maps: I remember where an idea was in a book, when I read it, and why it stuck. I attach data to emotion, time, context. That’s the key.
Working Memory: Honest Self-Diagnosis
I did chunking tests. 3–4? Solid. 5? Overload. But I also saw how I cheat — phonetic tricks, emotional anchors. Some people claim “I can hold 7!” but it’s illusion. I strive to measure clean capacity.
Semantizing for Survival
My brain rejects meaningless info. It refuses to store it. But if I give it meaning — a sentence, analogy, memory — it clings to it for years. This isn’t a learning style. It’s survival architecture.
Speed Reading? Not for Me
I considered a course. Almost joined. But user feedback (“works, but exhausting”) and my own pace showed me: not my path. My strength is depth. Slow means solid.
Grepping, Not Hoarding
I don’t collect pretty notes. I grep while reading. I process live. Making notes without processing is pointless. During postgrad lectures, I barely wrote — I preferred dialogue and live analysis.
Text Beats Audio (Usually)
I like audiobooks — Duhigg works well. Kahneman, Taleb? No chance. If something requires deeper reasoning — engaging System 2 (as defined by Kahneman) — then text is a better interface. I need to re-read, pause, scribble, reflect. That’s how my mind processes.
RAM Can’t Grow, But Can Be Optimized
No, I can’t add more working memory slots. But I can chunk better, organize better, switch better. Music may optimize flow — but it won’t magically add RAM. Mozart myths? Likely chunking mastery.
Mnemonics: Last-Resort Tool
I used to hate them. Felt like polluting my brain with fake meaning. Still, I now see: they’re a card in the deck. Emergency use only — for high-stakes recall under time pressure.
(And yeah — I used to admire Jim Kwik’s memory tricks. Today? Respectful smile. It’s a show. Not a path.)
Deep Encoding: My Tools
- Sentence-making
- Feynman technique
- Analogy & speculation
- 5 Whys
- Self-made questions
It’s not about technique. It’s about depth.
Activation Energy: The Real Enemy
Environment doesn’t matter. I can study in my flat, a mall, a prison. But if I lack a plan — the energy cost to begin kills me. I stall. Planning = ignition.
Expertise Reversal in Action
I’ve seen it many times: strong players stuck at FIDE master level, coaching kids for decades. The same material that helps kids may trap the coach. This theory explains why.
💡 Project Idea: Pipek Dręczyciel 3.0
An old project — originally written in Perl, later rebuilt in Java. Time to bring it back.
- An adaptive spaced repetition engine
- Personalized to my actual forgetting curve, not Ebbinghaus’ average
- Including multi-form questions, trust-but-verify answers
- Based on input, not just statistics
Let’s make a learning tool that learns me.
🧭 Takeaways
I don’t mimic anymore. I don’t chase popular methods. I respect my brain’s wiring.
I’m not a student. I’m a general — with soldiers waiting for orders.
Now I know:
- What works
- What blocks me
- What to cut
- Where to invest
And that’s power.