Steve Pavlina is an ultralearner. By optimizing his university schedule, he took a triple course load and completed a computer science degree in three semesters. Pavlina’s challenge long predated my own experiment with MIT courses and was one of the first inspirations that showed me compressing learning time might be possible. Done without the benefit of free online classes, however, Pavlina attended California State University, Northridge, and graduated with actual degrees in computer science and mathematics.
Diana Jaunzeikare embarked on an ultralearning project to replicate a PhD in computational linguistics. Benchmarking Carnegie Mellon University’s doctoral program, she wanted to not only take classes but also conduct original research. Her project had started because going back to academia to get a real doctorate would have meant leaving the job she loved at Google. Like many other ultralearners before her, Jaunzeikare’s project was an attempt to fill a gap in education when formal alternatives didn’t fit with her lifestyle.
Facilitated by online communities, many ultralearners operate anonymously, their efforts observable only by unverifiable forum postings. One such poster at Chinese-forums.com, who goes only by the username Tamu, extensively documented his process of studying Chinese from scratch. Devoting “70–80+ hours each week” over four months, he challenged himself to pass the HSK 5, China’s second highest Mandarin proficiency exam.
Other ultralearners shed the conventional structures of exams and degrees altogether. Trent Fowler, starting in early 2016, embarked on a yearlong effort to become proficient in engineering and mathematics. He titled it the STEMpunk Project, a play on the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics he wanted to cover and the retrofuturistic steampunk aesthetic. Fowler split his project into modules. Each module covered a particular topic, including computation, robotics, artificial intelligence, and engineering, but was driven by hands-on projects instead of copying formal classes.
Every ultralearner I encountered was unique. Some, like Tamu, preferred punishing, full-time schedules to meet harsh, self-imposed deadlines. Others, like Jaunzeikare, managed their projects on the side while maintaining full-time jobs and work obligations. Some aimed at the recognizable benchmarks of standardized exams, formal curricula, and winning competitions. Others designed projects that defied comparison. Some specialized, focusing exclusively on languages or programming. Others desired to be true polymaths, picking up a highly varied set of skills.
Despite their idiosyncrasies, the ultralearners had a lot of shared traits. They usually worked alone, often toiling for months and years without much more than a blog entry to announce their efforts. Their interests tended toward obsession. They were aggressive about optimizing their strategies, fiercely debating the merits of esoteric concepts such as interleaving practice, leech thresholds, or keyword mnemonics. Above all, they cared about learning. Their motivation to learn pushed them to tackle intense projects, even if it often came at the sacrifice of credentials or conformity.
The ultralearners I met were often unaware of one another. In writing this book, I wanted to bring together the common principles I observed in their unique projects and in my own. I wanted to strip away all the superficial differences and strange idiosyncrasies and see what learning advice remains. I also wanted to generalize from their extreme examples something an ordinary student or professional can find useful. Even if you’re not ready to tackle something as extreme as the projects I’ve described, there are still places where you can adjust your approach based on the experience of ultralearners and backed by the research from cognitive science.
Although the ultralearners are an extreme group of people, this approach to things holds potential for normal professionals and students. What if you could create a project to quickly learn the skills to transition to a new role, project, or even profession? What if you could master an important skill for your work, as Eric Barone did? What if you could be knowledgeable about a wide variety of topics, like Roger Craig? What if you could learn a new language, simulate a university degree program, or become good at something that seems impossible to you right now?
Ultralearning isn’t easy. It’s hard and frustrating and requires stretching outside the limits of where you feel comfortable. However, the things you can accomplish make it worth the effort. Let’s spend a moment trying to see what exactly ultralearning is and how it differs from the most common approaches to learning and education. Then we can examine what the principles are that underlie all learning, to see how ultralearners exploit them to learn faster.
What exactly is ultralearning? While my introduction to the eclectic group of intense autodidacts started with seeing examples of unusual learning feats, to go forward we need something more concise. Here’s an imperfect definition:
ULTRALEARNING: A strategy for acquiring skills and knowledge that is both self-directed and intense.
First, ultralearning is a strategy. A strategy is not the only solution to a given problem, but it may be a good one. Strategies also tend to be well suited for certain situations and not others, so using them is a choice, not a commandment.
Second, ultralearning is self-directed. It’s about how you make decisions about what to learn and why. It’s possible to be a completely self-directed learner and still decide that attending a particular school is the best way to learn something. Similarly, you could “teach yourself” something on your own by mindlessly following the steps outlined in a textbook. Self-direction is about who is in the driver’s seat for the project, not about where it takes place.
Finally, ultralearning is intense. All of the ultralearners I met took unusual steps to maximize their effectiveness in learning. Fearlessly attempting to speak a new language you’ve just started to practice, systematically drilling tens of thousands of trivia questions, and iterating through art again and again until it is perfect is hard mental work. It can feel as though your mind is at its limit. The opposite of this is learning optimized for fun or convenience: choosing a language-learning app because it’s entertaining, passively watching trivia show reruns on television so you don’t feel stupid, or dabbling instead of serious practice. An intense method might also produce a pleasurable state of flow, in which the experience of challenge absorbs your focus and you lose track of time. However, with ultralearning, deeply and effectively learning things is always the main priority.
This definition covers the examples I’ve discussed so far, but in some ways it is unsatisfyingly broad. The ultralearners I’ve met have a lot more overlapping qualities than this minimal definition implies. This is why in the second part of the book I’ll discuss deeper principles that are common in ultralearning and how they can enable some impressive achievements. Before that, however, I want to explain why I think ultralearning matters—because although the examples of ultralearning may seem eccentric, the benefits of this approach to learning are deep and practical.
THE CASE FOR ULTRALEARNING
It’s obvious that ultralearning isn’t easy. You’ll have to set aside time from your busy schedule in order to pursue something that will strain you mentally, emotionally, and possibly even physically. You’ll be forced to face down frustrations directly without retreating into more comfortable options. Given this difficulty, I think it’s important to articulate clearly why ultralearning is something you should seriously consider.
The first reason is for your work. You already expend much of your energy working to earn a living. In comparison, ultralearning is a small investment, even if you went so far as to temporarily make it