Learning Is Overrated!

It’s controversial, but I will still say it. Learning is overrated.

Being an L&D professional for 16 years, AND a champion of #lifelonglearning, it’s a bit provocative, I know.

But let me elaborate on my argument.

In this Issue: The Learning Consumption Trap | Forgetting curve | Closing the Knowing-Doing Gap

Most people understand learning as consuming a large amount of information or reading.

Now, I have been a voracious reader since 5, and maybe even before that but I don’t remember it. In fact, I have been, what is called in the bibliophile community, an #extremereader.

A term used to describe people who read in odd places. I even remember reading in bars & parties, not just on flights and at airports. Even under blankets. In fact, I vividly remember staying up the night before my maths board exams, way past midnight, with a night lamp under my blanket, reading ‘The God of Small Things’ by Arundhati Roy, because I just had to. While my poor mum innocently thought that I have gone to bed on time for my exam the next day!

Over the course of the next decade or so, somehow the lure of bold fiction like Atlas Shrugged, War & Peace started falling off and I started immersing myself in non-fiction books: management, business, personal growth.

Following my curiosity came naturally to me and frankly, I did not think much of it. Until I slowly started realizing that people around me considered reading books some kind of a signal that I was smart. They would seem very impressed with it.

Almost like reading a lot = Being Better/ Smarter somehow.

Did you/ do you think like that too?

The Learning Consumption Trap

The collective thinking that reading is a more superior hobby or that people who spend a lot of time on learning are somehow better is propagated by examples such as below which have been taken out of context.

Vague motivational quotes about Warren Buffet and Bill Gates spend a lot of time reading are abound.

Additionally, we have been trained through 16 years of schooling & college. People who got good grades and were considered smart, often were kids who could consume, digesting and regurgitate large amounts of information. Pushing this narrative of the more you consume, the better it is. And that is the Learning Consumption Trap.

This is the trap where you equate consuming with a sense of achievement. So you focus disproportionately on reading, consuming information.

However, the real world is different. It’s application focussed. Yes, learning or reading is important for bringing about a mindset shift, but if you only do that, your reality does not change. It only makes you more aware, and while that is a good starting place, ‘Learning’ as a process is only 20% of the work needed to be done.

At best learning indicates that you are interested in expanding your worldview, and while that does make you already elevated than some, it does not in any way guarantee success of goal achievement.

In fact, focus on too much learning could take you away from doing. What Warren Buffet and Bill Gates did exceedingly well to succeed, have an insane focus on applying what they learnt. But we seem to often miss that nuance.

And that is why I argue that for the sake of just learning, learning is overrated. In fact, it might even hinder it.

It actually might help us to learn less.

The Knowing-Doing Gap

Why am I actually suggesting to read/ learn less? Cue: Neuroscience research

1.Because our brain doesn’t know the difference between you learning about something, and you actually doing it. So if we read about something, cognitively it can fool our brain that we know how to do it.

And that is the Knowing-Doing Gap.

2. Also, just because you read something it’s no guarantee that you will actually even remember it. Human beings forget information within hours. That is the Forgetting Curve

Learning expands your mindset, but to use it as a lever of success is preposterous. For real progress, one has to DO.

This is easier said than done - because the skills of learning and doing are completely different.

One is about passing a knowledge test. The other is about gathering your physical and mental energy to embody the knowledge enough to actually take action which results in a tangible change.

So how do we do this?

Closing the Knowing - Doing Gap

Assuming this is not leisure learning but a result focussed learning initiative…

• Make an anti-library: This is an antidote to ‘the forgetting curve’. A concept made famous by one of my favourite authors, Nissam Nicholas Taleb, is that you don’t have to learn everything at the same hot second you come across it, nor do you have to finish every book you ever bought or every article you ever bookmarked. #GetRidOfTheGuilt. Anti Library is a carefully curated collection of books (or resources) that you have NOT read. The intention is to spend more time curating than actually consuming, and consume it when you actually need to apply the content. Works for me!

• Limit Learning: You are only allowed to read 3 books on the subject you want to get better at. The rest has to be actual implementation, even if you feel your knowledge is imperfect. Beware of the analysis paralysis. (This tip is from The War of Art, Do the Work)

• Do not BINGE Learn: Our brain gets saturated with too much information. Then it gets tired. And then it does not have the energy to focus on the execution or application. Plus it is also lulled into a false sense of achievement, because well, it did learn something new! If you are serious about implementing your learning, focus on bite-sized learning. Learn, Pause, Reflect, Implement and REPEAT. That will ensure you have the space to actually embody the knowledge you have gathered. Otherwise more than half of it will disappear within a day, due to the forgetting curve.

• Teach/ share what you learn: One of the good ways to increase retention, (so that you can actually apply that knowledge) is to teach someone what you just learnt. It could be your friend, colleague or even your child!

• Write your own application focussed summary: Avid learners will already have some form of highlighting/note-taking as we did in school. Translating those in our own words and sharing it actually forces us to embody it better, and increase our ability to apply that knowledge.

• Let Technology help you: Shortform and Blinkist are apps for non-fiction book summaries. You could use them to revisit the concepts you learnt, easily, without going through the entire book. Note-taking apps like Pocket, Instapaper and Evernote are also helpful in bookmarking learning which you want to come to later, to avoid binge learning! They all have free versions/ trials available.

Doing is LEARNING. Second-hand knowledge can give you ideas but it is your action which actually helps you learn.

Keep Doing, Keep Thriving!

Rashmi