Ultralearning: Book Review (How To Start With 9 Unique Principles)

What if you could learn skills over 400% faster?

That’s exactly what author Scott Young did when he completed the entire MIT undergraduate computer science curriculum in less than a year.

Better yet, he did it alone.

Young explains how he accomplished this impressive feat and many others through his resourcefulness and active learning.

Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Clicking these links and making a purchase will credit affiliate commissions to Chris and support Chris Dismissed. Thank you!

Ultralearning Definition

Ultralearning: According to Scott Young, Ultralearning is the process of learning a new skill, trait, or subject matter in a very condensed period of time. Ultralearning happens through deep immersion into the world of a certain subject matter.

Should You Read Ultralearning?

Overall Rating: 8/10

Summary: Ultralearning is a crucial book for anyone looking to learn a new subject, skill, language, or topic in a condensed period of time. Scott Young’s principles and strategies provide an in-depth roadmap for starting your own Ultralearning project.

Who Should NOT Read Mindset?

• People who are satisfied with all of their current skills and do not want to learn more.
• Individuals who believe they don’t have “time” to learn anything new.
• People with a Fixed Mindset.

Top 3 Points From Ultralearning

1. Intensity, principles, and strategies can drastically improve the speed and efficiency of learning.
2. Gathering high-quality resources and sharpening your approach to learning through meta-learning is crucial to the learning process.
3. You need to nail your weaknesses and fully immerse yourself in skill-related environments for the best results.

Principle 1: Meta-Learning

Meta-learning = Learning how to learn.

It’s also known as determining the why, what, and how of learning.

Why are you learning what you’re learning? What are you learning? And how do you learn it? When you study meta-learning, you’re conceptualizing the intrinsic value of what you’re learning.

One great way to begin meta-learning is to interview experts who have already achieved what you want to achieve.

Build relationships with people who are already amazing at what you’re learning.

You will also need to gather the concepts, facts, and procedures. In other words, create a map with custom learning benchmarks made for you.

Scoot Young says that it’s extremely important for you to know which subjects, or which parts of the subject, you should magnify in your learning.

So how much planning should you do?

About 10% of the time that you spend learning should be done researching the subject.

Each project will improve your ability to learn how to learn.

Each project will stack on to your meta-learning knowledge.

Ultralearning is a process that begins with meta-learning. Start today!

Related: So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Book Review

Principle 2: Focus-Sharpen Your Knife

There are three problems that you face when you try to focus: procrastination, distraction, and failure to find the right type of focus.

1. Procrastination.

It’s important to recognize when you’re procrastinating and increase your procrastination awareness. The truth is that procrastination revolves around the fear of getting started.

To combat this, utilize micro-habits.

Scott talks about this thing called micro-habits (also coined by James Clear, author of Atomic Habits). Micro-habits are small tasks that you can do for 5 minutes or less that slowly contribute to your growth.

Even though ultra learning is about deep immersion. It can be really daunting to try to figure out everything at once.

Instead, piece together bits of information or small tasks that cumulate into compounding mastery.

2. Getting Distracted.

Now in order to combat distraction, you need to focus and flow. That means you need to get in the zone which can be really hard to do starting out. Start with a small micro habit.

Five minutes, two minutes, one minute. Read one page, take one cold shower. Get one step closer to your goal.

Remember to time your study sessions. Don’t spend longer than 50 to 60 minutes Ultralearning in one sitting. If you really do get into the flow, go ahead and spend 90 minutes, 120.

But try your best to take breaks, because shorter sessions with more primacy and recency compound over time.

3. The Right Type of Focus

You need to make sure you also create the right kind of focus. The right kind of focus should. Be around the task that you need to complete.

In order to improve your ability to focus, you need to create a procedure. Recognize where you are in your focus moments and start small.

Principle 3: Directness-Go Straight Ahead

There’s importance in being direct.

Learning is closely tied to the situations you want to use them in. So don’t study in a vacuum, remove from the context of the situations you want to use.

For example, if you’re learning a new language like Spanish, instead of learning Spanish in an English country. You’ll gain so much more by learning Spanish in a Spanish-speaking country.

Study skills so that you can use them. Duolingo for example is a great app to get started, but it does not allow you to immerse yourself into learning a new language. So the chances are, if you start with Duolingo, you’re not going to get anywhere.

Having access to problem sets, good lectures, and resources is incredibly important.

Ultralearning is about transferring the process of learning from a classroom to real life.

Learn in real contexts. Take everything in real life and learn by doing.

Immerse yourself in a constructive learning environment.

Principle 4: Drill-Attack Your Weakest Point

Cut apart your whole study strategy and only focus on isolated components.

Pick a direction and then drill. Go wide and then isolate. Find out where your weaknesses are and then simply go straight ahead into them.

Drill drill, drill.

There are a few tactics for drilling, Scott Young mentions:

• Time Slicing
• Cognitive Components
• Copycat
• The Magnifying Glass Method

Each of these is described by Scott in-depth in his book. So I won’t go into it now.

Be mindful when you drill, find an enhanced learning process through your drills. Break the subject matter into different parts.

And get uncomfortable. Get uncomfortable and do the things that you are uncomfortable with. That’s how you will learn and grow.

Principle 5: Retrieval-Test to Learn

Testing yourself is the best way to learn.

Even though it may be a lot of pressure and it may feel completely uncomfortable to test yourself on something you barely know, testing yourself is the only way to know if you’ve truly learned something.

Testing memory creates new connections in your brain that are infinitely more effective than highlighting or summarizing your notes.

Ideally, you will be able to get instant feedback on your testing.

Feedback is essential to growth. Avoid the paradox of studying, close the book, and try to recall as much as possible.

No matter how long you read, take notes, or highlight important terms, you won’t get better unless you test yourself.

So, how do you actually practice retrieval? Here are a few methods:

• Spaced Repetition
• Flashcards
• Free Recall
• Standardized Tests
• Informal Tests in Working Environments
• Question methods

Principle 6: Feedback-Don’t Dodge 

It can suck to get feedback on something that you’re not good at, but feedback is necessary Ultralearning.

Getting negative feedback on your mistakes and positive feedback on all the things you did correctly can instantly improve your rate of improvement.

What are the different types of feedback Scott Young discusses?

• Outcome Feedback (pass/fail feedback)
• Informational Feedback (what did you do right/wrong?)
• Corrective Feedback

Once you’ve received feedback, it’s time to adjust to feedback and speed up your Ultralearning process.

In order to improve your response to feedback make sure to cut out all the extra noise.

Unnecessary and unhelpful feedback can push you away from your learning goals.

The best type of feedback that you can get during your Ultralearning project is meta-feedback.

Meta-feedback will help you understand your rate of improvement through high-intensity, rapid

All in all feedback is extremely important. So don’t skip out on it.

Principle 7: Retention-Don’t Fill a Leaky Bucket

There is a forgetting curve in everything that you do. You will forget.

Research has shown that in just 48 hours people forget about 60%-80% of information that they’ve learned (more research here).

We forget for a variety of reasons such as interferences, distractions during the encoding process, and forgetting cues.

The key to preventing the forgetting curve is to combat it with sound strategies and well-thought-out preparation.

In order to prevent this forgetting, we must use memory mechanisms and strategies.

A couple of memory mechanisms that Scott discusses in his book includes spaced repetition, proceduralization, overlearning, and mnemonics.

Spaced Repetition

Spaced repetition is your #1 go-to tool for combatting the forgetting curve.

Why is this?

Because spaced repetition means recalling information right as you’re about to forget it.

This prevents the forgetting curve from taking place and transfers your knowledge from your short-term memory to your long-term memory.

Programs like Anki that can custom time your flashcard sets for the forgetting curve.

There are two major obstacles to proper spaced repetition: time commitment and scheduling.

Firstly, spaced repetition takes time to solidify. You may need to repeat and recall one term over 7 times before it becomes part of your semi-long-term memory.

Even after many times of recall and retrieval, you need to keep the terms fresh in your memory. Thankfully, spaced repetition provides a compounding return. The more you review, the less you will need to review.

Secondly is scheduling. Spaced repetition sessions need to be optimally scheduled for maximal efficiency.

Continuously scheduling spaced repetition sessions and figuring out which sets you need to review can be a major headache.

I highly recommend downloading a program like Anki which will sort out the timing of spaced repetition for you through advanced algorithms (the links to Anki are affiliate links, anything you purchase through them supports this blog, thank you! 🙂

Proceduralization

“Proceduralization” isn’t officially a word in the English language.

However, learning experts define proceduralization as the process and system of turning knowledge into automatic production during the learning of new skills.

Interested in learning more about proceduralization? Check out these links (Cognitive Modeling Lab/Replication and Analysis of Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve).

Proceduralization means setting up a strategy and a system that will cause you to automatically study and recall these variables.

So that can be anything from setting up a habit every hour to do five flashcards or setting up a certain time in the day that triggers you to learn a specific piece of material.

Overlearning

There’s also the concept of overlearning practicing beyond what is perfect.

Overlearning is gaining efficiency through learning a skill or one part of a skill to its maximum. And then continuing to repeat that.

For example, if you’re a martial artist that can be learning to throw a single straight punch, it’s one of the most simple techniques in all of the martial arts, but repeating this technique past the point of perfect form will give you an outstanding knowledge of all martial arts.

Mnemonics

Lastly is mnemonics.

You may be thinking about LOL (laugh out loud) or BTW (by the way), when I talk about mnemonics, and these are great examples.

However, mnemonics go deeper. A mnemonic gives you the ability to retain any fact, concept, or skill by turning information into pictures.

This can happen through the simplification of a sentence into a word (with each letter representing a part of the word or sentence).

But mnemonics also include remembering facts based on colors, or understanding languages due to their similarities to other languages.

If you’d like to learn more about mnemonics and other learning techniques check out my full review on Jim Kwik’s Kwik Learning Courses here!

Principle 8: Intuition-Dig Deep Before Building Up

Intuition plays a major role in the Ultralearning process

How do you build intuition? Don’t give up on hard problems easily, prove things in order to understand them, and always start with concrete examples.

Don’t fool yourself. When you’re building intuition, you want to make sure that you’re using proper strategies.

Additionally, it’s wise to take caution in your own intuition and trial and error methods.

One alternative to guessing and checking is the utilizing the Feynman technique.

Start the Feynman technique by writing down the concept or problem that you want to understand at the top of the piece of paper.

After that, explain the idea or concept on that piece of paper as if you had to teach it to a fifth grader for a test.

How would you convey the idea? Are you using enough detail? Are the concepts explained simply enough for a grade student to digest them?

To fully utilize the Feynman technique, you also need to use the growth mindset.

You can learn more about Mindset by reading my book review on Carol Dweck’s Mindset here!

How can you experiment?

With the Feynman Technique, you can copy then create, compare methods side by side, introduce new constraints, and find your superpower in the hybrid of unrelated skills.

The principle of intuition is all about exploring the extremes and getting to your inner talents.

Principle 9: Experimentation-Explore Outside Your Comfort Zone

Always experiment with new learning resources, techniques, and styles.

Now’s your chance to get into your field and try different elements to learn best practices. Try what others have tried before you.

Then when you have enough confidence, try what others have yet to try.

Ultralearning isn’t just about learning a skill, it’s about making the skill your own and pushing the boundaries of industries.

Application: Your First Ultralearning Project

Now you know the principles of Ultralearning and you’re itching to dive n to that new skills you’ve been thinking about.

What are the steps that you need to start doing today?

1. Do Your Research

First, do your research.

Decide which topic you’re going to learn and the scope of learning that you’ll use.

Be very specific and find the primary resources that you’re going to be using on this journey.

When you’re doing an ultra learning project, you don’t want to start out dry. You want to have plenty of great resources, masters and mentors that you can learn from.

Finally you need to set benchmarks for your skill.

What does success look like to you? What is your SMART goal? What is your desired timeframe and outcome?

After that set up your direct practice activities and create backup materials in drills.

2. Schedule Your Time

The second step is to schedule your time.

You need to commit time to learn anything. An Ultralearning project can take anywhere from one month to several years.

But ultra learning in itself should take place in highly condensed period of time.

When you commit to a certain time, you need to know exactly where that is in your schedule.

Schedule the length of time for a full project, shorter commitments are much easier to stick to. Take all of it and put it directly into your calendar.

A great way to test if your project schedule is realistic is to use a pilot week.

Try your schedule out one week and see if it’s actually manageable or not.

Ultralearning can be extreme. It’s a very concentrated way of learning, meaning that if you don’t necessarily have the time, the energy to put into ultra learning it may not be the best strategy for you.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t utilize Ultralearning principles in your own way though!

3. Execute Your Plan

Use meta-learning focus, directness drills, retrieval feedback, retention, intuition, and experimentation.

These are all the principles that we’ve discussed previously. And now is your time to use them in this execution phase.

4. Review Your Results

After some time Ultralearning lay out all your results in front of you.

What worked? what didn’t work? Can you teach this? Do you really know it? Can you recall it?

Grab a blank sheet of paper or a blank word document. And type out everything, you know.

What are the top 10 key core concepts in my field of study?

If you can answer that, you’re on your way to competence.

After reviewing you can choose to maintain, master or relearn your skill.

Maintenance basically means you keep up the same level of skill that you’ve grown during this ultra learning process. This is the baseline.

Then there’s relearning, which is what happens if you fall behind.

Let’s say you learned the skill, you go through this whole learning process but you fall behind on it and you don’t utilize the skill for the next year.

Relearning means refreshing your chosen skill in order to actually implement what you’ve learned.

Finally we have mastery which is the most ideal way this Ultralearning process.

Although you might not become a master overnight, mastery is the ultimate goal of Ultralearning.

Choose how you conduct your Ultralearning project wisely. You can use it as a way to bolster yourself into mastery of a certain subject matter that you enjoy.

There are also alternatives toUltralearning.

You can use low-intensity habits or formal structured education.

These methodologies aren’t necessarily bad, they’re just different from Ultralearning. Choose the method that works best for you and your circumstance.

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Thanks for reading,

Class Dismissed,

Chris Chan