Ask yourself, “How would an expert learn it?”

When amateurs learn a subject, they tend to memorize concepts like disconnected puzzle pieces. This strategy might work well to take a pen and paper test. But, when it's time to put the skills to use, these amateurs will be limited to the pieces of information that they can remember. They will struggle to apply concepts. They will be afraid to try new things, and they cannot take a question outside of their comfort zone, let alone generate new ideas. The expert contextualizes every piece of information. He sees the evolution of ideas so he doesn't have to be dependent on his memory. In other words, experts perform a fundamentally different task.

1. When you begin learning about an idea, think about what a skilled professional would bring to the table to learn this idea.
   What kind of perspective does he have on the idea that would allow him to grasp the materials better?

2. What strategies and concepts will make learning the original idea easier in the long run?
   Learning additional perspectives and context about an idea before learning it might seem like making the task unnecessarily harder. But that is not the case!