Learn how to learn!

A lot of people want to learn new skills, maybe they wanna learn a new language, a tool, an instrument, whatever you get the point, not a lot of people want to learn, how to learn.

When I was hired immediately as a QA engineer at my first job, I had 0 experience in the job other than writing unit tests for my own projects. I was able to learn all the important tid-bits of my work for AQA in a single week, and start making my first contributions to the project I was assigned to, albeit in a junior level. (Humble brag, sorry.)

So, how did I do that? Well, I was able to master the skill of learning! Most people do not understand but learning itself, is a skill, and mastering that skill is the difference between stagnation and evolution. So in this blog post, I will be giving a explanation on how you can also improve your skills at LEARNING.

This post will be based around my own experiences, however, I was actually able to find research papers that actually highlight what I did, scientifically.

Hack #1: Learn Just Enough to Teach It (The Feynman Technique)

This is possibly one of the best things you can do. The premise is very simple, learn a topic just enough so you can explain it to others. Even if you are a friendless, huzzless loser. Your "student" doesn't have to be a person, it can be a rubber duck, an action figure, perhaps even an AI Model (Prompt below). The technique was popularized by Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist famously known for his work in quantum electrodynamics and quantum computing. The method helps the subject learn, via teaching. As you are explaining a concept, the concept itself is stripped away from the jargon down to its bare bones, becoming not just an abstract idea in your head but an actual, useful mental model. This changes your brain's own bias, you are no longer parroting things so you can pass an interview or an exam, you now need to actualize the information in your mind, find use-cases, understand it thoroughly.

To prove you that I am not making this up, nor is it a pseudo-science, here is the research done on the subject. "A famous 2014 study by Nestojko et al. showed that simply believing you have to teach a topic to someone else completely changes how your brain organizes information." (visit the references number 1)

Here is that prompt I promised you: "I want you to act like my student. I will try to explain a specific topic to you. I want you to be curious, ask relevant follow-up questions, and try to explain it back to me in your own words. When I say the word 'done', give me a score on how well I did, point out the gaps where my explanation broke down, and suggest resources on the topic I was explaining." Bam, you got yourself a study partner.

Hack #2: Guess.... (Retrieval Practice)

No seriously, guess. Don't highlight your books, don't take empty notes, guess!

At my first QA job, if I were to sit down, read 500 page documentation, highlight and take notes on every little trivial topic I would have achieved (drum roll.....) ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It would have felt productive, make no mistake, but that is the "illusion of competence", the text is already there, you are fooling yourself into believing you are actually reaching deep into your mind and retrieving a relevant piece of information, reality? There hasn't been a single neuron firing in memory parts of your brain.

To actually lock a new skill into your long-term memory, you have to force your brain to struggle. You have to close the book, hide the answers, and try to pull the information out of your own head. This is called Retrieval Practice.

Every time you force your brain to retrieve a scattered piece of data without looking at your notes, you are thickening the neural pathway to that information. Even if you guess completely wrong, the mental effort of guessing primes your brain to absorb the correct answer when you finally look it up.

Research: In a landmark 2006 study by Roediger & Karpicke (check reference number 1), researchers split students into two groups. Group A passively re-read the material multiple times. Group B read it just once and then took a practice test where they had to recall the information from memory. When tested a week later, Group B retained 50% more information than the group that just re-read the text. 50%!

Remember this simple rule: While learning, if it feels easy, you ain't learning shit.

Hack #3: Slowpoke said.......Yawn!

Nothing beats a good nights sleep after all this learning and struggling and highlighting, what if I said that the sleeping is actually the second most important part of learning how to learn. This is what I like to call biohacking, using your biology effectively to do boost something in your life.

When you are sleeping like a log on your comfortable bed, your brain goes into what we call, NREM (Non Rapid Eye Movement). Here your brain actively works like a filing system, all that messy, scattered memories you forced into existence during the day and permanently writes them onto your long-term mental hard drive.

Research: In a famous study published in the journal Science (check reference number 3), researchers had people learn card locations while a specific rose scent was pumped into the room. Later, while those people were dead to the world in NREM sleep, the researchers pumped that exact same rose scent into their rooms. The sleeping brains recognized the scent, triggered an automatic "replay" of the card data, and the next day, their memory retention completely destroyed the scores of the control group who slept without the scent.

Pick a highly specific, unique sensory trigger. It could be a weird essential oil scent (like peppermint or lavender) or a specific instrumental lofi playlist. Only expose yourself to this trigger when you are intensely practicing your new skill. Then, set a low sleep timer and play that same playlist, or diffuse that same scent, while you fall asleep. You are essentially telling your brain: "Hey, remember that complex automation script I was stressing over three hours ago? Let's replay that on loop while I dream."

To maximize this, use the "Sleep Sandwich": study your hardest material directly before bed, get your 8 hours of Snorlax-mode sleep, and then spend just 5 minutes reviewing it immediately when you wake up. Your pre-sleep session primes the pump, and your post-sleep session locks it in right when your brain’s temporary storage has been completely refreshed.

Conclusion: Stop Being a Passive Spectator

Learning isn’t a passive sport. The absolute biggest trap in the modern world is assuming that because you watched a 10-hour tutorial video or highlighted a textbook, you have somehow acquired a skill. You haven't. You've just paid for the illusion of progress.

If you want to actually evolve, you have to get comfortable with cognitive friction:

1. Stop hoarding data—learn just enough to explain it to a rubber duck or an AI model.
2. Stop playing it safe—close the notes, guess the answers, break things, and make your brain sweat.
3. Optimize your hardware—use sleep as an active tool to store your data overnight.

Mastering the skill of learning is the closest thing to a real-world superpower. It’s how you walk into a brand-new engineering job with zero industry experience and start shipping code in seven days.

Stop looking for the easy way out. Make it hard, make it stick, and go build something.

References:

1. Expecting to teach enhances learning and organization of knowledge in free recall of text passages
2. Test-Enhanced Learning: Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention
3. Odor Cues During Slow-Wave Sleep Prompt Declarative Memory Consolidation

— Elnur