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Going about learning something

Discover the hidden dangers of excessive research. Why practice-first is the key to effective learning and how mindless exploration can fuel your intuition.


Sandro Maglione

Sandro Maglione

Free thinking

Exploration and research have value has primers, not as actual practice.

Dopamine flows free during the "research phase". Every new discovery kicks more dopamine inside your system. Problem is, the web has unlimited resources. As such, the research itself becomes an endless self-reinforcing cycle, way beyond its usefulness.

Furthermore, there is the issue of cheap dopamine when you discover some "interesting resource" that has nothing to do with the topic of research. Without reflection, these phantom resources suck you into a cheap dopamine rush, distracting from the main topic.

Result: hours of "research", no value, no result.

The solution is practice-first. Jump directly into the practice itself, no prior research necessary. As you bump into problems, the strategy becomes problem-oriented research. Minimum research to solve the exact problem at hand, and move on again with the practice.

Generic research has still value as a primer. During relax times, mindless free-flowing research feeds your pool of ideas. No specific outcome, just absorbing anything that comes your way.

This process builds a mostly-unconscious intuition that sometimes reveals itself during the practice. Those times when you magically "know it", gut-feeling intuition from the recesses of your mindless exploration.

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