I’ll be honest; I’m not a bad learner… but I’m not a great one either. And to not excel at something as fundamental and important as learning will incur long term detrimental effects.

The fact is that learning is a skill, just like swinging a bat or catching a ball. We all start from a certain baseline, but through focused practice and rigorous exercise it can be improved.

Recently, I’ve been espoused to a certain train of thought. No time is wasted time, as long as you can derive some form of knowledge or insight from it. That means that all of the time I’ve ever spent in projects left uncompleted, or otherwise “unproductive” activities, has not been wasted. That time had to be used in the way it was used so that the time I will spend in the future can be put to better use. As in, in order for significant progress to be made, we must be able to accept states of “unproductively”— periods of time where not much was accomplished on paper, but much was accomplished ethereally.

Although periods of unproductively are natural, that does not mean we cannot take fate into our own hands. We can stretch our productive periods and shrink our unproductive ones with the right training and the right mental tools. If we were more aware of the root issues that stall us; if we could ask the right questions and focus our energies more efficiently on the right tasks; if we could better filter out superfluous details and boil huge volumes of information down to the essentials— then we would have all done a great service not only towards improving our minds, but towards making better use of the limited reserves of time that we have as well.

Everyone learns differently, at their own pace, using their own methods and strategies. However, instead of making it a free for all, what if we could create and use an all-encompassing framework of learning that could adapt to the needs of the user?

To capture my learning, I will be documenting everything in learning journals. Biological memory can be a frail thing, and I hope that by writing over a lengthy period of time, certain insights about the mind will be revealed that otherwise would have gone undiscovered.

And to give fair warning for all of the writings to come; I will not be extensively pre-planning/scaffolding. Although I will not be entirely writing in the style of stream-of-consciousness, expect wandering ruminations, asides, and occasionally disjointed/one-sided arguments.

Also, learning is a collaborative process! If you disagree with an argument I made or learned something interesting, feel free to participate in the comments section. I will also be asking questions through out the process. Though most will be rhetorical (and for my personal use), if you feel like it answer in the comments section!

I look forwards to learning with everyone.