Summary of Ultralearning by Scott H. Young. Accelerate your Career, Master Hard Skills and Outsmart your Competition. It discusses the 9 principles of Ultralearning : 1. Metalearning - first, draw a map 2. Focus - sharpen your saw 3. Directness - go straight ahead 4. Drill - attack the weakest point 5. Retrieval - test to learn 6. Feedback - don't dodge the punches 7. Retention - don't fill a leaky bucket 8. Intuition - dig deep before building up 9. Experimentation - explore outside your comfort zone Scott H. Young has a very popular blog. He is well-known among the self-improvement circles. He takes up interesting challenges like completing a 4-year MIT course under a year and living a year without English.

1. UltraLearning
Scott H. Young

2. Accelerate your Career
Master Hard Skills
Outsmart the Competition

3. What is
Ultralearning?
Ultralearning is an
intense, self-directed strategy
for learning skills and knowledge.
1. Intense : not just dabbling
2. Self-directed : you are in
control of your learning.
3. Strategy : not the only way to
learn but a better way.

4. Why bother?
Happiness of self-actualising your
potential in :
1. Professional Life
a. Career Growth, Change or
to be a Linchpin
b. Rising Tuition Fee
c. End of Average or Skill
Polarization
2. Personal Life
a. To achieve your goals and dreams
Deep happiness comes not from doing easy things,
but hard things that expand your capabilities and realise your potential.
What a man can be, he must be
- Abraham Maslow

5. 9 Principles
1. Metalearning
2. Focus
3. Directness
4. Drill
5. Retrieval
6. Feedback
7. Retention
8. Intuition
9. Experimentation

6. METALEARNING
First, draw a map
Draw your Map :
1. Why
a. Intrinsic Project
b. Instrumental Project
i. Expert Interview method
2. What
a. Concepts
b. Facts
c. Procedures
3. How
a. Benchmarking
b. Emphasize-Exclude method
Planning-Execution ratio :
1. 10% Rule
2. Law of Diminishing Returns
Principle 1

7. FOCUS
Sharpen the saw
Focus problems :
1. Procrastination
a. Awareness
b. 5-min Rule
c. 25-min Pomodoro sessions
d. 90-min Deep Work session
2. Distraction
a. Environment
b. Task
c. Mind
3. Quality of Focus
a. Low-arousal state
b. High-arousal state
Principle 2

8. DIRECTNESS
Go straight ahead
● Directness = Learn-by-Doing
approach
● Solves the Problem of Transfer
Tactics :
1. Project-based learning
2. Immersion
3. Flight Simulator method
4. The Overkill approach
Principle 3

9. DRILL
Attack the weakest point
● Direct-Drill-Direct approach
● Identify the Rate-Determining
Step
Tactics :
1. Time Slicing
2. Cognitive Component Slicing
3. Prerequisite Chaining
4. Magnifying Glass method
5. CopyCat
Principle 4

10. RETRIEVAL
Test to Learn
● Active Recall > Review
Tactics :
1. Free Recall
2. Flash Cards
3. Question Book method
4. Open Book method
5. Self-Generated challenges
Principle 5

11. FEEDBACK
Don’t dodge the punches
Types of Feedback :
1. Outcome feedback
2. Informational feedback
3. Corrective feedback
Tactics :
1. Flow state
2. Meta-feedback
3. Noise Cancellation
4. High-Intensity, Rapid feedback
Principle 6

12. RETENTION
Don’t fill a leaky bucket
● Forgetting Curve
Theories of Forgetfulness :
1. Decay
2. Interference
a. Proactive Interference
b. Retrospective Interference
3. Forgotten Cues
Tactics :
1. Spaced-Repetition
2. Proceduralization
3. Overlearning
a. Core Practice
b. Advanced Practice
4. Mnemonics
Principle 7

13. INTUITION
Dig deep before building up
Rules for building Intuition :
1. Have a struggle timer for hard
problems
2. Always start with an example.
Use analogies and visuals.
3. Prove things to test
understanding. And then
articulate it.
4. Ask lot of questions
Principle 8

14. EXPERIMENTATION
Explore outside your comfort zone
Basics = Proficiency.
Experimentation = Originality
Experiment with :
1. Resource
2. Technique
3. Style
Tactics :
1. Copy, then Create
2. Introduce new constraints
3. Hybrid of unrelated skills
4. Compare methods side-by-side -
Split testing
5. Explore the extremes
Principle 9

15. Raising
Ultralearners
1. Start early
a. Education by 3
b. Specialisation by 6
2. Convert Practice into Play
3. Positive Reinforcement
a. Foster > Impose
b. Curiosity > Coercion
4. Teach Self-Education
5. Access to Resources
a. Tutors
b. Books, Courses

16. Your 1st
Ultralearning
Project
Steps :
1. Research
2. Schedule
3. Execute
4. Review
5. Master or Maintain