A better strategy for learning things

We live in an age where there is an excess of information out there in the world. This can be overwhelming, especially if you are a curious person who wants to grow him/herself. I stumbled upon some little gem here that presented an interesting mental model for learning(and remembering) new things.

We need to be more intentional and objective in what and how we learn things. A good place to start would be to walk through these for questions: What? Why? How? When? Let’s walk through each of the above. I’ll use an example of the above methodology in something I’m learning: GraphQl.

What? Can you define what you want to learn?
I want to learn how to use GraphQl for exposing API’s.

Why? Why is the specific thing you’ve determined above worth the effort?
GraphQl provides an easy way to consume API’s. Also, there’s a high possibility we may adopt it for work on some of our projects(my boss hinted at that).

How? How do you want to learn how to learn the aforementioned?
I’ll follow along the graphql tutorial here. Also, I’ll adapt graphql to a pet project I’m working on in collaboration with my brother. Finally, I’ll try to read the graphql spec.

When? When will you be ‘doing the how’?
For me, at least once in two days before I go to sleep.

This way of looking at things will help you navigate the sea of information out there. If you have no good reason to pick something up, then there is no good reason to pursue it. Being explicit in what, why, how and when will force you to be more clear in what you want to learn, and also be more methodological and efficient in how you do it.