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I spent 7 years building a learning
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system that boosted my efficiency by
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over 60% and saved me at least 10 hours
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of studying per week and although every
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learner's brain is different the best
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thing about this system is that anyone
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can use it and personalize it and I call
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it the pero system it stands for priming
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encoding reference retrieval and
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overlearning I'll explain all of it in a
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sec one of the most common questions
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that people ask me is Justin what is the
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best technique for studying and if
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someone ask me this I immediately know
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something crucial about this person's
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studying ability it is that this person
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does not know how learning truly works
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because they thinking about techniques
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rather than systems and unless that
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changes you can never really be an
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efficient learner most people think of
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learning like this this is how I used to
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look at it information comes in we then
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do something that allows us to learn it
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and we enter through this cycle of
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repetition to strengthen our memory but
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this is just not how Learning Works
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learning is not just something that
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happens it is an entire series of
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processes and the quality of those
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processes affects how good your memory
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and your depth of understanding is going
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to be if the processes involved in this
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learning step are bad it means we have
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to have more repetition to make up for
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it on the other hand if our processes
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here are good that means that we need
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less repetition so instead the right way
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to think about learning is a little bit
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more like this information comes into
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our brain and then that information is
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filtered out it's filtered based on
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whether we think it is relevant to what
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we already know and that's based on what
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we already have existing in our memory
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so if it's related and if we can see how
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it is something that we need to hold on
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to we will then go and process it a
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little bit more organizing the
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information making sense of it and this
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is really where the understanding and
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the depth comes from once we do the
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processing part of that also helps to
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organ the information into our memory in
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a structure and a model that makes sense
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for us that is easy for our memory to
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hold on to and is relevant for our brain
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if it didn't meet that filtration
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criteria we are just going to forget it
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which means if information comes in and
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we think it's not relevant we don't see
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how it connects to anything else we
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don't see how it connects to anything we
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already know then no matter how many
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times you try to put the information in
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we are just going to forget it and
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usually very quickly on the other hand
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once the information is in our memory we
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can retrieve that knowledge and the
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retrieval process also helps to process
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and organize it again in a way that
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makes even more sense so this is
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constantly refining our memory within
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using our existing knowledge and our
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existing memory to help us filter any
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new information that comes in now
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learning is a lot more complicated than
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this by the way but if we use this model
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then we can start seeing where our own
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weaknesses might be so for example let's
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take me back when I was trying to enter
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into medical school studying 20 hours a
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day because I sucked at learning uh what
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I was doing I would just sit there and I
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just read through my notes I'd go to
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these lectures and sit there listening
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trying to understand whatever I could
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and then I'd spend all the rest of the
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day just writing more notes studying
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things again and then eventually doing
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flash cards on past papers that was like
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my entire life so for me if we look at
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this information was definitely coming
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in and very very quickly but I wasn't
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aware that my brain was filtering it
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based on relevance so I wasn't trying to
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make it more relevant as a result a lot
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of what I learned felt pretty random and
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arbitrary and I would for get a lot of
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it and so I'd have to shove it back in
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again so I was trapped inside this Loop
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and even though occasionally bits of it
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did make its way in so I was able to
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process it a little bit more eventually
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again it would end up being forgotten
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because of the fact that it still wasn't
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that relevant for my brain and I just
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wasn't aware that this is the process I
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need to try to optimize and once I
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nailed that that is what made the big
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difference for me that is what flipped
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my learning into a mode that was much
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more efficient and so this is where the
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Paro system comes in the p in pero
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stands for priming priming is any
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technique that you use before a main
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learning event that could be a class it
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could be a lecture it could just be a
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single long study session but it's
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talking about an activity that you do
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before you encounter a topic for the
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first time it is priming your brain to
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learn that information more effectively
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essentially what it's helping us do is
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it's helping our brain filter the
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information and say hey this new
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information is relevant let's move it
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along into the processing primming is
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one of the most effective things that
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you can Implement into a learning system
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because it's so early on in this
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learning flow and if you don't get this
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part right everything after this starts
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suffering you will get easily overloaded
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and overwhelmed you will find that your
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memory is very leaky you will find that
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you're not able to use and retrieve that
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knowledge very effectively because the
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information was not primed you would
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thrown a ball and you were not ready to
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catch it the e stands for encoding and
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in this diagram it stands for this
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processing part here it's talking about
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the part of learning that allows your
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brain to make sense of the information
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and then put it into your memory but
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encoding in the learning system means
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that you have to have techniques that
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allow your brain to organize and process
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the information effectively that means
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grouping things together simplifying
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things looking for analogies finding
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connections and relationships uh looking
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for ways to make the information more
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intuitive simpler easier to understand
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this is also the part that most people
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struggle with because it requires a lot
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of mental effort and thinking to do this
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which actually puts some people off but
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that is the active part of active
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learning when you don't do the encoding
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part correctly even though the
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information came in through the door
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it's not able to be moved into your
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memory very effectively and so even
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though you study a lot and a lot you
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will still continuously forget a large
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portion of what you spent your time
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learning now encoding is not a binary
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process it's not about whether you are
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doing it or not it's more of a spectrum
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and about creating efficiency in your
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processes so that you're moving
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information into your memory as quickly
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as possible the first R Imperial stands
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for reference and this is actually just
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about note taking it's not really on
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this pathway but it's about
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understanding that if you're trying to
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consume all the information all at once
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and you're trying to do all of the
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processing all at once you're going to
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get overloaded very quickly if you let
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yourself get bogged down in details that
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don't help you to organize the
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information in a way you want your brain
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power to be focused on moving the
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information
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through here into your memory and there
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are certain things that are going to be
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so specific and so fine and so detailed
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that it's not going to help do that it's
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just a distraction and that's where
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referencing comes in which is taking
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those pieces of information and just
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putting them somewhere else so that you
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can come back to it later this could be
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in the form of flash cards a sick and
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brain app using something like obsidian
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whatever you want to do it's a parking
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lot a dump for all the very very fine
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details that you don't want to B with
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while you are encoding and processing
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the second R is retrieval and retrieval
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is the part where you're taking
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information from your memory and then
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you are testing yourself and challenging
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your ability to use and apply that
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knowledge retrieval is a necessary
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component of every Learning System
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number one because that's what actually
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tests your ability to use your knowledge
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but number two because the act of
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retrieving knowledge actually helps you
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to reprocess and repackage that
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knowledge which strengthens your memory
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and deepens your understanding which is
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where I imperio comes in which stands
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for interleaving interleaving is hitting
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a topic from multiple perspectives and
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multiple angles I've actually got
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another video about interleaving here
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cuz it's a big topic and actually one of
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the most important things that you can
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do to upgrade your Learning System but
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in summary it's about making sure that
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you are testing yourself in multiple
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perspectives rather than just the one
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way you learned it and just testing
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yourself in that one way when you don't
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do interleaving your knowledge becomes
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very narrow which means yes you may be
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able to answer questions if they are
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asked in the same way that your flash
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card has it written down but if there's
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a curveball question if there's a
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combination of Concepts that you never
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really thought about before or it's just
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something that feels a little bit out of
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scope you're going to struggle usually
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these are the questions that separate
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the top Learners from the rest and the
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final o imperio is for overlearning
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overlearning is when you're learning
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more than you need to a little bit more
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out of scope and a little bit deeper
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into a higher standard it often involves
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a lot of repetition for example doing
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lots of practice questions or lots of
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flash cards or just going over things
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again and again this is the part of
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learning that is repetitive by Nature
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it's what creates that faster recall and
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that enhanced fluency with your
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knowledge it is also optional a lot of
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people don't need to do overlearning
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because overlearning is really only
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effective once you're sitting really
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competitive assessments or where the
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standard for excellence is very very
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high most people and most day-to-day
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studying don't need to have over
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learning at all unfortunately most
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people also use overlearning strategies
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as their first strategy in the learning
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process and that takes time and
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attention away from doing the priming en
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coding and retrieval Parts properly it's
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basically this cycle that I talked about
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before where you're basically just
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compensating for ineffective encoding
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through lots of repetition so to help
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you evaluate your own Learning System
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I've actually gone ahead and created a
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quiz that you can go through and it will
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score your learning system based on each
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part of per
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it's free to do I'll check a link in the
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description below don't say I never do
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anything for you so I'm going to go
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ahead and answer these questions based
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on how I used to study and I'll see what
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the score
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says and
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35% uh that's about what I expected uh
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it's pretty bad uh if you do this
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yourself you can see um you can scroll
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down and learn a little bit more about
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it yeah it looks pretty tragic for me
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they'll give you a bunch of
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recommendations based on your scores in
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terms of what you need to improve on and
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what priority so feel free to go through
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that yourself okay so I was going to end
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the video right there but I wanted to
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make sure that this quiz was helpful for
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as many people as possible so I actually
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went ahead and gave early access to a
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bunch of people to see how they found it
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and they had a diverse range of resorts
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some of them scored pretty average and
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some of them scored surprisingly well
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and after seeing the results I learned
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two things number one people who weren't
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very confident in how they learn also
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had lower scores and an explanation for
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why they were not so confident and
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number two everyone found the quiz
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helpful hello my name is Julian Nisha Ed
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and I've just taken I can studies
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Learning System Diagnostic and results
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were very helpful because previously
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I've never had something that would
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actually quantify and measure how
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effective my learning system was I
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definitely think that this is a tool
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that I could use in the classroom
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particularly for subjects where we're
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teaching kids how to learn at a really
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young age like your 9 year 10 I found
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the test uh pretty easy to use it's sort
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of good to pinpoint what exactly am I'm
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doing wrong so I did find it insightful
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in that regard and it's been so helpful
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just with like not just learning the
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content but actually understanding it
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and seeing the significance of like a
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learning approach I'm just super
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grateful that like I could give this a
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go I'm going to really try and
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incorporate some of the suggestions
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and see how they go so I'm super glad I
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do the quiz and I highly recommend it
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for you as well it's only a few minutes
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but the insights that you'll get from
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there will save you hours down the line
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so I'm really excited for you to give
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the quiz a go yourself the link is in
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the description make sure to check it
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out thank you so much for watching and
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I'll see you in the next one and yes by
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the way I am in a new office
