How I Stopped Overconsuming
Have you ever found yourself caught up in the cycle of consuming new information and forgetting it just a few days- or even hours, later?
In the last few weeks, I noticed something similar myself:
My retention was down
My procedural skills weren’t as sharp
My understanding wasn’t as clear
So, I had to look hard at myself and say: “Yup, I’m overconsuming.”
This led me to realize something very important.
Consumption is one part of a two-part process. Even though several techniques can aid retention and understanding in the consumption process, it’s not enough to reach true mastery.
It would help if you had proper practice and retrieval as well.
As you continue to read, I’ll share two techniques that helped me solve this problem for good.
1. Linked sessions
One of the reasons we overconsume is the belief that we’ve truly learned something by consuming. This is a belief that certainly held me back, and one that needed to change.
Instead, think of learning sessions as being composed of two parts.
Consumption
Retrieval/Practice
Only when you do both, do you complete a learning session.
Action Steps: The next time you plan a learning session, plan the consumption and retrieval/practice components before starting. And try to do both components on the same day if possible.
2. Practice/Theory ratio
Sometimes, having automatic rules in place-despite removing some flexibility, can help keep us in order. And this is certainly true when it comes to breaking the cycle of overconsumption.
I call it the practice/theory ratio.
It’s a fixed ratio that corresponds to how much time we spend practicing for each time spent in consumption. I like to keep my ratio at 5/1- meaning 5 minutes of practice for 1 minute of consumption.
You are free to select your ratio. But do realize that if it’s too little, you’ll fall into the overconsumption cycle, and if it’s too much you’ll risk wasting time on already mastered components.
Having this rule in place will prevent you from asking questions like:
Should I keep consuming?
How much practice should I do?
Should this differ over time?
etc…
Think of it like other automatic decisions you have in your life, like:
Waking up at a certain time
Eating your usual breakfast
Taking the usual path to work
It removes the guesswork, and in doing so makes life a lot easier.
If you find yourself consuming too much in proportion to how much you practice, use these two techniques so that you can solve your problem.
Until next time,
Diego.