How to Learn Anything Faster With The Feynman TechniqueBlending articles by Scott Young and Floris Wolswijk

“I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.” - Richard Feynman

The Feynman Technique helps you to understand, recall and explain anything in under 20 minutes. Do you want to know how; use the framework below

Why

Because learning is not about remembering something difficult, but it is about making things easier. The Feynman technique can be used for anything, from understanding a simple problem to grasping quantum physics. By forcing yourself to make something easier, you will remember it better!

Step One: Choose Your Concept

The first step is to choose the concept you want to understand. Take a blank piece of paper and write the name of that concept at the top of the page.

Everything from gravity our solar system to business cards or bonsai trees goes. The Feynman technique can be used to tackle most of the worlds concepts. Even if a concept consists of multiple parts (e.g. how wars start), you can use multiple paragraphs to explain it…or

Step Two: Pretend You’re Teaching the Idea to a New Student (Explain it like I am 5)

The second step is to write out an explanation, as if you were teaching it to someone… like I am 5 years old who didn’t understand the subject. This forces you to make it really simple. You cannot use words like ‘transpose’ or ‘novelle’, keep it simple. One other way, most useful for explaining technology, is to put yourself in the shoes of your (grand)parents. This has the advantage that you will not accidentally be patronizing your public. This is crucial because in explaining to yourself the ideas you already understand, as well as the ones you don’t, you gain a better understanding and pinpoint exactly the details you don’t understand.

Step Three: Pinpoint Your Knowledge Gap / Whenever You Get Stuck, Go Back to the Book

Whenever you get stuck, go back to the reference materials, lectures or a teacher assistant and re-- read ‐or re-- learn the material until you do get it enough that you can explain it on the paper.‐

If you cannot find the words to describe your concept in layman terms, get your nose back into the books. Making a simple explanation thus pushes you towards really understanding and interpreting what you read, not just skimming the text.

Step Four: Simplify the Language and Concepts

Wherever you create a wordy or confusing explanation, try to either simplify the language, or create an analogy to understand it better. You’ll notice I did both of these in this quick demonstration. I simplified the language of torque, to explain it in terms of twisting. Second, I was able to describe it through analogy, by taking the torque vector and describing it as a corkscrew motion, tightening with right or loosening with left.

If in the end your concept is still too hard to grasp, try simplifying it once more. Sometimes it is better to lose some details along the way if that makes it easier for you to remember a concept (versus forgetting it altogether).

Examples

1. Gravity is the attraction of very large objects on smaller objects, like the earth on you and me2. A novelle is short book that tells a story just from the perspective of the main character in the book3. A bonsai tree is a miniature tree. Just like your miniature car, it is made of the same things as the big

thing, but only smaller

Step Four: Simplify Create Analogies

Working with abstract concepts, or is your concept still just too difficult for the 5 year old you? Try using an analogy to link the concept to something you already know. This has the advantage of connecting old and new knowledge in your head and helps you better remember the new concept:

When to Use

Almost always. Use it to explain things to yourself when you are studying, use it to explain difficult concepts to others (e.g. in this blog), or of course when talking to your 5 year old niece/nephew.

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” – Richard Feynman

You can use this technique for understanding mathematical or technical classes, carefully walking through the steps and explaining it to yourself. But you can also use this technique in non-- technical ‐classes to understand big ideas, or even to put together a large amount of facts in the same place, so you can understand them in context.

How can you use this technique?

If you’re trying to understand an idea, you can walk through this technique very slowly to pinpoint exactly what you don’t understand, so you can go to the textbook, lecture notes or a teacher and figure out exactly what detail you’re missing.

If you’re trying to remember an idea for a test, you can focus on creating better analogies or simplify the words even more to understand it more vividly. Finally, if you want to use this technique to study for tests, go through the technique without looking at your reference materials.

That’s a really good way to self-- test, to see if you understand the ideas deeply.‐

Because if you can go through and explain the material, without looking back at your textbook, that means you really understand the ideas.

Go use this technique right now!

Take out a blank piece of paper and go through the technique on an idea you’re currently learning.

It will only take twenty minutes, but if you get in the habit, it is an excellent way to learn ideas better.