- Success Stacks
- Posts
- How to Learn Anything Quicker
How to Learn Anything Quicker
Vicente Évora
March 26, 2025
In partnership with
In today’s email (948 Words | 3 Min 53 Sec read):
Today’s Read
Overview
Ever wondered how your brain actually learns? Why some things stick and others don’t? Why AI, despite all its power, still can’t match human learning?
Stanislas Dehaene’s How We Learn breaks it all down. This book isn’t just about memory tricks—it’s about what makes human learning so powerful. Get the book here.
Your Brain: Not a Blank Slate
Forget the idea that you start as a blank slate. You don’t.
From birth, your brain already knows some stuff. Babies understand physics (like objects don’t just disappear). They recognize faces. They can pick up patterns in language before they even speak.
Dehaene calls this neuronal recycling—your brain repurposes old circuits for new skills.
Example? Reading. Your brain wasn’t built for it, but it borrows parts originally used for recognizing objects and repurposes them for recognizing letters and words.
This is why learning isn’t just about absorbing new information—it’s about reshaping what’s already there.
The Four Pillars of Learning
To learn effectively, you need four key ingredients. Think of these as your brain’s learning cheat codes:
Attention – Focus directs your brain’s energy. If you're distracted, you're not learning. Simple.
Active Engagement – You learn by doing. Passively reading = weak learning. Quizzing yourself, explaining things, and applying concepts = strong learning.
Error Feedback – Mistakes are good! Your brain learns best when it gets feedback and corrects itself.
Consolidation – Learning happens after you stop studying. Your brain needs sleep to solidify what you've learned.
Miss one of these, and learning becomes way harder than it should be.
A Word from Today’s Sponsor
Join over 4 million Americans who start their day with 1440 – your daily digest for unbiased, fact-centric news. From politics to sports, we cover it all by analyzing over 100 sources. Our concise, 5-minute read lands in your inbox each morning at no cost. Experience news without the noise; let 1440 help you make up your own mind. Sign up now and invite your friends and family to be part of the informed.
Attention: Your Brain’s Spotlight
Ever tried studying while scrolling through your phone? You’re not learning.
Your brain is like a spotlight—it can only shine on one thing at a time. When you focus, neurons fire together and strengthen connections. When you multitask, your brain doesn’t know what to prioritize.
Dehaene’s tip? Cut distractions. Work in bursts. Use techniques like the Pomodoro method (25 minutes focus, 5-minute break).
Active Learning: Stop Being Passive
Reading something once? Useless.
Explaining it to someone else? Now you're learning.
Dehaene emphasizes active engagement. Think of it like this:
Instead of reading, summarize in your own words.
Instead of watching, teach it to someone.
Instead of listening, take notes and quiz yourself.
If you’re not struggling a little, you’re not learning deeply.
Mistakes = Good (If You Fix Them)
You know that feeling when you mess up, then get frustrated? That’s actually when your brain is working the hardest.
Mistakes trigger prediction errors, which force your brain to update its knowledge. This is why video games are so addictive—you try, fail, adjust, and improve.
The key? Immediate feedback.
If you’re learning a new skill, get real-time corrections.
If you're studying, do practice tests and check answers right away.
If you're speaking a new language, use apps that correct pronunciation on the spot.
Waiting too long to review mistakes? That’s wasted learning.
Sleep: The Ultimate Cheat Code
Learning doesn’t stop when you close your book. It happens after.
When you sleep, your brain replays the day’s learning, strengthening connections and clearing out useless data.
Ever crammed all night and forgot everything the next day? That’s because sleep is when memories solidify. No sleep = no long-term learning.
Dehaene’s tip? Study, then sleep. Never pull an all-nighter.
AI vs. Human Learning: Why We’re Still Winning
AI can process massive amounts of data, but it’s missing something crucial: intuitive learning.
Humans can generalize from just a few examples. AI needs millions.
Think about it: A child sees a few pictures of a dog and knows what a dog is. An AI needs thousands of labeled images.
Our brains don’t just memorize—they build models, make predictions, and adjust in real time. That’s something AI still struggles with.
How to Apply This to Your Life
Want to actually use these insights? Try this:
Cut distractions – Focus in short bursts.
Engage actively – Explain things, take notes, quiz yourself.
Embrace mistakes – Learn from errors, get immediate feedback.
Prioritize sleep – Your brain works overnight, don’t waste it.
Putting It All Together
How We Learn is more than just theory. It’s a practical guide to hacking your brain for better learning.
Use these strategies, and you won’t just memorize—you’ll actually understand and retain knowledge long-term.
Happy reading and remember to TAKE ACTION! There’s more to learn in the next one! Same day, same time! See ya.
My Favorite Quotes
"Thanks to this predictive learning mechanism, arbitrary signals can become the bearers of reward and trigger a dopamine response. This secondary reward effect has been demonstrated with money in humans and with the mere sight of a syringe in drug addicts. In both cases, the brain anticipates future rewards. As we saw in the first chapter, such a predictive signal is extremely useful for learning, because it allows the system to criticize itself and to foresee the success or failure of an action without having to wait for external confirmation."
"Whatever input a brain region cannot explain is therefore passed on to the next level, which then attempts to make sense of it. We may conceive of the cortex as a massive hierarchy of predictive systems, each of which tries to explain the inputs and exchanges the remaining error messages with the others, in the hope that they may do a better job."
"Curiosity is therefore a force that encourages us to explore. From this perspective, it resembles the drive for food or sexual partners, except that it is motivated by an intangible value: the acquisition of information."
Spread the word.
Hey there! Could you take a moment to share my newsletter? It takes no more than 20 seconds.
You wont leave empty handed. I’ll send you a couple of my favorite and most impactful lessons I have learned throughout my years as a reader.
Thanks for being a legend!
Help me improve!
I’d be super thankful if you could take a moment to share some feedback on the content I put out.
Your thoughts mean a lot to me, and they help shape what I create next.
Don’t hold back—let me know what you think, even if it’s not glowing! You can leave your feedback here.
I truly appreciate every bit of input, as it pushes me to improve and deliver even better stuff for you. Thanks a ton!
I’m thrilled to announce my partnership with Beehiiv, the amazing platform that brings our newsletter to life! By signing up through this special link, you’ll not only be supporting me directly but also get a 30-day trial + 20% OFF for 3 months! Sign up here.
Who am I?
I'm Vicente from Portugal, a master's student in architecture with a passion for entrepreneurship. I share my journey, lessons, and monthly reports from my newsletter business on 𝕏. Follow me for valuable insights! Join me for insights and behind-the-scenes reports, and let’s chat there!
