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ErasmusPrior comments on Open thread, 16-22 June 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Does anyone have advice for effective learning in distracting/suboptimal environments? I know LW recommends textbooks and learning by accumulation instead of random walks, but I have at most 1-2 hours of uninterrupted time per day I can spend learning optimally vs. 8+ hours per day I could potentially use to learn sub-optimally (e.g. frequent distractions, sudden interruptions, hours between learning sessions) during downtime at work that is currently going to waste. Are there better formats than textbooks for these environments or would it be more effective to divide textbook material into sequences of micro-learning sessions? If so, how does one organize and divide this material for effective self-study? If not, are there other ways to effectively spend this time towards incremental self-improvement?
Make notes. Otherwise you risk spending a large part of the 1 hour repeating the stuff you learned during the 1 hour yesterday.
If you have little time for learning, only learn one thing, not two in parallel, because that would make it even worse.
Anki works pretty well in short sessions, and distractions don't cause much problems, though you won't get 8 hours out of it.
But you still presumably need uninterrupted study time to write the cards?
Probably; depends how you make your cards (I often make a lot of notes in small notebooks, and then ankify the ankifiable bits, crossing them out as I go along; interruptions aren't that much of a problem there, but they are if you're taking notes while studying something a bit difficult).
Reading textbooks in little pieces might work anyway; it does for me.
I can read textbooks nearly as well during a 20- or 30-minute train ride as I can in more stable situations. (Obviously I read less during a half-hour ride than in an hour spent reading at home, but my rate & retention seem similar in both situations.) There are textbooks I can't just read straight through on a bus, like maths & physics textbooks, but I can't just read straight through them anywhere else, either, because I need a pen & paper for the exercises. But a textbook I can read at home, like an oncology or sociology textbook, is usually a textbook I can read almost anywhere else.
If you've tried this already and found it not to work, ignore this comment! But if you haven't tried it, it's worth a go.