This guide is in response to a request in the open thread.  I would like to improve it; If you have some improvement to contribute I would be delighted to hear it!  I hope it helps.  It was meant to be a written down form of; "wait-stop-think" before approaching a new area.

This list is mean't to be suggestive and not limiting.

I realise there are many object-level opportunities for better strategies but I didn't want to cover them in this meta-strategy.

It would be very easy to strawman this list. i.e. 1 could be a waste of time that people of half a brain don't need to cover.  However if your steelman each point it will hopefully make entire sense.  (I would love this document to be stronger, if there is an obvious strawman I probably missed it; feel free to make a suggestion for it to obviously read in the steel-form of the point.

Happy readings!

0. make sure you have a growth mindset. Nearly anything can be learnt or improved on. Aside from a few physical limits – i.e. being the best marathon runner is very difficult; but being a better marathon runner than you were yesterday is possible. (unknown time duration, changing one's mind)

1. Make sure your chosen X is aligned with your actual goals (are you doing it because you want to?). When you want to learn a thing; is X that thing? (Example: if you want to exercise; maybe skiing isn't the best way to do it. Or maybe it is because you live in a snow country) (5-10 minutes)
2. Check that you want to learn X and that will be progress towards a goal (or is a terminal goal – i.e. learning to draw faces can be your terminal, or can help you to paint a person's portrait). (5 minutes, assuming you know your goals)
3. Make a list of what you think that X is. Break it down. Followed by what you know about X, and if possible what you think you are missing about X. (5-30 minutes, no more than an hour)
4. Do some research to confirm that your rough definition of X is actually correct. Confirm that what you know already is true, if not – replace that existing knowledge with true things about X. Do not jump into everything yet. (1-2 hours, no more than 5 hours)
5. Figure out what experts in the area know (by topic area name), try to find what strategies experts in the area use to go about improving themselves. (expert people are usually a pretty good way to find things out) (1-2 hours, no more than about 5 hours)
6. Find out what common mistakes are when learning X, and see if you can avoid them. (learn by other people's mistakes where possible as it can save time) (1-2 hours, no more than 5 hours)
7. Check if someone is teaching about X. Chances are that someone is, and someone has listed what relevant things they teach about X. We live in the information age, its probably all out there. If it's not, reconsider if you are learning the right thing. (if no learning is out there it might be hard to master without trial and error the hard way) (10-20mins, no more than 2 hours)
8. Figure out the best resources on X. If this is taking too long; spend 10 minutes and then pick the best one so far. These can be books; people; wikipedia; Reddit or StackExchange; Metafilter; other website repositories; if X is actually safe – consider making a small investment and learn via trial and error. (i.e. frying an egg – the common mistakes probably won't kill you, you could invest in 50 eggs and try several methods to do it at little cost) (10mins, no more than 30mins)
9. Confirm that these are still the original X, and not X2, or X3. (if you find you were actually looking for X2 or X3, go back over the early steps for Xn again. (5mins)
10. Consider writing to 5 experts and asking them for advice in X or in finding out about X. (5*20mins)
11. Get access to the best resources possible. Estimate how much resource they will take to go over (time, money) and confirm you are okay with those investments. (postage of a book; a few weeks, 1-2 hours to order the thing maximum)
12. Delve in; make notes as you go. If things change along the way, re-evaluate. (unknown, depends on the size of the area you are looking for.  consider estimating word-speed, total content volume, amount of time it will take to cover the territory)
13. Write out the best things you needed to learn and publish them for others. (remembering you had foundations to go on – publish these as well) (10-20 hours, depending on the size of the field, possibly a summary of how to go about finding object-level information best)
14. try to find experiments you can conduct on yourself to confirm you are on the right track towards X. Or ways to measure yourself (measurement or testing is one of the most effective ways to learn) (1hour per experiment, 10-20 experiments)
15. Try to teach X to other people. You can be empowering their lives, and teaching is a great way to learn, also making friends in the area of X is very helpful to keep you on task and enjoying X. (a lifetime, or also try 5-10 hours first, then 50 hours, then see if you like teaching)

For reasons mentioned in So8res article as well as for other reasons: studying with a partner can be very good.

So if you're looking for a study partner for an online course, reading a manual or else (whether it's in the MIRI course list or not) tell others in the comment section.

The past threads about finding a study partner can be found under the tag study_thread. However, you have higher probability of finding a study partner in the most recent thread. If you haven't found a study partner last month, you are welcome to post the same comment again here.

This is the monthly thread to find a study partner.

For reasons mentioned in So8res article as well as for other reasons: studying with a partner can be very good.

So if you're looking for a study partner for an online course, reading a manual or else (whether it's in the MIRI course list or not) tell others in the comment section.

The past treads about finding a study partner can be found under the tag study_thread. However, you have higher probabilities of finding a study partner in the most recent thread. If you haven't found a study partner last month, you are welcome to post the same comment again here.

This is the monthly thread to find a study partner.

For reasons mentioned in So8res article as well as for other reasons: studying with a partner can be very good.

So if you're looking for a study partner for an online course, reading a manual or else (whether it's in the MIRI course list or not) tell others in the comment section.

The past treads about finding a study partner can be found under the tag study_thread. However, you have higher probabilities of finding a study partner in the most recent thread. If you haven't found a study partner last month, you are welcome to post the same comment again here.

For reasons mentioned in So8res article as well as for other reasons: studying with a partner can be very good. In November, Adele_L had posted an article for people wanting to find a study partner. It got 17 comments, but only 1 since November 16th. So I thought we (I) should make a monthly thread on this instead of constantly going back to an old article which people might (seem to) forget about. If people seem to agree with that, I will make a post about it every month.

So if you're looking for a study partner for an online course or reading a manual (whether it's in the MIRI course list or not) tell others in the comment section.

In order to do a better job putting together my thoughts and knowledge on the subject, I precommitted myself to giving a presentation on learning. My specific goal for the presentation is to inform audience members about how humans actually learn and teach them how to leverage this knowledge to efficiently learn and maintain factual and procedural knowledge and create desired habits.

I will be focusing a little on background neuroscience, borrowing especially from A Crash Course in the Neuroscience of Human Motivation. I will heavily discuss spaced repetition, and I will also talk about the relevance of System 1 and System 2 thinking. I will not be talking about research, or about how to discover what to learn; for the purposes of my presentation, people already know what they want or need to learn, and have a fairly accurate picture of what that knowledge or those behaviors look like.

Given that I will only have an hour to speak, I will be unable to explore everything I might like to in depth. Less Wrong (both the site and the community) are my most valuable resource here, so I am asking two things:

1. In one hour, what would you cover if you earnestly wanted to improve people's ability to learn?
2. What background material do I need to ensure fluency with? This should be material that I need to have adequate familiarity with or else risk presenting an error, even if I don't need to present the material itself in any depth.