This Simple Shift Will Make You a Faster Learner
Welcome to the Habit Chess newsletter where I talk about training everyday skills to make moves.
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I’ve always been fascinated with how we learn.
Especially when it comes to stuff we’re not naturally good at.
For me, that was…most things.
Wrestling, tennis, boxing, standup comedy, coaching, consulting, podcasting—you name it.
But I had a weird obsession with getting better. I wanted to figure it out.
And the more I paid attention, the more I started to notice patterns. Especially from my strength and conditioning background. There’s always a way to train something better—learning included.
The problem is, most of us are taught to learn the wrong way.
It’s kind of like when someone wants to “get in shape” and they don’t know what to do, so they just start running.
Not bad. But not always the best place to start.
Same thing happens with learning. If you don’t know how to approach it, you default to repetition.
Rereading. Rewatching. Highlighting.
Feels productive. But it’s deceptive.
There’s this book called Make It Stick—published by Harvard’s press—that completely changed how I thought about this. Easily one of the most science-packed books on learning out there.
And one of the biggest things they talk about is this idea that:
We confuse familiarity with understanding.
So you repeat something over and over, and it feels like you’ve learned it. But what’s really happening is you’ve just created a fake sense of mastery.
That’s the trap.
Here’s where everything flipped for me:
The act of struggling before recall…is the learning.
That moment when your brain is like:
“Ugh, what was that thing again?”
That’s gold.
It’s not about getting the answer right.
It’s about fighting to remember.
That’s called retrieval. And it’s way more powerful than repetition.
Flashcards. Quizlet. Even just trying to remember what you read yesterday before looking it up.
That little mental stretch is what tells your brain:
“Hey, this is worth holding onto.”
So what do you actually do with that?
A few months ago I started using the Robert Greene / Ryan Holiday notecard system. And I wish I started sooner.
Here’s how it works:
You get a stack of 4x6 notecards.
And any time something stands out to you—an idea, a quote, a stat, a line from a book, you write it down.
Not to build some perfect system.
But so you don’t forget.
The beautiful part is what happens later.
When you’ve got hundreds of cards, and you’re flipping through them.
Retrieving stuff. Making new connections.
Realizing, “Oh wow, I forgot about that one.”
Ryan Holiday talked about the way he knows his book is ready to write is when there's enough notecards from his research. It's all in there, the book just needs to be found.
Even if you’re not writing a book, I think this applies to any skill you’re trying to build.
This is a similar idea to building a second brain somewhere to free up space in your first one.
Let’s say you’re trying to learn about AI.
The default is: “Let me memorize some definitions.”
But the better way?
Start paying attention to what actually sparks curiosity.
What makes you pause. What makes you think: “Huh. That’s interesting.”
Write that down.
Those are the raw materials for real learning.
And over time, you build a little library of ideas you actually care about. Stuff your brain wants to hold onto.
I do this with The Daily Stoic too.
Before I move on to the next day’s reading, I’ll flip back and try to recall what yesterday’s passage was.
That moment of friction, trying to remember before being told the answer is everything.
This can be practiced when you're using AI nowadays. Make a guess. Work towards an answer before deferring to what the LLM tells you.
If you want to remember what you read, or learn something faster:
- Don’t just highlight it
- Don’t just reread it
- Struggle to recall it
- And make it easy to come back to
Repetition feels good.
But retrieval is what works.
Try it.
In your corner,
Misbah Haque
Author & Consultant at Pod Mahal
Writer & Host of Habit Chess
