Intentionally Minimizing Time Spent for Better Results

[zenmonkey]

The brain is not a muscle. These comparisons are at the end of the day, a disservice to learning about memory consolidation.
I honestly believe one can work and understand the basics of memory consolidation and other types of relevant effects without the analogies.

Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_consolidation

[leosmith]

I am even more interested in the cases where you have the time but intentionally choose to use less of it on language and get better results.

I do 2 things that might qualify.

First, learning in spurts/bow wave as Small White already posted. I've found that in the long run I actually make more progress when I take breaks like this. And like you indicated, this type of periodization works on both the micro and micro scale. Whether it's easy day, medium day, hard day, day off or easy season, medium season, hard season, off season or some other combination that gives adequate breaks, I always seem to get better results than when I do a constant grind.

Second, I intentionally limit certain types of study to keep me from going crazy, or just because I've found it to be more efficient overall. Imo, there are many sweet spots, or the goldilocks effect occurs often in language learning. The most obvious example in my mind is the use of anki. I limit it's use to less that 25% of my study time because I've found more than that decreases my efficiency. On the other hand, no anki at all isn't very efficient for me either, so I try to keep it in the 10-25% sweet spot.

[reineke]

The brain is not a muscle but we can use any help we can get.

Fun stuff:

IS THE BRAIN LIKE A MUSCLE, REALLY?
By Po Bronson On Friday, December 11, 2009 -

"Ever since that New York magazine story was published, it’s been common now to tell kids the brain is like a muscle, and intelligence is malleable. The catch was that the students at Life Sciences were reading a four-page middle-reader version of neuroscience-lite that was somewhat edited to enhance, or sell, the idea that IQ isn’t fixed.

So it’s been a legitimate ongoing question whether we’re really now telling kids the truth, when we tell the brain is a muscle. Just how malleable is IQ, really?

...striking evidence that indeed, the brain is like a muscle. While every individual probably has upper limits to what we might be capable of, brain training – like weight training, or fitness training – can lift us towards those limits."

http://www.newsweek.com/brain-muscle-really-223348

https://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10 ... 2014.00005

Muscle Strength Is in the Mind

A new study found that just imagining arm exercises created a tangible effect on the body.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... yOZooZvxDQ

Is the Brain Like Muscle?
Were the jocks correct?

Grow your muscle, grow your brain. For decades it’s getting clearer – physical activity leads to more brain cells. But how? And why?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psycho ... scle%3Famp

What happens in the brain when you learn a language?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thegua ... e-learning

[coldrainwater]

https://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/comments/5950tm/text_i_just_finished_the_online_coursera_course/ is somebody else's notes on the course, in a little more detail.

You bet. I audited that Coursera course some time ago (mainly watching the videos and completing some of the reading/work). One of the things that stuck in my mind was the video of Sejnowski running on the beach (imagine Bill Gates running to solve problems and you get the picture). Great reddit summary by the way that is worth bookmarking. In terms of awareness and exposure, I have probably read less than 75 books in English on the topics of habit formation, creativity, learning, effective thinking, and meta-cognition (to name a few). So my exposure is quite limited and is likely quite biased toward works that were available in English at the time. From around 2013 to 2015, I kept a OneNote notebook where I recorded many of my experiences in those times (incidentally I chose OneNote because it really nailed the idea of using a whiteboard for creativity and learning purposes and I felt very free to learn using it). When I watched this course, their emphasis on diffuse vs. focused learning was well presented and might have been my biggest takeaway. Somewhat more recently I audited some of Aprender with a similar theme in my TL (for listening practice and because I knew I would be familiar with the material). It is a course that I also have considerable respect for. Thanks for sharing!

[coldrainwater]

I have an excel sheet for tracking my language learning and the columns go like this: Pronunciation, Vocabulary, Lessons, Grammar, Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. The first 4 I classify es formal study, the other 4 as informal study. The formal study activities have a different colour coding embedded than the informal study activities: The formal activities turn red when I do more than an hour a day, whereas the informal activities turn blue when I do more than 2 hours a day. Basically I try not to do more than an hour on formal activities while I try to spend more time with informal activities. Not sure whether this is the kind of thing that you're thinking about, but this definitely prevents that I burn myself out too much. There is only one informal activity that I find just a straining in the beginning as formal study and that is intensive reading. As soon as it gets a bit more extensive it's fine to do many hours of this though. I find that the more I have fun with the language the less straining I find formal study too. I also use informal study as rewards for formal study achievements, for example I allow myself to relax with an informal study activity, if I manage to do a full hour of grammar exercises.

Thanks for sharing. This is definitely one example of what I was thinking. I like that you separate between formal and informal practice. For me, that line is incredibly blurry and I probably would not have thought to separate tracking in that manner. The use of conditional formatting rules (color coding in this case) reminds me directly of Habitica, which is a site that, among other things, helps with habit formation using a gamification approach.

More specifically, I had hoped that the idea of taking precautions to avoid burn-out would crop up because it is a very real risk factor for language learners. Protecting against that in a prudent fashion is likely a wise move.

[coldrainwater]

Anecdotally, I have noticed that some things seem to "self-organize" in the background without active effort. This was not so much in the context of taking a break so much as having left something alone for a long time.
The first time I observed this was in college. Someone was asking me about a calculus problem on some topic (which I had taken a semester earlier). I hadn't consciously studied it since then, or solved problems on that topic since, and didn't feel like I understood it well. I found myself easily explaining and solving the problem on the first attempt. (And then wondering why the heck I couldn't do it that easily when I was taking the class.)

I've found other mathematical and technical topics have done this. I struggled with them, left them alone for weeks or months, came back and found they were trivial to understand. I've noticed this with language learning at times. I work on something, feel like I make no progress, come back sometime later and it is functioning. It's sort of like my brain has retained the proper connections for something and dropped out the confusion and distractions that were preventing it from working.

I haven't figured out how to reproducibly do this though. It seems very intermittent, but I've seen it happen enough times to think that it is a real effect of some sort. Is anyone aware of any research on this? I'd be surprised if it was not documented and studied somewhere.

Bingo. This has happened to me more times than I can count. My experiences with computer programming mirror this as well. Professionally, these long periods of absence from a discipline happen as a matter of business. Here, I'd like to take a moment to draw some additional potentially faulty analogies. One of my favorite books on creativity is The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use I for Life by Twyla Tharp. In it, she mentions and explains how creating distance brings perspective. I think it may be safe to liken that with the idea that it is good to be able to move comfortably between different layers of cognitive abstraction (10,000 foot view to weeds and vice versa as a simplified example).

In a different literary work, they give the example of writing yourself a letter with a question/problem in it. Seal the letter, put it in a drawer and come back to it several months later. You may find that the problem has been solved or at least that your brain has 'self-organized' and has done some of the work on your behalf. There are probably hundreds of similar examples related to the field of creativity (reference Michael Michalko, Cracking Creativity for a book that is example heavy). I am sure this is part laziness (programmers can often safely laud laziness), but I allow my unconscious brain to solve as many business problems as it is willing to solve.

Now for the more spurious part (you have been duly warned). I have this idea, based on actual experience (see above), that intentionally allowing forgetting to occur may be beneficial in the long-run (provided that you are using your time saved in some way that enhances your life or perhaps even furthers your language acquisition goals in other areas). I like the idea of SRS for example, but I am not sure I like how it is often implemented. Rather than rocking an algorithm that makes sure you remember and then spaces that over time, I'd rather device an algorithm that made sure I didn't get bored (and by that I mean, I probably don't want to see it as often as a default Anki setup might push at me). I'd be more inclined to make sure I didn't remember and then get a novelty boost by seeing something fresh. Just my opinion and your mileage may vary.

[coldrainwater]

Would leosmith's Bow wave post be relevant here?

Wow, thanks for the link smallwhite! Reading specifically about the bow-wave is brand spanking new to me (presented in that form). Rather than comment prematurely, I am going to sit on that and allow it to sink in over time so that I may absorb its beneficial parts and incorporate that into my language learning program. Bookmarked.

[coldrainwater]

The brain is not a muscle. These comparisons are at the end of the day, a disservice to learning about memory consolidation.
I honestly believe one can work and understand the basics of memory consolidation and other types of relevant effects without the analogies.

Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_consolidation

Stubborn as I may be, over the course of time I am more likely to learn substantially from dissenting viewpoints on a topic. In this case, after reading your response, I first noted that, when starting threads, it may be best for me to skip analogies beyond what I would consider essential to describe the topic. Even if the analogy was spot on and very powerful, it might be better to pose the basic question more succinctly and let the thread evolve naturally. However, later in the thread, I am far more inclined to create many analogies, accepting and even welcoming that many of them may not turn out to be useful at the end of the day. Of course, a solid effort would be assumed with genuine desire to help/contribute. In this specific instance, the Bow wave is strikingly similar to what I analogized and, had I not written the initial post as such, I might have never even seen that resource.

Being able to generate new ideas by combining prior ideas is fundamental to creativity itself and I believe cross-disciplinary examples and analogies offer strong potential and should be encouraged rather than discouraged. For my own sake, I can rest assured that those reading this forum are highly unlikely to conclude that the brain is an actual muscle.

On the flip side, when looking to conservatively approach memory and learning, one book I like is Brain Rules (Updated and Expanded): 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina. In it, he takes the powerful approach of drawing from well established and conservative (I would say) principles with very strong study support.

Thanks for sharing.

[zenmonkey]

Being able to generate new ideas by combining prior ideas is fundamental to creativity itself and I believe cross-disciplinary examples and analogies offer strong potential and should be encouraged rather than discouraged. For my own sake, I can rest assured that those reading this forum are highly unlikely to conclude that the brain is an actual muscle.

And yet, using weak analogies prevents in depth analysis and understanding of actual function. Using a hackneyed metaphor is not creative, it's copying a calque used in memes and self-help books - "exercise your brain like a muscle!" You actually have half a dozen posts just spent exploring the metaphors rather than the content of your question which is likely more related to information reorganisation and consolidation. And area in which there is actually a lot of serious research. "Brain as muscle" not so much. Reineke's humorous post highlights how common that representation gets tossed around.

If you find focusing on the metaphor give you value, please go ahead, it's your time. Reineke actually linked some of the research on consolidation. As far as I'm concerned, those are paths I prefer to investigate. The link I posted is another starting place. Medina's book is another, although not all of it is my cup of tea - again, someone who spends a considerable amount of time telling us why parts of the brains are shaped like an egg or a scorpion or squashed eggs (he seems to have a thing for eggs) ... and cutesy writing - but aside from those minor criticisms - if you are interested in consolidation, I think I remember he cites some of the older (but relevant) research on consolidation.

[coldrainwater]

As far as I'm concerned, those are paths I prefer to investigate. The link I posted is another starting place. Medina's book is another, although not all of it is my cup of tea - again, someone who spends a considerable amount of time telling us why parts of the brains are shaped like an egg or a scorpion or squashed eggs (he seems to have a thing for eggs) ... and cutesy writing - but aside from those minor criticisms - if you are interested in consolidation, I think I remember he cites some of the older (but relevant) research on consolidation.

I like where this is going generally. Here or elsewhere, do you (or others including but not limited to Reineke) mind elaborating on how you go about conducting your research generally and building up a base of knowledge around a given discipline? Having a good base of resources is clearly beneficial and if you have such a base and are willing to share (or have shared and can link), I'd be very interested. Since we are definitely on a language forum, and to make it specific, do you mind sharing your methods, tips, and background for going about this sort of knowledge (here language) acquisition in your preferred manner? I personally consider it relevant to the main thread title (Intentionally Minimizing Time Spent for Better Results).

You are definitely right about there being a lot of potentially wasted time using some of the sources I have read and have linked to in the posts above. The examples are indeed very silly and we can cut to the chase in an easier manner. One obvious way for me to approach my own question would be in tackling the whole gamut of resources on how to conduct research. That might work, but to keep things efficient in that regard, I should probably get a general overview from those who have been there and done that. I'd rather develop that skill presently than realize it ten years down the road. In this case, I'd also like to apply it directly to language learning.