Darwin's 8 Rules for Learning

How often do we spend wasting time? Be honest. Too often, we mingle around the coffee pot in the morning to swap stories; we gossip about the future and past and all along the clock ticks, and we don’t seem to care. If you were on the street and someone was throwing money away you would stop them. Of course, yet we all never seem to acquit wasting time to throwing money away. Your time is valuable; it is precious and needs to be dedicated in the right area every single day.

When we say we have wasted time, we are wasting ourselves from spending time learning. Darwin had eight rules for self-learning. He did not believe having brain power was a born trait and felt that if anyone followed these strategic points each day, treated time as money, then their intellectual capacity would rapidly rise.

Here are Darwin’s eight special techniques for learning:

1. A life long program of concentrated self-study. Setting aside time to read each day and never read without a pen and highlighter. You must read to learn.

2. The keeping of a daily journal put on paper your progress and write about the subjects you are learning. Reinforce into your mind by writing your lessons.

3. The habits of scribbling notes immediately after hearing something. Carry a little notebook with you at all times. We all have note-taking systems on our phones, but handwritten notes prove more effective.

4. The keeping of index cards of book notes and file system to make sure you can refer to those notes. What good is learning something if you cannot go back and use your new-found knowledge?

5. Always test “beloved concepts.” Prevents confirmation bias from occurring. If you love an idea, keep working on why it might end up being a horrible one.

6. Learn something by heart—no shortcuts. Take time. Gaining wisdom is not a sprint, rather a marathon.

7. Seek to EARN the approbation of great people. Find someone you admire and learn how they learn.

8. Humility to seek not fame. Wisdom flows to the humble man like water flow into a depression.

You have time to enhance your wisdom regardless of how busy your calendar appears. Spend this labor day weekend reviewing “your time allotment each day” and how much time you might be wasting. Keep track of each minute, then next week, revise your schedule and add some of these eight points. Before long, these eight principles will give you a vast advantage over most.

Have a safe and enjoyable Labor Day weekend. We all appreciate your support.

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