Best Way To Learn Anything

Protege Effect, Learn To Teach

Have you ever wondered, how is it that the internet is full of people sharing way to grow in life, even though they are just starting? I regularly read about growth and productivity and try to learn from them. I have noticed the stuff written by old bloggers is often a rehash of things we already know. It is usually the new bloggers who have useful information.

I recently read the book ‘Feel Good Productivity’ by Ali Abdaal, a must-read for productivity nerds. There he introduced me to a term called ‘Protege Effect’.

What Is the Protege Effect?

While We Teach, We Learn

— Seneca

There have been experiments conducted where two groups of students were given a task to learn certain things. The first group was told they were learning so they could take a test in the end. The other group was told their final goal was to teach others what they learned. The group who learned to teach fared much better than the one who learned to take the test.

This is termed a Protege Effect. It states that someone who is learning to teach puts more effort into learning than someone who learns for themselves.

I am sure you might have experienced this in your life too.

Protege Effect For Bloggers

I believe many bloggers are implementing this technique in their lives unknowingly. At least I am.

Every day I do my research to be a little bit better than the day before. A crucial part of this is to create content helpful to other writers. The discussions I have with fellow writers are to learn from their experiences. Then I document the learning as a blog. This is so others who have similar experiences can share their views on the topic.

As a beginner, I have the same problems as most of you giving me incentive for working on the solutions. For an expert, these problems may seem trivial, but for us beginners, these could be show-stoppers. Now when I do my little experiments it helps both me and my readers to grow a bit more. I ensure I put more effort into learning since I know what I am learning is for a wider audience. I would not like my credibility to be tarnished by giving out wrong information. Failing to be credible can greatly impact my pursuit of making meaningful relationships with my readers.

How To Implement the Protege Effect

The most important step to implement the Protege Effect while learning is to question everything.

If you are teaching ways to improve productivity, every method should be weighed for both its pros and cons. The cons should never outweigh the pros, making the overall effort wasteful.

You can learn a subject by spending a lot of time understanding the nitty-gritty of the material. Or you can just understand the basics and start teaching right away. When teaching right away you would come across questions both your own and from your student. Then you can work on coming up with answers together. This method is effective when you are short on time.

If you do not have real people to teach, you can pretend to teach yourself. While learning something you can write down every question that comes into your mind about the subject. Once you have studied what you have to, revisit those questions and see if you can answer them. If you cannot answer a question it means you need to get that information from a different source. Look for that source to continue.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the most effective way to learn new things is to learn with an intent to teach. Teaching others is a service you would be providing to others. A service for which everyone would be thankful to you.

Why learn for one when you can learn for all, and achieve better results?

So next time you are trying to learn something go deeper and then share the wisdom earned with a larger audience. When you share you will likely get the perspectives of others which would help you to refine your learning further.

So learn as a student with the intent to be a teacher. Learn to grow not just by yourself, but with everyone around you.

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