Learning has always been an essential activity of our lives. The core purpose of learning is survival. To learn is to survive, because simply put, the outer world is full of unknown factors, which implies the constant presence of potential threats and dangers, and so learning is to keep ourselves informed of surrounding events in case something wrong may happen. That way, we can better manage our lives, increasing our chances of survival.

When we learn, we input raw information, digest it then output [personal] knowledge. Have you ever asked how to learn more efficiently, or how to increase your learning capacity? Learning is simply learning, is it not? However, the methods which we use for learning will determine your learning curve and what kind of knowledge you will have in terms of both quantity and quality – the outcome can be: Are you a Jack of all trades with a spread-out shallow knowledge? A single-field or several-fields expert/specialist? Or perhaps even better, are you a knowledgeable intellectual that can cover a wide range of disciplines with depth? Then, learning is not to be taken for granted and the fundamental question “How” can take you far ahead if you truly wish to learn in the optimal fashion.

First, let’s talk about focus. Do you focus on your progress or on your feelings/ego? If your focus is misplaced, then you would not be able to learn much due to an inefficient process wherein all the time and effort you make will be disproportional to the achieved results. On the path of knowledge, the greatest enemy is the ego; the more you let personal feelings get in the way, the less you learn, because then you are simply focused on how you feel rather than how you can make an improvement.

Once your focus is in the right place, let’s start learning how to maximize your learning potential. Imagine, you are aiming a weapon at a shooting target; of course, your goal is to hit the bull’s-eye. Similarly, as you set a goal on learning something, you are setting a target with a bull’s-eye on it, because you want to achieve exactly that goal. However, if you are too fixated on one point, disregarding all else as irrelevant, then you would become one-dimensional in your learning process.

Whether you are a worker (of any level) from the general public/commercial spectrum in the job market, or researcher from the research spectrum, e.g. scientists, then you should know that all disciplines and study fields are interconnected. No one single field functions independently without applications of methodology, knowledge and achievements from other fields. That means everything in life is up for learning.

Take a look at the image below.

(Figure 1)

As you can see the visible dots, in the blank space between them, there is supposed to be an infinite number of other dots. Every dot represents a bull’s-eye, a goal that a person sets on learning a particular subject. Typically, what we would see on that plane is but a single dot, as we can only focus on one single goal or purpose at a time, and the other dots are things that we can learn but don’t pay attention to (or not yet).

In fact, as explained, with the non-displayed infinite dots, apart from our focused, intentional learning points, everything else around us in life is basically up for learning. It is only the matter of what you decide to pay attention to, so you would start learning about it.

Your learning capacity is solely limited to your attention coverage, or phrased otherwise, the number of things you pay attention to. A simple analogy is, every one of us resembles a walking radar that continuously scans the surroundings, and the more extensive your scanning area is as well as the more targets you can spot on your radar indicates that you are capable of a higher information retrieval capacity, which enables you to learn more and know more. You need to become aware of how the things you would normally ignore can be of good use to you, and to expand your scope of attention is synonymous with more observation, and the more you observe, the more knowledge you gain.

Literally every single interaction/encounter in your life offers a learning experience, notwithstanding that you realize it or not; it may not seem pertinent to the current situation, but it can definitely come in handy in other situations or aspects of your life.

Therefore, the pinnacle of learning is to come into contact with [almost] anything and be able to pick out something to learn. In other words, you need to exceed the conventional limits, which is being able to view the subject matter from as many angles as possible and see how differences make sense, and to make logical inferences from available information, which would expand your extent of knowledge acquisition.

To do that, you have to know how to “connect the dots” (term phrased by Steve Jobs). Connecting the dots meaning being able to see the relevance between different elements then work something out, and the more dots you are able to connect, the more clarity you have on how to go about your life. If you have a keen eye for observation, or you are creative and/or visionary enough, you can even establish relevance between seemingly unrelated elements.

For instance, the story of Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity as he observed an apple’s falling and pondered why it fell. Before Newton, no one really questioned such a thing; people had always taken for granted that things simply fell downwards. The sight of an apple falling per se is not supposed to teach or tell us anything, but the fact that Newton paid attention to it and started asking how it was possible demonstrates how he connected the dots between the the apple falling event and the existence of a natural force which was later known as “gravity” that we all learn in schools today.

After all, it’s all about finding what’s relevant between different things and how to utilize available resources so that you can go beyond the conventional limits of learning, sometimes even by exponential degrees.

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. Even trash can be recycled to become usable products. It is simply the matter of perspective that whether or not you are able to see the utility in something, and so a truly resourceful individual is one who can make use of pretty much anything available, no matter how “trashy” it might appear.

In brief, the principle for an enhanced learning capacity is: Put your ego aside, observe more, ask questions and look for how things can connect. Being able to view the world from various angles will open up new planes and dimensions of understanding and knowledge.