My learning journey

• Quick and profoundly incomplete writeup:

“Oh, I suck at learning”

• I first got into this question during something like my third year of uni when I realised how bad I was at learning and how I forgot essentially everything from my lectures within 6 months
• I did the “Learning how to Learn” coursera course and that set me on the meta-learning path
  • https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
  • ☝️ Classic, banger

Spaced repetition (used on dumb stuff)

• Got into Anki flashcards

Learning coaching

• Made this website, posted it to EA forum, offered free learning coaching, got job at Alvea, ridiculous
  • https://www.alexislearning.me/learning-blog-2021/

Visual notes

• I have lots more to say here, but will leave it there for now
  • E.g., I think visual notes are hella underrated
    • Are visual notes underrated and poorly understood?
  • I think Obsidian/Roam/second brains are very… honestly, kinda dangerous - easy to become a profound waste of time
    • I love Sasha’s Notes Against Note-Taking Systems post for this

Reference/legitimacy signal

“Alex is unusually good at figuring out new things. A related strength is in organizing and communicating complex information. Not only can Alex learn things quickly, but he can distill the important bits in an intuitive and user friendly way” - reference from Ethan

Recent little writeups on the topic of learning

• Some recent scrappy posts
  • My learning funnel (2025-05-27)
  • The Anki FSRS algorithm made me weep (2025-05-30)
  • AI walk-and-talks are such a great way to learn (2025-06-01)
  • I love you Gemini Deep Research
  • Learning to think the Defender of Basic way
  • New learning era (?) (2025-06-13)