After graduating college and devoting myself to entrepreneurship full-time, I started hearing from other entrepreneurs about how many books they were reading per year with one guy telling me that he was trying to read one book every day!

Have you heard that the average CEO reads 60 books per year? I have. Have you seen any research backing up that claim? I haven’t.

I think we hear these kinds of statistics and start believing that the more books we read, the more successful we will be. I’d beg to differ.

In fact, science shows that reading is a “time-consuming study strategy that yields negligible benefits at the expense of much more effective strategies that take less time.”¹

While in my senior year of college, I started a business that just two years later consistently generated enough passive income to support my family on less than 5 hours of work per week. How many books was I reading per year? Not very many. Maybe five. 

So how did I learn what I needed to know in order to start and grow my business? Instead of focusing on the quantity of information (i.e. number of books per year), I was focused on the quality of information, regardless of whether the information came from a book, podcast, or blog post.

In this article, I want to share with you the step-by-step approach I use for effective lifelong learning.

1. Realize that You Know Nothing

The first step in learning something new, is realizing that you know very little. As Socrates said, "True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing."

Think about this, it would take 57,000 years to read everything on the internet². Let's say you've spent 2 years of your life reading books and articles (a very generous estimate). That would mean you've only consumed .0035% of that information. And considering that the internet has only been around since 1990, this barely captures a fraction of all the knowledge out there. As you can tell, even the smartest person in the world knows next to nothing.

Recognizing and reminding yourself of this fact is crucial because “Self-perceptions of expertise increase close minded cognition.”³ If you are going to improve yourself, you need to be open to new ideas. Upgrading your ideas is the key to upgrading your life.

2. Be Curious

When you realize that your current beliefs are based on a very small amount of knowledge, you should become very interested in gaining more. And as Gilbert Chesterton said, “There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.”

Once you've developed such curiosity, learning becomes an exciting adventure: “If you’re curious, nothing is a chore; it’s automatic – you want to study. Cultivate curiosity, and life becomes an unending study of joy.”⁴ 

3. Ask The Right Question

When you are curious, you will find yourself asking more and more questions. This is good. The more questions, the better. 

When a question comes to your mind, make sure to capture it by writing it down. I like to keep a Google Doc full of questions. Whenever a new one pops in my mind, I add it to the list.

It is important to recognize that not all questions are equally valuable. As Tony Robbins often says, "The quality of your life is the quality of your questions."⁵ If you focus on answering meaningful questions, you will have a meaningful life.

No matter how you end up taking notes, though, the important thing is that you do take notes in some shape or form. As Kevin Horsley says, "The secret to accelerated learning is superior organization."⁸

6. Organize Your Notes

Once I feel like I've collected enough quotes, I start organizing my notes. I do this by listing key concepts that answer the question at hand and then listing supporting quotes underneath each concept. For example, here is the outline I made in preparation for writing this article:

7. Write Your Answer in Your Own Words

With your outline in hand, you are ready to write an organized, coherent answer to your question. This is an essential part of deep learning known as Elaboration: “Elaboration is the process of giving new material meaning by expressing it in your own words and connecting it with what you already know. The more you can explain about the way your new learning relates to your prior knowledge, the stronger your grasp of the new learning will be, and the more connections you create that will help you remember it later.”⁹

Elaboration happens every time I write a blog article or write in my journal each night. What's more important for your learning -- reading or writing? I would argue that writing is far more important. When you write what you are learning, it becomes part of you.

8. Teach It

Once you've learned something, the best way to deepen your understanding and remember it is to teach it to someone else: "One of the best ways to learn is to teach. When you learn something with the intention of teaching it later, you pay attention differently. It forces you to clarify concepts and ideas in your mind and recall them in a way that increases both your comprehension and retention. The ability to teach something successfully is one of the best indicators that you truly understand it."¹⁰

Even if you live by yourself, you have no excuse for not teaching people what you are learning. The internet has made it possible for anyone to teach. You could share what you learned on a forum or a blog. You could record a YouTube video. You could even just share it on Facebook. Don't be afraid to share your new knowledge. Remember, knowledge is power, and with great power comes great responsibility. It is your responsibility to share what you've learned.

9. Act on It

As Jim Rohn says, "Don't let your learning lead to knowledge. Let your learning lead to action." The purpose for answering your question was to learn things that would help you overcome and handle current challenges. If you don't use what you learned, this whole process was for nothing. 

Not only will acting on what you learn improve your life, but it will prevent you from forgetting it. As the saying goes: "use it or lose it."

Beyond simply remembering what you've learned, you will gain an even deeper understanding as you "Strive to live in harmony with your understanding... Acting on what you have learned will bring added and enduring understanding."¹¹