Binge Learning

Binge eating is defined as “The consumption of large quantities of food in a short period of time”. Now replace food with knowledge and that’s what binge learning is.

I binge learn as much as the next person:

• I start books without finishing old ones

• I get excited and enrol myself for multiple courses

• I go down a Twitter/ newsletter rabbit hole

And while it can seem that it’s great that we can learn so much in such little time, it’s actually counterintuitive in many ways. Just like Binge eating is not good for the body, binge learning too is not good for the brain -

• By cramming so much in little time, we think we’re learning but often we don’t remember what we’ve learnt

• Learning is more than information consumption. It’s also about application - and that requires time and practice

Here are 3 ways to stop Binge Learning:

1/ Create a Learning Charter 🏔

Create a roadmap for all the things you want to learn - both personally and professionally. I usually do this at the beginning of the year and revisit it every quarter but pick whatever atomic unit works for you. It’s important to remember that what you need to learn is also constantly evolving so feel free to add/ modify/ edit things you’ve added in the charter. Before you decide to learn anything new, check out the charter - it will help you stay in the right direction.

2/ Define your why ⁉️

For every new thing you learn it’s important to define your purpose for it. A simple framework to use for this is -

“I want to learn <Insert what you’re learning> so that I can <Insert why> in order to <Insert the change/ delta this will cause for you>”

By aligning on the why before you start will help you make the right choices when it comes to your learning journey - What should you learn? How should you learn? These are all important questions to answer but after you align on the why

3/ Breathe in AND breathe out 🫁

Learning is more than consumption. Most of the time we focus only on consuming content or breathing in but creation or breathing out is equally important. This could be through note taking, reflecting on your experience, writing an article, having a conversation or creating an artefact. This is a stage of convergence - you are making sense of what you learn by applying it in your context.

By focussing on both breathing in and breathing out - you’ll be able to keep yourself in check when it comes to binge learning.