Ultralearning by Scott Young

Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career by Scott Young is a productivity book published in 2019.

To prove his theory that the standard learning method is ineffective, Scott Young completed a four-year MIT computer science degree in only one year using free online courses; he didn’t even attend MIT! Next, Young became conversationally fluent in four languages in 12 months. Finally, he taught himself to draw portraits in just 30 days.

Throughout these challenges and examining others who achieved equally impressive feats, Scott Young has perfected the most efficient learning system, what he calls “ultralearning.” Young’s nine techniques can be applied to anything you want to learn, no matter the difficulty!

The Principles of Ultralearning

• Metalearning: draw a map
• Focus: sharpen your knife
• Directness: go straight ahead
• Drill: attack your weakest point
• Retrieval: test to learn
• Feedback: don’t dodge the punches
• Retention: don’t fill a leaky bucket
• Intuition: dig deep before building up
• Experimentation: explore outside your comfort zone for true mastery

Metalearning

Learn how to learn before you begin. Understand how knowledge is structured and how people typically acquire the skill. 

• Why → knowing why you’re learning helps focus on what truly matters
• What
  • Concepts: ideas to understand flexibly
  • Facts: information to memorize (e.g., vocabulary)
  • Procedures: actions to practice (e.g., speaking)
• How
  • Identify resources, environment, and methods for learning
  • Brainstorm and highlight the hardest concepts, facts, and procedures
  • Find tools to overcome these bottlenecks

Focus

Deep learning requires focus. Three main challenges:

• Starting
  • Procrastination often stems from avoiding discomfort
  • Recognize when and why it occurs
• Sustaining
  • Distractions arise from environment, task, or mind
  • Simplify each: clear your space, break down the task, calm your thoughts
• Optimizing Quality
  • Complex tasks → quiet, low-stimulation environment
  • Simple tasks → background stimulation can help

Directness

Learn by doing the thing you want to master. Real-world use is the goal.

• Learn in context
  • Formal education often detach learning from real use
  • Direct practice feels intense but accelerates results
• Tactics
  • Project-based learning (e.g., build a program)
  • Immersive learning (e.g., language immersion)
  • Artificial environments (e.g., flight simulator)
  • Overkill approach – enter high-demand situations to get rapid feedback

Drill

Isolate the one skill holding you back → break the activity into parts → refine the weakest → return to full practice to measure improvement.

• Challenges
  • When & what to drill: target areas with biggest gain for least effort
  • Designing the drill: break down the skill
  • Doing the drill: focused, targeted repetition
• Drill Types
  • Time slicing: practice brief moments (e.g., layup lines)
  • Cognitive components: focus on non-time-based parts (e.g., grammar)
  • Magnifying glass: full skill with intense focus on one piece (e.g., tennis serve)
  • Prerequisite chaining: review sub-skills only when mistakes occur

Retrieval

Strained recall is the most effective way to learn. Start testing before you feel ready — testing isn’t just for review, it’s how learning happens.

• How to know what to retrieve
  • Direct practice shows skill demands
  • Align testing with your end goal
• Tactics
  • Flashcards: for facts, not concepts
  • Free recall: write or say everything you remember
  • Question-book method: turn notes into quiz questions
  • Self-generated challenges: create problems to solve
  • Closed-book learning: check only after attempting recall

Feedback

Feedback is often uncomfortable, but essential. The key is using it without ego interfering. Filter to focus on actionable information.

• Types of feedback
  • Outcome feedback: overall performance, no specifics
  • Informational feedback: what you did wrong, not how to fix it
  • Corrective feedback: guidance from mentor/coach
• Tips
  • Ignore useless data
  • Seek high-intensity, rapid feedback
  • Find the sweet spot: avoid tasks that are always easy / always impossible

Retention

Learning is useless if you forget it. Understand why you forget to build a system that reinforces memory.

• Why we forget
  • Decay: memory fades over time
  • Interference: new information replaces old
  • Forgotten cues: lack of proper triggers
• Tactics
  • Spacing: review material at increasing intervals
  • Proceduralization: turn information into habits or procedures
  • Overlearning: practice beyond initial mastery
  • Mnemonics: use memory aids

Intuition

Understanding at a deep level requires building strong mental models, not just surface knowledge. Mastery means seeing why things work, not just how.

• Developing intuition
  • Experts recognize patterns and structure; beginners see isolated details
  • Intuition develops through deliberate effort and exposure
• Rules
  • Don’t quit early
  • Prove it: derive answers or rework problems to internalize ideas
  • Use concrete examples to anchor abstract principles
  • Teach others

Experimentation

Experimenting helps you discover what’s best for you. It’s good to use formal teaching as a beginner, but as you progress, you need your own touch (like a tennis serve).

• Types of experimentation
  • Resources: how to learn
  • Technique: what to learn
  • Style: customize to suit yourself
• Tactics
  • Copy then create: start by copying, then innovate
  • Compare side-by-side: test methods changing one variable at a time
  • Introduce new constraints: challenge yourself with unfamiliar aspects
  • Hybridize skills: combine unrelated skills to find advantages
  • Explore the extremes: push limits of a subset of skills for deep understanding

Your Project

• Intrinsic goals: empowering and enjoyable
• Extrinsic motivations: can cause anxiety and pressure
• Belief in growth is essential for sustained motivation
• Post-project reflection: analyze what went wrong, improvements, and future applications
• Maintain and practice your skill regularly