Although I think Shane's article serves as a good introduction to the Feynman Technique, I feel it could go further when it comes to <i>how</i> to actually implement it. Notably, I'd argue the Feyman Technique - and Feynman was especially good at this - revolves around <i>asking good questions</i>. Here's a related excerpt from my blog post on the topic[1]:<p>--<p>This is not a novel concept, and it’s just a bit of fortuitous branding that Richard Feynman’s name got attached to it, but the Feynman technique is a framework for learning new things. It’s very simple:<p>1. Pick a concept you want to learn, such as “what is company stock?”<p>2. Ask some very practical questions, like:<p>- “What is it?”
- “Why do we need it?”
- “What alternatives are there?”
- “When did it come about?”
- “Who uses it?”
- “What are its various forms?”
- “Where is it commonly used?”<p>3. All of these questions will invariably branch out into even more jargon and concepts, such as “equity,” “preferred stock,” “voting rights,” “limited liability” and so on.<p>4. Repeat #2 for each of those branches. By the end, you should know the first principles so well you could teach the concept to a college freshman.<p>Three things about this framework immediately jump out at me:<p>(1) Learning something deeply is necessarily <i>a lot of work</i>. It’s not like you’re just answering “what is X.” You’re asking ten questions about it, each trying to get at it from a different angle, and then asking ten questions about each of those underlying concepts. The bottleneck to knowledge then is not so much ability, but effort.<p>(2) Learning something deeply is largely a function of the questions you ask. The greater “coverage” your questions span on the concept surface area, the better you will understand it. In this framework, asking good questions is a necessity.<p>(3) Questions are also where new insights come from. Once you understand all the factors which compose “company stock,” you’re able to toggle individual factors on and off, and ask questions such as: “can you have stock with unlimited liability?” or “what would stock in people look like?”<p>.<p>[1] <a href="https://alexpetralia.github.io/2017/12/25/NL-2017-12-25.html" rel="nofollow">https://alexpetralia.github.io/2017/12/25/NL-2017-12-25.html</a>