2022-09-03 Be more practical

“Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.” ― Richard P. Feynman

Root knowledge provides the underlying principles and logic for a particular set of skills or practices. If you think about it, the “root” part of any skill should be easier to master. It lays the solid foundation for stacking other ideas and concepts.

For example, if you want to become an accountant, learning how taxes work as opposed to learning complex accounting theories will have a much faster impact. Unless you aspire to become an accountant professor instead of just a regular accountant, you probably won’t ever need those more advanced accounting theories in your day-to-day job.

Before you can master a topic, craft or skill, you must first understand its fundamentals. In the case of learning how to code, it’s important to understand the basics of coding before diving into more complex concepts like object-oriented programming and other branches of programming.

These foundational principles aren’t difficult to grasp, but they’re often overlooked because most online coding courses skip straight to the branches. But understanding the roots is key if you want to become a successful coder in the long run.

In any career path, it is the small things that make the most significant difference. These small details can either make or break our performance and career growth in the long run.

With so much information at our disposal, it’s easy to get distracted by big and attractive topics/ things/concepts. It is exactly these distractions that are keeping us from mastering the essential details of any topic. The little details are what separate good professionals from great ones.

Knowledge is a collection of facts, concepts and rules that can be understood and applied when necessary. The goal is to build up an entire semantic tree of knowledge so that you can accurately apply it in your profession or life.

Here’s how: start with your learning goals: what do you want to achieve? Break down your topic/subject into the basics, essentials, important and complex. Get good at the basics — dig deeper and solidify your root.

Learning and retaining knowledge is a lifelong pursuit. Better learning creates new neural pathways in your brain that allow you to easily encode and absorb new or more ideas. To successful learn and retain more, master the roots.