Feynman technique
This is how Richard Feynamn would explain how one should go about trying to understand a subject.
Taken from this article.
Identify
Write the name of the subject you're trying to learn. Write it at the top of page, it is your north star β¨
Teach
Now you should try to teach it to yourself, in the simplest terms and as briefly as possible. Hopefully this will...
Find knowledge gaps
Where are your assumptions? Where are you not filling in your thoughts? What's missing? This is where the learning happens, btw.
Organize and simplify
Now tell a story, maybe using screenwritng principles π to do this, organize and simplify. If required, create new notation, draw, talk.
Other takeaways
Draw on your passions. They are a source of insipiration.
For the first but not last time he reorganized his knowledge. He worked for weeks at disassembling each branch of physics, oiling the parts, and putting them back together, looking all the while for the raw edges and inconsistencies. He tried to find the essential kernels of each subject.
What a mind!