Workshop: How to Choose Your Next Skill

Picking the right skill to learn is probably one of the most crucial meta-skills in all of learning. That's because what you choose to focus on has implications for your motivation, fulfillment, and overall future success.

​In this workshop, I showed a simple framework of how to choose what skill to work on next, and how to dissect complex skills and learn them in a manageable sequence. By guiding you through a set of questions and visualizations, you can make a flying start with any learning plan.

Watch the recording

Workshop outline

Why become better at learning?

• If you're a knowledge worker, you're likely to face information overwhelm.
• Most skills are now digital, and technology moves fast.
• Using new technology, you can automate much of what you do repeatedly.
• When you know how to learn, you'll have more fun—even when the going gets tough.

Why become better at picking new skills?

• You can only truly learn one thing at the time.
• Effective learning only happens when you keep showing up.
  • Picking the wrong skill at the wrong time can kill your motivation.
• Learning the right skills at the right time can give you huge leverage.
  • Example: early crypto entrepreneurs.

The process

1. Visualize your vision

   • Close your eyes and think who you want to be in one, five, and ten years from now.
   • Example:
     • In everything that I do, I aim to be my best self. I work on self-actualization by helping others find what sparks joy and learn new skills.

2. Identify your roles

   • Name up to three current or potential future roles in your work/life. Under each, name your responsibilities in your role.
   • Example:
     • Writer
       • Research topics
       • Manage my writing process
       • Get and accept feedback
       • Publish articles
       • Get people to read my articles
     • Teacher
       • Understand student needs
       • Make complex topics simple to understand
       • Create learning materials
       • Deliver transformational experiences
       • Help students to keep showing up
     • Marketer
       • Understand audience needs
       • Spot trends in the market
       • Promote my content
       • Sell my courses
       • Automate whatever I can

3. Brainstorm useful skills

   • Look at your roles and responsibilities and write down whatever high-level skills would make you better at fulfilling your roles.
   • Example:
     • Copywriting
     • Note-taking
     • Data analysis
     • Content delivery
     • Storytelling
     • Curriculum design
     • Social media
     • Market research

4. Map the skills to roles

   • If you use Roam, block reference a skill underneath any relevant responsibility. Add up the number of block references for that skill.
   • If you use a mind mapping tool, draw a dotted line (- - -) for soft links and a solid line for hard links (——).
     • Soft links = 1 point
     • Hard links = 2 points

5. DiSSS the top skill

   • Deconstruction — What are the minimal learnable units, the LEGO blocks, I should start with?
   • Selection— Which 20% of the blocks should I focus on for 80% or more of the outcome I want?
   • Sequencing— In what order should I learn the blocks?
   • Stakes— How do I set up stakes to create real consequences and guarantee I follow the program?

Resources

• Worksheet in Excalidraw
• The Art and Science of Learning Anything Faster (chapter from Tim Ferriss' book The 4-Hour Chef that talks about the DiSSS framework).