552. Unlocking Learning Potential

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Brainy Business – Episode 552 “Unlocking Learning Potential”

Host: Melina Palmer
Guest: Dr. Dan Willingham, Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia
Date: November 25, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the psychology of learning and memory with Dr. Dan Willingham, author of "Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning Is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy." Melina and Dr. Willingham explore cognitive science insights and practical tips for learners, educators, and professionals aiming to unlock their learning potential. The conversation covers why traditional approaches to learning are often inefficient, how memory really works, the perils of cramming, the power of distributed practice, the science of procrastination, and actionable methods to make learning “stick”—both in academic and professional contexts.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dan Willingham’s Journey from Research to Practical Application

[02:45 – 05:45]

• Dr. Willingham transitioned from a technical memory researcher to focusing on the practical aspects of memory in education.
• Notably realized during a talk with teachers that psychology has failed to communicate key knowledge on learning to non-specialists.

Quote:

“My career changed course that afternoon because I realized my field has done a terrible job of communicating what we know about how people learn.” (Dr. Dan Willingham, 05:35)

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2. The Curse of Knowledge & the Dunning-Kruger Effect

[05:50 – 07:45]

• Discussed the tendency to assume others know what we know (Curse of Knowledge).
• Dunning-Kruger: Overconfidence at early stages of learning, underestimating gaps in knowledge, especially relevant at work and in self-evaluation.

Quote:

“You assume everybody knows the thing that you know, and so they're not going to get value out of this.” (Melina, 06:29)

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3. Why We Don’t Do What We "Know" We Should

[07:45 – 10:23]

• We gravitate toward study methods that feel easy and effective, but are usually inefficient (“push-ups on your knees” analogy).
• Many students and learners conflate effortlessness with effectiveness.

Quote:

"Students do the mental equivalent of push-ups on their knees...you obviously need challenge for long-term benefit." (Dan, 09:27)

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4. The Truth About Cramming and Forgetting

[10:50 – 14:16]

• Cramming can yield short-term results but leads to fast forgetting. Spaced (distributed) practice deeply improves long-term retention, even if it feels less efficient initially.

Memorable Statistic:

Distributed practice led to about 80% retention three weeks later, while cramming dropped retention to around 20%. (Referencing data described by Melina, 13:23)

Quote:

“Forgetting is really, really slowed down when you do that distributed practice. And yet. And it's startlingly fast when you don't.” (Dan, 14:05)

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5. Learning as a Habit: Planning by Time, Not Just Task

[16:51 – 20:20]

• Building a learning habit requires allocating specific time, not just reacting to urgent tasks.
• Developing a self-identity as ‘a learner’ helps sustain ongoing learning efforts.

Quote:

“Try and be more planful about it, and think about it once with long term goals in mind...you want to be that person.” (Dan, 18:44)

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6. Tackling Procrastination: Small Steps, No Guilt

[20:20 – 22:54]

• Utilize micro-habits (“jog to the end of the driveway”)—lower the barrier to starting, allow yourself to stop without guilt.
• Research shows we overestimate the unpleasantness of tasks; just starting often changes our perception.

Quote:

“One of the things that contributes to procrastination is that people overestimate how unpleasant tasks are...once they start...‘this isn’t as bad as I thought.’” (Dan, 21:47)

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7. The Critical Role of Sleep in Learning

[22:54 – 24:25]

• Sleep is not just vital for next-day performance, but also for memory consolidation of what was learned the day before.

Humorous Quote:

“It’s common for people to experiment with sleep in ways they would not experiment with other basic needs like food or breathing." (Book excerpt, 23:36)

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8. How Memory Works: Meaning Matters Most

[25:00 – 27:58]

• Simply wanting to remember does not make something memorable; processing meaning and context is crucial.
• Memory is deeply linked to the connections and meaning we assign.

Quote:

"Whether or not you remember something is fully a product of the cognitive processes that you engage...Memory loves meaning. That’s the main way that we remember." (Dan, 26:12)

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9. Practical Memory Tips: Use Effective Cues

[28:05 – 33:59]

• Effective recall is driven by matching how you encode information and how you retrieve it.
• Create file names, notes, and reminders that reflect how you will later remember/cue the information (“finger puppet” anecdote).

Quote:

"Try this on sometime...when you're storing something away, think to yourself, 'How am I likely to later try to remember this?' and then make that part of the way that it becomes retrieval." (Dan, 32:08)

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10. Organizing Information for Better Learning

[33:59 – 39:25]

• Dr. Willingham discusses organizing his book by common learning tasks (attending lectures, taking notes, etc).
• Listening to a presentation is fundamentally different from conversational or entertainment listening—requires deliberate, hierarchical organization and connections.

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11. Applying Learning Science at Work

[39:25 – 41:00]

• Insights apply broadly—from students to professionals pitching, presenting, or training at work.
• Structuring information for memory and action helps achieve desired outcomes in any setting.

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12. Reframing and Overcoming Procrastination (Opportunity Cost)

[41:00 – 45:53]

• Simple reframing can help curb procrastination by highlighting the benefit of getting things done.
• Introduce “productive procrastination”—doing the easy or urgent but less important tasks to avoid the harder, essential ones.
• Advocates “one thing a day” focus to reduce overwhelm.

Quote:

“Try describing the choice to yourself in a way that highlights the opportunity cost...Shall I knock that problem set off and be done, or shall I put it off and give up my chance to feel good about having it over with?” (Book excerpt, 41:22)

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13. "Outsmarting Your Brain"—Tweaks That Make a Difference

[46:19 – 48:44]

• Many learning strategies just need tweaking to yield much better results.
• Mental work must sometimes feel challenging—discomfort usually signals growth.

Quote:

“Most of the time it’s going to feel a little more difficult ...when it’s hard, it’s going to be more productive. And the same thing is true in mental life.” (Dan, 47:21)

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14. Fun, “Doesn’t-Hurt-to-Try” Tips

[48:02 – 48:44]

• Chewing gum might improve focus for short periods (data is “squishy,” but it’s easy and low-cost).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Memory loves meaning.” (Dan, 26:12)
• “You remember Avatar not because you wanted to remember it, but because you were processing... deeply.” (Dan, 26:40)
• “If you want to dip your toe into the world of Outsmart Your Brain, [chewing gum is] a really low-cost one.” (Dan, 48:41)

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Timestamps by Topic

• 00:00–02:06: Introduction, Dr. Willingham’s background
• 03:39–05:50: Dr. Willingham’s move into practical research
• 05:50–07:45: Curse of Knowledge/Dunning-Kruger at work and in business
• 08:19–10:23: Why we avoid the best learning strategies
• 10:53–14:16: The paradox and problems of cramming
• 16:51–20:20: Planning learning by time; identity as a learner
• 20:20–22:54: Micro-habits to battle procrastination
• 22:54–24:25: Why sleep matters for learning and memory
• 25:00–27:58: How memory works; importance of deep processing
• 28:05–33:59: Effective cues and avoiding “finger puppet” mistakes
• 33:59–39:25: Organizing information and memory for presentations
• 39:25–41:00: Learning science in the workplace
• 41:00–45:53: Reframing procrastination, productive procrastination, one-thing focus
• 46:19–48:44: How small tweaks can “outsmart your brain”
• 48:44–50:12: Where to find Dan and resources for further learning

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Actionable Takeaways for Listeners

• Adopt distributed practice: Break learning into multiple, spaced-out sessions for retention.
• Embrace productive struggle: If learning feels hard, it often means you’re doing it right.
• Plan learning by time: Set aside dedicated time to learn, regardless of task urgency.
• Connect new material to meaning: Ask yourself why it matters and how it links to what you know.
• Use reminders/cues that mirror your thought process: This boosts retrieval when you need it.
• Overcome procrastination with micro-actions: Small starts are better than none and often snowball.
• Reframe “doing now vs. later” by what you gain: Focus on how accomplishment will feel, not just the avoidance of effort.

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Final Thoughts

Dr. Willingham and Melina Palmer illustrate that unlocking your learning potential relies on science-backed strategies that are simple, actionable, and adaptable across school, work, and life. Whether you want to learn faster, remember more, or help others do the same, “Outsmart Your Brain” and this conversation offer a practical blueprint. Remember: Learning that feels slightly uncomfortable is typically where the most growth occurs.

Links to resources, books, and episodes are available in the show notes and at thebrainybusiness.com/552.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to episode 552 of the Brainy Business Understanding the psychology of why people buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Dr. Dan Willingham, author of Outsmart your Brain. Ready? Let's get started.

[B]

You are listening to the Brainy Business podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.

[A]

Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business podcast. Have you ever wished you could hack or outsmart your own brain? As new technology reshapes how we work and AI changes what it means to know something, many of us are being asked to learn faster and adapt more often with so much information and so many options, and it's easy to feel overwhelmed and unsure of where to focus. That's why I wanted to revisit this discussion with Dr. Dan Willingham, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and author of Outsmart yout Brain, why learning is Hard and how you can make it easy. This episode Originally aired in January 2023 and is just as useful now, if not more so, than it was then. His work explained explores what it really takes to learn and remember. Whether you're studying, training a team, or simply trying to keep up with everything coming at you as you listen, consider this what does learning look like for you today? How are you adapting your habits to keep growing in a world that never stops changing really quickly? Before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show, notes for my top related past episodes and books, ways to get in touch and more. It's all within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 552. Now let's jump right in. Dr. Dan Willingham, welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.

[B]

Thank you so much.

[A]

I talk to a lot of people, I read a lot of books, I read a lot of academic research and I can concretely say I have never read a book with more tips and practical insights ever. I. I don't think it's. I. It's just like tip, tip, tip tip thing, thing, thing and there's so much, but it's easily digestible at the same time and I love the way that it's organized. We will get into all of that and before we do, for everyone who doesn't know you yet, can you share about who you are and your the work that you do?

[B]

Sure. I was trained as a cognitive psychologist and especially interested in the intersection of neuroscience and cognition as it pertains to learning and memory. I did that work for about the first 10 or 12 years of my career post PhD and at that point got interested in applied aspects of memory. And that's what I've been doing for the last 15 years or so, mostly writing for teachers and administrators about what we know about how the mind works and how that can be useful in educational settings. And this is my first book that is directed not at the educator, but at the learner.

[A]

Yeah. And it. And you talk about it that, you know, very early on in the book, saying that you had this presentation that you were asked to give.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Can you. Can you share a little bit about the. That story? I think it's valuable for people in business to hear, too.

[B]

Sure. This was right. This was the story of my transition from basic researcher to applied researcher. I got a call from someone who lives in my town who also heads an educational nonprofit who I met once or twice, but really didn't know. And he said, so we're having our big national conference. There are going to be about 500 teachers there. Would you come and talk to them about human learning? And I said, well, you know, I study learning, but, like, I can't really help you learn anything, unfortunately. Like, I. The work I do is very technical and not really. And he says, no, no, yeah, we get all that. We. We just think it would be interesting. We think they would find it interesting. So, you know, I was kind of flattered. I got an ego just like anybody else. So I said, sure, I'll come. I'll come talk to your conscience. So, like, six months later, I realized, oh, my gosh, this thing's in two weeks. I have to figure out what I'm going to say. And then I panicked, because the question I was asking myself is, what in the world do I know about how people learn that teachers don't already know? This seemed like it was going to be an absolute disaster to me. So I went and I basically picked a bunch of slides out of the course that I had by that time already been teaching for 15 years or something, which is basically the first course you would take in human memory when you go to college. And I go to Nashville with this tray of slides, and I invited my fiance with me because she was a teacher. I was like, isn't this fun? Like, you know, you can come and why I'm giving this talk to teachers. And then half an hour before the talk, I was like, don't come. I would not let her come because I was so sure it was just going to be a catastrophe. But then, much to my surprise, it was not a catastrophe. Teachers found it interesting. There was stuff in there that they didn't know and they thought it was really applicable to their classroom and that my career changed course that afternoon because I realized my field has done a terrible job of communicating what we know about how people learn.

[A]

Yeah. You talk about the curse of knowledge a little bit in the book, and I have an episode about that. When you were just talking, I was thinking about the Dunning Kruger effect, which was one of the most popular, most downloaded episodes of 2020 that I did on the show. And just a fun concept anyway, but that when somebody.

[B]

Especially when you're on social media.

[A]

Right. For sure. And so when you get knowledge in the area, like you were saying, where you think you're on this, like, different area of the Dunning Kruger effect than what we typically talk about. Right. We talk about that peak of Mount Stupid where you think you know everything, which is, you know, potentially a lot of who this book was written for. At that beginning of college, you think, I know how to study. I did well in high school. And then you get there and go, go, yikes. I don't. Right. You have that. That point, but here, where that confidence never doesn't come quite up to match that, you know, the competence level that you have and you assume everybody knows the thing that you know, and so they're not going to get value out of this. Right. This is something you. You kind of forget where you learned something. And I think at work, you know, we have that issue too, that we think nobody's going to want to hear me talk about this.

[B]

I think that's right. And another aspect of this, and I think this can apply in a lot of work situations. More particularly, what I was thinking is these folks have training in this, and teachers do get training in how students learn, but that doesn't mean it's always great training and it doesn't mean they always remember it. So when you're giving a presentation somewhere, it's like, yes, they may have some background, but if this is not the primary thing that they do, they may have, you know, had a little bit of professional development on this five years ago or, you know, once every six months they get something, but they may still very much feel like, this is something I wish I knew more about.

[A]

Right. And of course, the talk you gave there is. Couldn't possibly have had all of what's in the book that is out as we're talking today, but you know, will be out when everybody's listening to this. And I really do love how. And you say that, you know, over time of then meeting with students and giving them tips and finding this other problem of people not implementing the tips that they're given. So can you talk a little bit about why we don't do the things we know that we should do? People hear about that on the show all the time too, but sure, sure.

[B]

So I mean this, and this is maybe a slightly different angle than your listeners have heard before. There are things that we know we should do that we find difficult to implement. And you know, my sort of better self tells me I should do this, but then in the moment I don't do it. And that's, that's certainly a factor in some of what I talk about in the book. But sometimes we really don't know what is optimal to do. And that's a repeating theme in memory that I, that I take up in the book. We tend to do things that feel in the moment like they're working and also don't feel very difficult. So there. It's not that they're completely ineffective. So, you know, someone who is in high school or in college will feel like, you know, I'm doing okay. Like, you know, I do sort of know how to study. And that's true to a point. But the methods, and we know this from surveys of high school students and college students, the methods they use tend to be very inefficient. They're not completely hopeless. So the analogy I offer in the book is that suppose you, you have a friend who wants to be able to do lots and lots of push ups. They're going to enter a push up contest or something. So you go to watch them train one day and you find them, they're doing push ups on their knees. And you say, why are you doing push ups? You know, that's crazy. If you want to be able to do a lot of push ups, you should be doing regular push ups. In fact, you should be doing like really hard push ups, like the ones where you launch yourself off the floor and clap. And your friend says, yeah, a couple people told me that and I tried it. But look, the point is to be able to do a lot of push ups. And when I do those clappy push ups, I can barely do any. This is like, you must not understand the point. And that's sort of what students do when they're studying, they do the mental equivalent of push ups on their knees. Right. When you do push ups on your knees, it feels like everything's going great. You can do them really fast and you can do a lot of them, but you obviously need challenge for long term benefit. And the same thing turns out to be true when you're trying to learn something new.

[A]

Yeah, I love that analogy of being. Because we, you know, I've done plenty of push ups on my knees and I think that ties in. It comes up much later in the book, but where you talk about cramming for a test or something and the difference over time and of course, you know, with talking about procrastination. Can you share a little bit about that?

[B]

About cramming in particular?

[A]

Right, yeah.

[B]

So cramming is, I mean, cramming is actually a difficult subject as an educator because the truth is, cramming kind of works depending on what your goals are. If, if all, if all you, if you do not care about remembering something in the long term, then crowding all of your learning practice into the time right before you need to perform. Right before, in the case of a student, you need to take a test that's actually fine and you're going to do okay on the test. The problem is you will very rapidly forget. And so this is an instance where students sort of self perception is exactly right. You know, we've all been in class and we've heard kids sort of bragging like, oh man, like I studied the night before and I did great on the test. Now I don't remember any of it. And I'll tell you, when I first became a professor, I used to tell students, well, I'm a memory researcher. You probably remember a little more, more than you thought. Well, it turns out I was wrong. Like data came out more recently. It's just like when students say like I totally forgot everything, they're not far wrong. But what I always point. And so I'm like trying to be honest with my students. I say, look, if you're, you know, an engineer and you're taking an art history course because you've got a free spot in your schedule and you do not care whether you remember this six months from now, I get it. Why this would be your last priority and you might cram. But if you're an engineer and you take Mechanics 101 knowing you have to take Mechanics 102 the next semester and you cram, you are a fool. Because that next course, it's going to be assumed that you remember all that content. And the only way to assure that you remember things in the long term is if your learning happens sort of distributed over time rather than all crammed together. So this is an instance where yeah, they, they're sort of doing push ups on their knees. But because of the way the test is structured, it won't, it won't in the short run end up being that bad for them. But in the long run they're going to have a problem.

[A]

Yeah, and I'm definitely going to link to the episode on time, discounting because it's clearly a big piece of the issue here and I think because I was just refreshing on this, but I don't have the page open so, you know, to the listener the numbers I say here might be off. But I believe it was something like if you have the person who I think it was, you know, if you study for an hour a night for five nights leading up to the test versus five hours the night before, the person that crammed got, I think it was 72% that they remembered or whatever on the test. And the other person who'd studied over time was like 84%. So still better. But like you said, not the end of the world if you have to cram. But then it was the three days later and 24 days later that you go back and see what they remember. And the people that crammed, like you say, basically nothing. It was like 20% or something that they remembered even after three days. But the people who had studied continually, it was still in the 80, you know, percent that they remembered quite a bit.

[B]

Yeah, forgetting is really, really slowed down when you do that distributed practice. And yet. And it's startlingly fast when you don't.

[A]

As you were talking, I'm a person that loves to learn and I'm a thorough reader and, and whatnot. And I do remember I had a test for a class in my undergrad that was for something that was a silly thing that didn't really feel like it needed to be a test anyway. And we had been given a list of a hundred questions and they had said, he said, the instructor, you know, the professor had said some version of all of these questions will be on the test, guaranteed it will be a mix of these hundred questions just as they are, you know, they'll be here. And so I was studying and was able to say like A, B, C. Like I knew the. But if I, if he had mixed up anything at all, I absolutely would fail that test. And I didn't. I actually got praised for having the best grade in the class, but I don't remember a darn thing.

[B]

But you remember the praise?

[A]

Yes, for sure. Oh, of course.

[B]

And let me, let me just spell out for your audience, if I can. Some people may be thinking, well, that's nice for students. This really isn't relevant to me. But it really is. If you're trying to master a new skill or even just like there's just kind of a topic that you want to know about. One of the things that may slow you down is you may feel like, well, I have no time for this. And like, I have little. I can't do this in a sustained way. I have little crumbs of time here and there. And what these data show is like, that is more than okay. That that actually in some ways is optimal because what it means. And again, this is where when you do distribute a practice, this can feel like this is, this is not working at all. But it's actually working really well. The reason it feels like it's not working well is because there may be long periods of time between sessions where you're revisiting this content. Forgetting is happening. And so in time 18 that you go and pick up this book, it's been a long time since time 17, and there's been a lot of forgetting. So you pick it up and you're like, oh my gosh, I barely remember any of this. If you stick with it, that is really going to help. This is actually a, you know, a technique that a memory researcher would tell you to adopt if you're trying to learn and remember something for the long term. So don't be discouraged if you don't have a lot of time and that it's separated by so much time that forgetting is occurring in between. That's actually absolutely fine.

[A]

Right. And from what I remember from the book being that then you go when you're revisiting, you know, it's helping to connect some things. And then, you know, of course you're talking about. You had a lot of interesting stuff about sleep, which we'll, we'll talk about too. I had a, a quote I thought was funny that I will call out here, but that it's better to study, you know, Tuesday night and then Wednesday morning or to read something versus Wednesday morning and then again Wednesday evening because you able to have that gelling process that happens when we sleep the. Okay, I had two things I wanted to say and now I've gotten excited about them both. So we'll go to the first thing first and then potentially come back to the sleep one. But you have this mention about if somebody decided they wanted to advance their career and they want to learn something new. Right. So people listening to a podcast like this one probably can relate to that and are investing that time. I think you gave the example of if you wanted to learn coding, but it was just kind of on the side to help you advance. Eventually you think it would be important, but you say a lifetime of being prompted to study only when a test looms means that you're unlikely to make time for learning when there's no urgency. And so that piece of, you know, creating that study habit, work habit, that consistency in planning by time and not by task, I think is incredibly relevant to people at work that are looking to advance their careers.

[B]

I think it is. And I think planning by. Let me just highlight something you said. They're planning by time and not by task. So you're not thinking of your workflow in terms of, okay, what do I need to do next? But instead you're more mindful about what the optimal allocation ought to be of your effort to the various tasks in front of you. Everyone knows, like, you don't just want to do things because they're urgent. Some things are urgent and they're really not very important. And the important things get, that aren't urgent, get crowded out. So I think a good way of dealing with that is instead of having to continually make the decision, how am I going to allocate my time today? Try and be more planful about it and think about it once with long term goals in mind, the other, back to this idea of sort of long term learning. So that if you get this habit of planning by task as a student and you only ever learn when there's a test looming. The other aspect that this I think is important is self image really contributes as well. So that if you have the attitude of, I'm the kind of person who is always learning something new. So in a, you know, during a week I'm always going to find two hours doesn't matter which job I'm in at this moment, doesn't matter, you know, how busy I am because it's wedding season and lots of my friends are getting married or whatever, like two hours, I'm always going to be just the same way. They're, you know, the people who exercise always find some way to exercise. And that's really a self image thing. You just see yourself as a learner and therefore, or it's prioritized. That is the kind of thing some people get in school and it carries over. And then for other people, you know, they develop it later, whatever. But I think it's. I think you want to be that person, right?

[A]

And it doesn't have to be like you're saying this huge, you know, my entire life, every moment of every day is dedicated to learning new things, Right? But you can give what you can give, when you can give it, and then see what's next. I also really loved the piece about Just go get started. You talk a lot. I love the chapter on procrastination. I think it's so valuable for everyone because as it says there, we all procrastinate. It's a natural tendency. We're all going to do it. So it doesn't mean anybody's bad or wrong. But the little habit of even the. I just have to jog to the end of the driveway and that's enough. Yeah.

[B]

And it counts. I did it today, right? You have to put on your. You have to put on your running clothes, too. And that end. To the end of the driveway, and then that counts.

[A]

Right? And if you decide to go back after you jogged your, you know, three steps, or it might have been a little bit of a longer driveway than the one that I have, but you get there and then you say, you know, today I really am done. You can turn back and you don't have to feel bad about it. Right. And you shouldn't have that guilt. And the same, you know, you have the example of just putting the things on the to do list. You know, if you just put right out the to do list, and then if you're going to be done, you're going to be done, and you don't feel bad about it right now. But more often than not, hugely more often than not, you'll run past the driveway because you're already there. Right. Silly. Exactly.

[B]

And the there. It's worth mentioning, there is research on this, that one of the things that contributes to procrastination is that people overestimate how unpleasant tasks are. There's lots of work on this. In particular, an exercise. I think it's. I think it's pretty universal. You know, people don't want exercise. Oh, my God, you're in pain and you're sweating. You're all. And then once they start, they're like, you know what? It's really. You know, I'm not. I wouldn't say I'm having fun, but this isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. So the idea is like just get yourself going and then you'll realize not that bad. But the key thing is you do have to actually give yourself permission that I can stop if I want to. If you kind of know, like I know if I go to the end of the driveway and say I'm going to stop, then I'm going to punish myself and there's going to be all this guilt, then obviously that that's not going to work.

[A]

Right. Just really being okay with whatever it is and that it doesn't have to be more than whatever that is. And. And if you have day after day after day after day that you keep turning back around, you know, then maybe there's a new goal.

[B]

Is not for you.

[A]

Right? Yeah, for sure. Well, to just mention the thing on sleep because I had. Had said this a little bit and I had another quote here. I am hopeful that it truly is a dry sense of humor. Throughout the book, I found myself laughing continually at little sort of funny turns of phrase that I enjoyed very much. Just so. So you know, I. And like I said, I hope it's intended, that they were intended to be funny. Like, well, this is saying, you know, it's common for people to experiment with sleep in ways they would not experiment with other basic needs like food or breathing, which.

[B]

It'S.

[A]

They're funny, they're worded in a way that it's so obvious and it kind of makes you laugh to say, yeah, why would I do that? That's silly. Right. But so anyway, that I thought was kind of funny.

[B]

But sleep, yeah, sleep, people appreciate that sleep messes you up the next day. That if I don't sleep and it's, it's severe enough, I'm not going to be able to think very well. And that's certainly true. What they don't realize it, it actually messes up you. Messes you up from the previous day as well. Because the night of sleep is important in consolidating the memories that were formed during the day. If you don't get much sleep or you get low quality sleep, you are tampering with the learning that you put so much time into the previous day.

[A]

Yeah. I would love to take a little step back from the book itself and talk a little bit about memory because it's such an important and interesting thing that I know we haven't talked about enough on the show. I have a, an episode when I was going through all the biases and I have, you know, Something talking about memory, but it's definitely nowhere near all of what I know you could talk about. Can you share a little bit of insight into memory for everybody who doesn't really have much background there?

[B]

Sure. I mean, it's. It's. Naturally, it's a huge topic. But I'll. I'll tell you about a couple of my favorite things, findings that I think are especially applicable. One of them is actually the finding that when I heard about this in my first year of graduate school, this is what made me commit to memory as a topic of research. Because there were a few other things that were going on in the lab I was thinking about, and that is that your intention or your desire to learn contributes pretty much nothing to whether or not you actually will learn something. I found this absolutely amazing as someone who was a student and had spent, you know, 16 years, like my primary job was trying to cram things in my head, and the idea that you're really wanting to remember something just didn't mean anything at all was really surprising to me. Now, in a way, this should not have been surprising at all, because we all know there are lots of things you want to remember that you don't. I mean, every person you've ever met, you're like, oh, it would be really good if I remember that this person's name. And of course, frequently you don't. And then likewise, there are lots of things you remember that you remember without trying. You know, if you went to a movie last night, you tell me, oh, I saw Avatar 2. And I said, oh, I've heard about that. What was it about? You're like, I don't know. I didn't study it. I just went to it. Right. That would be weird, right? Like, you just remember the movie. Like, of course you didn't try to remember it. It just. The memory comes from free. So that's. That's one finding. And that sort of points towards the second finding, which is you. The. The whether or not you remember something is fully a product of the cognitive processes that you engage when you encounter whatever it is you're wanting to remember or don't care if you remember. You remember Avatar not because you wanted to remember it, but because you were processing. The typical term would be deeply. And deeply means you're thinking about what it means. You're connecting it to other experiences that you've had. That's the way things become memorable. Memory loves meaning. That's the main way that we remember. There are other things, there are other attributes that we remember. We sometimes remember what things look like. We sometimes remember what they sound like. Mostly we're interested in meaning. And so processing meaning, thinking about what things mean is going to be the most helpful for memory. And that, in turn tells you that things that are inherently meaningless are extremely hard to commit to memory. So when you're, you know, especially in a. When you're trying to learn something new, if there's, you know, about the worst thing, passwords are terrible in that way. Right. Because passwords. Everyone wants you to commit a meaningless password to memory. And things that are meaningless are very, very hard to commit to memory.

[A]

Yeah, that's. Thank you for that. And memory loves meaning is my new favorite line. So thank you.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

For that. I really liked the example you gave, too, about the context and the different associations that happen within a particular item. So where you were talking about the coffee for the. The neighbor. Can you share a little bit about that example where you have a new neighbor that moves in and you want to get them the gift in the gift basket. Do you remember this example from the book? Okay. It was super relevant.

[B]

I remember talking about it, but I don't remember what the point of that example was.

[A]

Oh, no.

[B]

About memory cues. Oh, this was. Yeah, this was really about that sort of memory. You draw memory out the same way that it went in. Yeah.

[A]

Right. And you talk about the chair and the different aspects of a chair and what you. What you learn about it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. Right. So the, the coffee example. Now, if I can. If I can remember, the example is sort of that you think to yourself, oh, I want to put together a gift basket for my neighbor, but I don't have any coffee to put into it, so I'm going to get some coffee when I come home. So you're thinking about buying coffee in a way that you don't normally think about buying coffee, which is. I'm thinking about it in the context of a gift rather than the way I normally think about it, which is a staple that I just need to have around my house. And so then we go further in the example. So you have that in your head. In the morning, you're driving home. In the evening, you drive by the grocery store and you think, oh, is there anything I need from the grocery store? No, I don't think so. And then you drive home and you see your neighbor and you think, oh, I wanted to get coffee at the grocery store. Right. So the question I pose is, why is it that when you drove by the grocery store, you didn't remember I need coffee. And I've sort of given you the answer already. You thought about coffee not in the context of, oh, I'm out of coffee and I'm also out of sugar and whatever else. And that would be sort of a grocery store way of thinking about coffee. Instead, you thought about it in this kind of odd context, in the context of gift for my neighbor. So seeing your neighbor was a good cue for that memory. Oh, right, I wanted to give that person a gift. Coffee was one of the things, darn it, I forgot the coffee. So the overarching lesson we draw from this is that memories are going to be cued by thoughts or by things in the environment later. And the way you're going to be able to draw memories out most successfully is when the cue is a good match for the way that you thought about the memory at the time you, you know, you were trying to remember it. Encoding is the, the technical term that's usually used. So in the thinking about it in the afternoon, in the same way you thought about it in the morning.

[A]

Right. I, I thought that was such an interesting and applicable, just really useful example where we have a hard, where we do forget something. And so if you, like, you say at the beginning of the day you think, oh, I need to remember this. And then maybe it's at the end of the day, maybe it's 30 seconds after I said I needed to remember the thing and I forgot it when I was walking out the door.

[B]

So I'll tell you a way. I use this principle in my everyday workflow when I have, I save a lot of things. You know, a lot of stuff comes in my inbox that I don't think is useful to me right now. But I know, like, oh, if I worked on a project about this, like, I would probably want that. And why not save it? Because yes, I could recover it, but maybe it would be hard to find or whatever, it's here, so why not take two seconds to save it? I keep a lot of stuff on my hard drive like that. I try to be thoughtful in file naming and I try and name files in the way I think I'm later likely to remember what this was about. So, for example, if I got something from you, Melina would definitely be in the file name. Right? Because you've sent me very few things. And so one of the features that I'm going to remember is that it came from you. So even if that doesn't bear on the content at all, that will be in the file name. So thinking just Try this on sometimes. This is for all the listeners. Try this on sometime when you're doing, when you're storing something away, think to yourself, how am I likely to later try to remember this? And then make that part of the way that it becomes retrieval.

[A]

When you were just talking, it reminded me of the finger puppet example, which I feel like is maybe one you would more remember from.

[B]

You have very good coding for all these experiments and examples that I talk about. Yeah. So this was an instance where I gave myself a terrible memory cue. This was, I think it was my, my senior thesis in college. And I had this great idea that that was, I thought was applicable to my senior thesis. So I had like a little. A piece of paper that I wrote on and I just wrote something like, don't forget about the finger puppet. Completely confident that I would later remember what that meant. And then, you know, later, of course, I had absolutely no idea what, what, what the importance of the finger puppet was.

[A]

Right. And from what you say there, it has never been recovered. No.

[B]

That memory is still in waiting somewhere. Yes.

[A]

We'Ve all, you know, we've all had that. So I think it was very, very relatable and you know, kind of asking myself if this. Is this a finger puppet note I'm making for myself.

[B]

Exactly, exactly.

[A]

Well, and in the book itself, I love the, that the tips you give, they ebb and flow from big picture stuff. You know, of taking the time to think about planning and understanding how you're going to approach your studying and what you need to be paying attention to in a lecture and thinking about why this matters and big associations. And then, you know, the next tip is giving very specific abbreviations you can use for your notes. Or it's saying to put your notes go, you know, make sure you leave a wide margin and you're going to want to put like use a notebook for the one thing. And you put the notes during class on the left hand side so that the right hand side's open and that the flow of thoughtfulness makes sense. Wonderful tip. Really easy to implement right away and feel like I'm getting a little win for that kind of snowball effect and helps everything else come into play. How did you go about sorting, I guess, all of that and, and coming to. Was there some grand master plan of organizing your 94 tips into, I don't know, 14 chapters or whatever it was to have it all fit together like that?

[B]

There. Yeah, there, there was sort of a plan. And if you ask me how I developed, I'm gonna have to say I don't remember which everyone thinks it's hilarious when members forget things. And I usually do not disappoint on that score. But I do know, I mean, that it's organized by task, obviously. And one of the things I really wanted for the book, well, obvious to you because you've read the book. So for the listeners, it's sort of organized by things that you would do that entail learning. So things like how do you go to a lecture or presentation and extract meaning from. From it, even if the speaker is not very good, how do you take notes? So a separate chapter, how do you take notes during a presentation in an effective way? And so on. So I knew I wanted to do that because I think that people have a sense there are some tasks I'm really not very good at. Like, some people are going to say, like, I don't procrastinate that much. Like, a little, sure. But, like, that's not a big deal, right? So I wanted the book to be useful to everybody without. Without anyone feeling the need to read from the beginning to the end and just look at the parts that were useful to them. And then thinking about each of those tasks, I identified what I saw as what is frequently sort of the linchpin problem. And that was when I noticed a lot of times it's a problem because you have this misperception about the best way to do something. So in the case of listening to a presentation, the thing that your brain does is you tend to listen to it the same way you listen in other, less formal situations. When you're listening in those other situations, listening is made easier for you either by the constraints of what you're doing or by intention. So in other words, when you're in a conversation, listening is easy because no one really expects you to connect what's being said right now with something that was said 15 minutes ago. Or if so I'm going to. I'm going to say, like, oh, remember when I said this? Well, now this is still part of that story or something like that. You're really only expected to keep, like, the last 30 seconds in mind and just so you can respond to the other person. The other time you listen is when you're in, like, a movie or you're attending a play or something. And There it is, 90 minutes long, but it's in a narrative format, and that's pretty linear. And the playwright or the screenwriter is thinking very much about their audience and how to make it easy for you to understand what's going on. When you're in a presentation, you're there to learn something, you're not there to be entertained. Right? So the purpose is, the purpose of listening is different. And also the person who's speaking to you is not a professional in keeping you entertained. Most of the time they know some stuff and they're likely to organize it. Not in a narrative, they're going to organize it hierarchically. Most of the time when you go to an info packed presentation where you're expected to know something when you walk out, that's the organization. And when there's a hierarchical organization, you are expected to make connections among the different things that you're hearing. And because it's not a narrative, it's difficult to make those connections. So this is where again, you, you sort of go at it in a natural way, which is to listen the way you're used to listening. You sort of sit and you see this. I mean, all of us have been to conferences. Like, you know, you go to, you know, you just kind of plop down and you're not really, you know, you're, you don't feel like it's got to be game on. This is going to be really hard. You're like, I'm listening. Right. But the truth is, if you're listening with that purpose of learning something, that's actually, that's actually pretty serious cognitive work. I'm excluding here, like we've also all been to conferences where the keynote is, you know, like the business magician and he's telling jokes and like, you know, pulling quarters out of people's ears and stuff. And that's just entertainment and that is a narrative and easy and fun.

[A]

Yeah, I thought that was so helpful. And the imagery of the hierarchical presentation. As someone who teaches myself and does a lot of keynotes and presentations and help people to do better presentations and you talk about pitches at work and whether that's, you know, whether you're doing the keynote or you're teaching a class or you are pitching to get more budget or to get a project or something. Understanding how people hear what you're talking about and knowing how to present that information in a way that's to going to help them retain what is most important and follow that story all the way through of like, where are we going? Why do we need to get there? Where are the points that we should be saying, hey, this is on the same point as this thing I talked about 10 minutes ago. And you know, those summaries are very important and I love that the Book breaks out, you know, for the learner. And then, hey, if you're a teacher, you know, in every section, it has the tips for things that you should be thinking about and the way you present the information, which very much, I think, ties in, like I was saying, with presentations at work and how you. Because we're trying to get people to understand and we're communicating something. You want someone to do something in all the cases. Right. So I think this information is so applicable for anybody.

[B]

Good. I'm delighted to hear, and I certainly hope so.

[A]

Yeah. Well, the last thing that I really want to talk about, that I loved, loved, loved, loved. I talk about reframing a lot and that importance in our own mind and just as we think about problems. And I really liked. And I've got another point where I had, you know, typed out a quote from the book that I thought was helpful, but it says, the next time you are tempted to procrastinate, try describing the choice to yourself in a way that highlights the opportunity cost. Don't ask, shall I watch a movie or shall I work on the problem set? Say, shall I knock that problem set off and be done with it, or shall I put it off and give up my chance to feel good about having it over with? And in that way, you know, you want to reframe to highlight what you enjoy instead of what's making you procrastinate. You know, to be able to look at this in a different way to help you overcome that. And it's such a simple shift, but one where we can see how different it feels.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, especially if you. And this is the. You mentioned, there are a lot of tips in the book. And this. This was my other motivation, was to give people a choice of tools. Right. So each chapter is just one task. And you don't have to do all of these tips. God help us all. Like, trying to do all of it would be so much. Right. But, you know, to give you a choice. And so this is the kind of thing, like, for me, this kind of reframing thing really helps. Why? Because I'm the kind of person where when I procrastinate, it really does bug me that, like, I know this thing is hanging over my head. And, you know, even if I manage not to think about a little while, like, there's a part of the back of my brain that I'm like, this thing still has to be done. And so saying like, you know, tell ask myself, well, do you want this to be, you know, this weight to be off you and like you just don't have to think about it anymore. Then you just have to do it and then, and then it'll be over with. So yeah, the reframing business is very effective for me.

[A]

Right. And, and just in that way of it also helps, you know, take a step back, you know, to kind of get out of that hot state where we have, you know, our hot cold action gap. And you're thinking, oh man, the movie sounds really fun and it feels exciting and I wanting to procrastinate on doing work because obviously movies are more fun than doing our work. But then, you know, you think about how am I going to feel about this tomorrow when you know, or you know, am I going to sleep better tonight if I have done this or, or whatnot. So I think that those reframes, in those simple moments, that thoughtful sludge is the way that I will often talk about that. So where, you know, sludge we try to reduce in organizations. We're getting rid of the friction. Make things as easy as you possibly, possibly can. And that's helpful a lot. But in spots where you know you're going to mess up, putting those little blockers in the way to go, really a way to think about it differently. It's just, you know, really valuable.

[B]

I think it's worth mentioning that, you know, the, the in the book I use the example of gaming versus a problem set. And of course at work that's. That's not what it's going to be. It's going to be productive procrastination is the term that. I don't know if that, that's the term that you've used here before.

[A]

I do when I talk about bike shedding, I also call it productive procrastination all the time.

[B]

Yeah. And it's, I mean if, if you've never heard the term before, it's pretty obvious what it means. Right. And so sort of saying like, oh, I can't possibly work on that you spreadsheet until I've got email box zero. It's like, oh, actually you can. Right. And I think this, I think this also dovetails nicely with the idea we were talking about before of allocating time rather than tasks. Right. So thinking to yourself, can't possibly work on this other task until I've got email box email zero. That's like, no, actually like you should say, there's so much time during the day that I'm going to devote to email and then so much time to this other task, including the not very pleasant task that you have to do that you typically procrastinate on for sure.

[A]

And whether for people, it's the eat the frog piece. Right. That you have to do the really hard thing first. I always encourage, and I love that in the book you talk about taking the big stuff and doing those small steps and how to go about thinking about breaking things into smaller steps, which if you don't know the ultimate picture of where you're going, it can feel a bit daunting to break it down and how small is a small step and whatnot of which kind of in the jog to the end of the driveway, it's as small as you can make it typically. And then you can just get that momentum. But you know, with that, when we think about the task, the problem, and if you set it up to where. If I don't do anything else today, the one thing I have to do is what. Right. And if there's just one, it's a lot harder to ignore the one thing than if you have 25 things on your to do list that you can be productively procrastinating on all of them all the time.

[B]

Right? Right, Absolutely.

[A]

Well, as we are wrapping up, what would you say, you know, as the like anything else that I should have asked about things that you're so excited about with, you know, day one of new book here that you wish people would. Would hear and know and think about when they are considering outsmarting their own brains.

[B]

I mean, I think that's the, you know, the, the title really says it all for me that there. It's not that frequently, it's not that what you're doing now is ineffective. It's that it can be tweaked to be more effective and you can get pretty sizable productivity jumps. But it is the case that it, it does not come for free. Most of the time it's going to feel a little bit more difficult. And a lot of times as someone who's, as a cognitive psychologist, you know, you hear comparisons between mental life and physical exercise frequently. And so, you know, like the brain is like a muscle and it's like. Yeah, well, in some ways it is. A lot of ways it's not. This is, this is one of the times the analogy is really apt. Just as like you just can't expect that you're going to get a whole lot of benefit from exercise if it doesn't feel, feel kind of hard and nothing is better. Sorry, something is better than nothing. But when it's hard, it's going to be more productive. And the same thing is true in mental life. And a lot of what's in outsmart your brain is sort of illustrating why what you're probably doing now is okay. But if you reorient it, you can get more out of it.

[A]

I love that. And like you said, it's got points in there where like with the cramming stuff, right? It's like, hey, we can't be expected to deeply remember everything that we ever hear about forever. That, that's silly. It's never going to work. So, you know, take some time, do that mental sorting to say, all right, I know that I can cram this and this thing I want to be more thoughtful about. And you know, you can have that awareness.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. You don't have to do everything. And I will say some of the tips are easy. It just occurred to me, like the easiest one by far, but the one I also admit, like the data on this are not very good is chewing gum. So there, there are some data that like chewing gum gives you, helps you focus for like 20 minutes or something like that. You can get this little burst of concentration. But the data are kind of squishy on that. So I actually say in the tip like this may or may not work. Like try it if you like. Especially if you like gum. Like, why not?

[A]

If you're looking for something that's going to help help you move forward, then easy thing to try. Why not?

[B]

Yeah. If you want to dip your toe into the world about Smart yout Brain, that's a really low cost one.

[A]

I love it. Well, I love this book. It's so as going through, you know, I one have kiddos here that are not yet in college and one who just started in college and being able to say, hey, like I'm ready to send it. You know, everybody's gonna want to buy five copies. Like every graduating senior or like, you know, needs this book. Like so it's. It's so, so valuable.

[B]

Oh yeah, Copy for the car. Copy, you know.

[A]

Absolutely, yes. Everyone go buy your 5 or 10 copies to go distribute with the world for sure. And for everyone, Dan that is excited to connect with you to learn more, you know, what's their best next step.

[B]

To do so people can connect with me on social media. I'm on twitter@dan dtwillingham and you know, if you are curious about the book and you just want to email me, I'm always happy to talk with people. You can reach me@willinghamirginia edu if you also Google Daniel Willingham, you know I'm.

[A]

Not hard to find perfect. And we will of course have links in the show notes to make it easy for people reducing that sludge. This is the point where we make it real easy for people to find more more information. So thank you so much again for, for writing the book, for for joining and sharing your knowledge. It's been really delightful to chat with you today.

[B]

Thank you so much. It's really been fun.

[A]

Thank you again to Dr. Dan Willingham for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I keep coming back to the idea that intention alone doesn't create learning, structure does. Dan talked about how memory loves meaning and that the way we think about something when we first encounter it determines how easily we'll recall it later. It's such a powerful reminder that we can't just hope information will stick. We have to design our learning to make it stick. That's true for students, but also for all of us who are constantly learning new tools, skills and systems. If you've ever read an article, watched a webinar, or taken a course and thought, why didn't any of that stay with me? This episode is a good nudge to rethink your process. Maybe it's about spacing out what you learn, revisiting key ideas after rest, or finding ways to connect new knowledge to what you already know. Of course, you can't do this with everything. You only want to do it with the right things. And so implementing my not yet strategy Like I talk about in my TEDx, there's nothing magical about Monday. It's a great thing to do here. I also love Dan's reminder that productive struggle isn't a bad sign. It's actually evidence that your brain is building stronger connections. When learning feels a little uncomfortable. That's often where real growth happens. So what about you? Whether it's one of these same points or something else that really stood out for you in the conversation, I'd love to hear about it. Please come share it with me on social media. You'll find me as the Brainy biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. There are links in the show notes to make it easy, along with links for my top related past episodes and books, including Outsmart yout Brain, Ways to get in touch, and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and atthebrainybusiness.com 552 and thank you again to Dr. Dan Willingham for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me next time for another brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.

[B]

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.