Via Farnam Street

“There’s no shortage of good content available but transitioning that into actual learning is different than just consuming information. So often we think that experiences, be it reading or conversation, translate into knowledge. But […] what we really need to do is reflect on those and work backwards. We need the active reflection. We need the mental work: What is it about that situation that worked? What is it about that situation that doesn’t work? When is this likely to not work? What are the edge cases? That’s how we codify [learning] in our mind, because otherwise we’re just following a recipe, and when the recipe doesn’t work, […] we don’t know why.”

— The Learning Loop | Shane Parrish, at 0:30

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Shane Parrish (Farnam Street) draws a sharp distinction between information consumption and genuine learning. “There’s no shortage of good content available but transitioning that into actual learning is different than just consuming information.”

Most people equate reading or listening with knowledge acquisition, but without deliberate processing, content passes through our awareness without sticking.

The Learning Loop framework provides a structured way to close this gap. It is a continuous cycle with four distinct phases:

• Experience — we consume the information or have a direct personal experience
• Reflection — we examine the details, salient points, and how different variables interacted to lead to the experience and its outcomes
• Abstraction — we codify what we glean from reflection into a mental rule: “If I’m in this situation, here’s what I’ll do differently next time”
• Action — we put the mental rules we developed from the reflection into practice, which generates a new experience, and the loop restarts.

Each cycle through these four stages keeps the loop turning. Each cycle deepens understanding.

Most online learning skips reflection and jumps straight to other people’s abstractions. Shane says, “So often what we consume online when we’re trying to learn something is the abstraction — we consume other people’s ‘Here are the things you need to do.’”

Shane argues that when we read someone’s conclusions without doing the reflective work ourselves, we end up following recipes without understanding the underlying principles. We need to actively work backwards from abstractions: What about this situation worked? What didn’t work? When is this likely to fail? What are the edge cases?

Without this mental effort, knowledge remains brittle and breaks down the moment conditions change.

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Practical Things You Can Try Doing Today

Start the Learning Loop on content you already consume:

• After reading an article or watching a video, spend 5 minutes writing down what stood out and why it matters to your work
• Ask yourself: When would this advice fail? What are the edge cases?
• Identify one thing you can put into action this week from something you recently consumed