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Summary of Chapter 6 - Manage using the Memletic Approach

The Memletic Approach provides you with an overall strategy for achieving your learning goals. This strategy helps you plan and start your goal, track progress, and keep you going in the right direction. The Memletic Approach also helps remind you to enjoy the journey as much as reaching the goal. When you use this strategy, you can be confident you have a much stronger likelihood of success.

Over the previous four chapters I’ve covered much detail about the various ways you can accelerate your learning. In this chapter, we step back from specific learning methods to cover an overall strategy for running your learning program. The Memletic Approach helps you plan and manage your learning activities.

The following diagram shows the steps of the Memletic Approach:

As you can see, the four steps of the Memletic Approach are as follows:

• Target. Choose and clarify your goal.
• Plan. Decide your approach to achieve the goal.
• Track progress. Track your progress along the way.
• Do it for life. Enjoy both the journey and the goal.

You usually work through these activities in the order listed, however you may also work across two or more at the same time. For example, you may go back and clarify your goals further once you have done some planning. You may also alter your plan once you start learning.

How much planning and managing you do for any activity varies according to the size and importance of the goal. The Memletic Approach is no different. The activities I suggest in here are mainly relevant if you are targeting an effortful learning goal. If you are planning a longer-term goal, such as gaining a university diploma or a commercial flight license, I suggest you spend more time planning and managing your activities. If you are simply doing a course in public speaking, you may not need to spend as long in this part of Memletics.

A good guideline to start with is to spend about ten percent of your overall effort on these planning and managing activities. You will likely need to spend more time on these activities at the beginning of your journey, with less time towards the end.

Free guide: For examples of the targeting and planning steps of the Memletic Approach, get a copy of the free “Learn to fly guide” You can apply much of the content in the guide to other training activities, not just flying.

Target—choose and clarify your goal

The first step in any worthwhile activity is to clarify the goal and objectives. I call this targeting, and it serves several purposes. The targeting step itself helps take the first steps towards your goal. You begin to decide the direction for how to get there. Setting a goal provides you with motivation, and you know your finishing point.

The targeting step has three key tasks. Firstly, find and understand your reasons. Why have you set the goal? Secondly, explore your goal. This means learning more about your goal. Make sure you have a realistic understanding of what life will be like after you reach the goal. Lastly, set your objectives. What are the major objectives you need to complete on the way to your goal?

In a moment we’ll look at these tasks in more detail. Before we begin though, you may recall that “Clear, Desirable and Achievable goals” is one part of Memletic State, in particular mental state. While there is some duplication here, it’s because this goal-setting activity is critical to both getting your journey started as well as upholding state along the way.

Content in the book includes:

Find and understand your reasons

• How to turn vague ideas into explicit reasons.
• Examples of activity-specific (such as specific to flying – career, transport, recreation etc) and personal skill reasons (such as achieving a dream, overcoming challenges, personal discipline, planning, decision-making, judgment, learning how to learn etc)
• How to find motivation for a goal that may not be in line with your personal objectives.
• How to set a direction when you are not sure of which direction you want to go in.
• Tips on learning Memletics as a goal.

Explore your goal

• How to explore your goal to make sure its right to you.
• Techniques you can use to explore goals.

Set your objectives

• How to set major objectives for your learning program.
• The importance of writing down your objectives.
• How to use them to assist motivation.
• Comments on updating goals – including the idea of “creative tension.”

Plan—decide your approach

Now that you have your guiding goal, reasons and objectives, you next turn your objectives into a plan you can use to guide your actions and track your progress. You now extend the research you started in the previous Targeting step. You gather information you need to develop your plan. Once you have this information, the next steps are to create a course map, plan your time and plan your costs. These are three key tools you can use to track your progress.

Keep in mind that you may not need to do these activities to the depth outlined here. If your learning objectives are short term and easy to achieve, you may not need to do much planning at all. The size or importance of the objective should guide you on how much planning and management you need.

Content in the book includes:

Do the research

• Fundamental questions to consider and answer: your time commitment, costs, the method of instruction, and the location.
• Factors to consider before answering these questions, including the importance of your goal and any restrictions on time or cost.
• A discussion of commitment – full time or part time. Includes advantages and disadvantages.
• A discussion of method – self study, individual instruction or group-based instruction. Includes comments on whether you are a self-directed learner, whether you prefer studying at your own pace, maintaining motivation, and how you obtain your learning material.
• A discussion on location – local study or remote study. Thoughts on studying in the city, suburbs, regional areas, country areas, interstate, international and/or overseas providers. How to use your “personal hourly rate” to help work out which location may be best for you.
• How to make the decisions once you have finished research. Comments on using your gut or instinct versus finding other assistance or guides. Suggestions for questions to ask a training provider – such as other student’s questions, talking to those already studying, and their thoughts on Memletics.

Determine your Course Map

• How to create your course map, what to include, how to break it down into streams and modules.
• Includes an example of a course map for aviation or flight training.
• Comments on the level of detail you may need in your course map.

Plan your Time requirements

• How to work out your time requirements, including considerations such as a completion goal, time requirements, and available hours.
• Laying out a basic time schedule.
• Additional considerations, such as whether you are learning Memletics for the first time, and the impact of exams and tests.

Plan your Costs

• Basic points on planning your costs.

Review your Plan

• Basic comments on what to do once you have completed your plan.

Track—manage your progress

After you start your training or study, the Memletic Approach switches from planning to progress tracking. Just like navigating an aircraft, I suggest you pause occasionally and consider how well you are tracking to your plan.

Content in the book includes:

• The importance of tracking your progress, including key points such as time schedule, cost schedule, progress, issues, replanning etc.
• Avoiding the habit of reviewing progress too often.

Do it for life—enjoy the journey and the goal

When you reach your goal, be sure to take time to enjoy what you have achieved. Whether it’s for work or recreation, find ways to use what you’ve learned. When you use your knowledge, you reinforce your self-image as someone who can learn fast, overcome obstacles and reach goals you set for yourself. This often provides a high sense of satisfaction.

Content in the book includes:

• Comments on enjoying the goal, enjoying the journey, and keeping it up for life.

Chapter summary

You’ve now seen how the Memletic Approach gives you a strategy to help you achieve your learning goals. By using these steps, you greatly increase your chances of success.

You read how the Target step helps you choose and clarify your goal. You first find and understand your reasons for wanting the goal. You then explore how the goal could change your life. Lastly, you set some solid objectives to achieve on the way to your goal.

The Planning step showed you how to decide the path to your goal. You learned the basic questions you need to answer. I then discussed three plans you should create. These are a course map, a time plan and a cost plan.

Once you begin your journey, you need to track your progress. In the Track step I gave you some advice on how much tracking to do. We then discussed some key points to track, such as your time and cost schedule, what’s coming up, and whether you need to re-plan some parts of your journey.

Lastly, I suggested you take time to enjoy your goal once you reach it. I also suggested you enjoy the journey on the way to the goal.

You’ve now read about all of the five main parts of Memletics. When you do start on any worthwhile learning journey though, you will run into challenges. In the next chapter, I discuss many common learning challenges and how to overcome them.

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