The A-Grade / B-Plus / Golf Test for Choosing What to Learn
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- —
Swart translates the three ways the adult brain can grow into a decision rule for picking what to learn. Myelination coats existing pathways in fat so signals conduct faster, and it maps to things you are already good at: your A-grade subject, the candidate for a superpower. Synaptic connection is existing neurons wiring up more strongly, and maps to your B-plus: things you are not bad at but that require real effort to reach A-grade. Neurogenesis, embryonic cells around the hippocampus becoming new neurons, is far weaker in adults than children, and maps to skills you'd have to quit your day job to get decent at. The rule: play to strengths, stretch into the B-plus band, and be wary of adult neurogenesis-level projects that drain day-to-day brain performance.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
List the skills you're actually considering
Write out the things you're weighing up learning or improving, from languages and instruments to sports and interpersonal skills.
- 2
Look before university narrowed you
Swart cautions against using your degree as the evidence, because by university you have already narrowed a lot. Look at school, and at what you were drawn to outside academia.
Pro tip Passions usually align with strengths, so use interest as a proxy signal.
- 3
Sort each skill into A-grade, B-plus or golf
A-grade: comes easily, you'd expect to be good at it (myelination). B-plus: not bad, doesn't come naturally, could reach A-grade with hard work (synaptic connection). Golf: near-zero base, painfully slow improvement (adult neurogenesis).
- 4
Pick one A-grade skill to turn into a superpower
Reinforcing something you're already wired for is the cheapest route to a visible capability, because repetition myelinates an existing pathway rather than building one from nothing.
Pro tip This is also the fastest source of quick wins when coaching someone else.
- 5
Add one B-plus stretch, deliberately
Choose a single skill in the middle band and accept that it needs sustained hard work to move up a grade. Swart puts tango, tennis and self-taught keyboard in this category for herself.
Watch out Two or three stretch projects at once dilutes the repetition each one needs.
- 6
Say no to golf-level projects mid-career
In adulthood it is unwise to take on a learning so difficult that it detracts from your day-to-day brain performance. Park those until the cost is affordable.
- 7
Drive it with repetition
Repetition leads to more myelination, which makes the pathway conduct faster. Spaced repetition over time is the practical delivery mechanism for anything you've chosen to build.
Pro tip Judge progress by the real-life result, not by which mechanism you think you're using.
In the wild
Swart describes languages as one of her superpowers: she has learned five in her lifetime, is not fluent in all of them now, but if offered a new one she'd expect to be quite good at it. She contrasts this with a friend who is a professor of neuroscience and plays in a band, whose musical ability she admires and who is irked by how easily she picks up languages. Her own golf attempt went the other way: she was really bad at it, took ages to improve, and concluded she would have had to give up her day job to reach any decent level. In the middle band she puts tango, tennis and self-taught keyboard.
→ She invests in the A-grade and B-plus bands and declines the golf-band projects, keeping day-to-day brain performance intact.
Common mistakes
Trying to be good at everything
Swart's read of the neuroscience is that it supports playing to your strengths. Spreading effort evenly across skills you're wired for and skills you aren't wastes the cheap gains available from myelinating existing pathways.
Judging your strengths by your degree
By university you've already narrowed your options considerably, so your subject is weak evidence. School-age aptitude and interests outside academia are better signals of what will come easily.
Taking on a golf-level skill mid-career
Adult neurogenesis is far weaker than in children, so a from-scratch hard skill can consume so much capacity that it degrades your day-to-day brain performance at the job you actually do.
From the transcript
“the myelination is like something that you're already good at that it would be really easy for you to pick up for it to become…”
“and then synaptic connection is more like your B plus which is something that you're not bad at at all but you don't love and…”
“it's it's not wise really in adulthood to take on a learning that's so difficult that it's going to detract from your day-to-day brain performance”
From the episode
7 Lessons I'm Taking Into 2023 - Season 4 Wrapped
Season 4 Wrapped