Yes, and I’d argue to also reflect back on (long form) content, e.g. write down notes on books, critical ones, and if you watch a movie or documentary with friends, chat about it with them, reflect on your understanding of the topic, what was good, what wasn’t, develop a critical sense rather than just “consume” content.

Bonus : f*ck noise! Protect yourself when you are learning from distractions. There are myriads of things begging for your attention. Brush them off then in turn shape your environment so that you actually have a chance to learn. Learning is challenging, by definition, so you MUST make sure nothing and nobody gets in the way! Because plenty of people here have a technical side, here is a tool I built as an example https://git.benetou.fr/utopiah/online-hygiene/src/branch/master/index.js which gives me daily quota of Websites I can visit, or not, and when.

When during your life where you at peak learning rate?

Was it as school? Uni? If so, what did you do differently then? Can you still do it now?

I’ll give few examples that honestly in retrospect are absolutely obvious and yet, few people seem to still do it :

• have a trusted teacher/mentor who can pinpoint your flaw
• do exercises that test your knowledge rather than read and assume you know
• repeat said exercises in with varying context and in increasing difficulty
• take notes (IMHO the biggest) that you gradually structure and index
• use said notes when exercises (which are safe spaces to challenge your understanding) gets tough
• have structured goals, namely you don’t learn about a topic, move on randomly, but rather have 6 months over a topic
• learn regularly, e.g. weekly occurrence on a very specific topic, again and again for months on end
• last but not least, do it as a group, build, grow and sustain a network of helpful peers whom you are learning from but also helping

So… yeah, none of that is secret nor even complex yet most adults seems to leave THE place to learn and somehow forget EVERYTHING they actually learned. It’s nuts.

Also most of that is free. Getting a notepad or a wiki or using documents in a directory on your computer is practically cheaper than a coffee in most places. There is no excuse to note take notes then organize them. Same for regularity and exercises, get a calendar then drill, again.

FWIW that works for pretty much everything, from an abstract field of knowledge, e.g. math, to a physical skill, e.g. welding or ice skating.

Interesting question. I live in Belgium and… well first of all I don’t care for Christmas. I do like to celebrate with family and friends but the religious celebration itself, no. Second I never actually considered it. I do love snow and ice. I recently took on ice skating and… even though I also love the Summer where I can roller blade and skate, knowing that something else is coming is a genuine joy.

So… I can’t speak for others but I absolutely love the Winter, from hot chocolate to waffle outside to ice skating, hikes in the snow then relaxing by the file place, there is just so much to look for during that season that … never dreamt of “a green Christmas”.

Edit: I actually had one last year, going to Madeiras, Portuguese island West of Morocco, North of Africa, and… that was fine too. Honestly truth is I don’t really care where and how as long as we share a good time.