#035 | Knowledge Maps

Hey friends,

Knowledge maps - the connectivity between ideas/concepts within a subject.

A book represents the author’s knowledge map about the subject.

An online course represents the creator’s knowledge map about the subject.

Your knowledge map about a subject is your understanding of the subject.

So how do you form your own knowledge map?

Two methods.

DIY and/or DIT.

Do It Yourself

Let’s start with the DIY method, aka Do It Yourself.

Remember active reading from last week?

Well, that’s the key step to forming knowledge maps about a subject.

You need to filter (and consume) information first… yes, that’s the hundreds of tabs you opened when you are researching a subject.

Once you have identified credible sources of knowledge (i.e. books, articles, podcasts, videos, etc), you need to do active reading to create individual knowledge maps. Each source of knowledge is a knowledge map and so if you have 10 sources of knowledge, you have 10 knowledge maps.

The last step is to create the master knowledge map; the knowledge map that merges all these 10 knowledge maps together. This master knowledge map represents your overall understanding of the subject.

Whenever you encounter new information about the subject, you will update the master knowledge map.

When Adam Grant talks about the importance of unlearning, it means “destroying” your master knowledge map and reconstruct it in a way that allows you to see things different and reach the next level.

Now, this method is very time consuming. It will take you weeks / months to form a good master knowledge map.

A shortcut to DIY method is to ask a “friend”. A “friend” here can be your friends that know the subject well but it can also be a credible person from the far that can offer you guidance on how you should study the subject.

When you ask your friends for knowledge recommendations, you are speeding up the process of filtration.

When your friends share with your their knowledge maps, you can build on top of the knowledge that they have already accumulated rather than starting from a blank slate.

Do It Together

The DIT method is the Do It Together method, where you build the master knowledge map together with other people, either starting as a blank slate or build on top of a credible knowledge map. This is the world that Zeroton (a startup that I am currently working on) is striving to achieve and I will share more about what this looks like when it’s ready by end of September! 🔥

The Importance of Knowledge Maps

1. Helps you learn faster (and remember too) as new information is neatly placed within your master knowledge maps

2. Allows you to take actions quicker and with strong clarity. If I provide you with a knowledge map, not only will you be able to understand the space quickly but you will also be able to take actions quicker and know why you are taking those actions

🔥 Actionable Knowledge

Take a book and create a knowledge map. If you managed to create a knowledge map, please do reach out to me and I will share the knowledge maps that I have created :)

I would love to hear from you! Share your thoughts by replying to this email 😊

Thanks for reading everyone. Have a good week ahead! 🎮

All the best,

Ryan O

Current Stats: 12.2% action rate <— Read 45 books | Taken actions on at least 5 books

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