Why are different kinds of learning so differently compressible?
If I can work through a textbook in 20 1-hour sittings, I usually get similar results from 10 2-hour or 5 4-hour sessions. But piano isn’t that way at all: a 20x1hr piece simply can’t be learned in 5 sessions IME.
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One explanation might be that when learning piano pieces, successive sessions rely heavily on previous sessions having been consolidated, whereas many “book-learning” topics are somewhat more breadth-shaped.
Another might be that some tasks drain attention faster.
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Other examples of learning which don’t seem to compress very well:
– learning how to draw
– learning how to design user interfaces
– learning how to write
Ones which seem to compress well:
– learning how to cook
– learning a new programming language
– learning a spoken language
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Really curious because your entire list of "[doesn't] seem to compress well" aren't muscle memory memory tasks (at least, UIs and writing aren't), but instead those are things that require feedback and iteration based on discovery… something that takes time and (mental) space.
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Right! Some amount of distance required for those, perhaps.
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Maybe this is tied to context-switching?
e.g., reconsidering your own work and learning from it happens best when you can approach it with fresh mental context, not the same structures you built up to compose it in the first place. Switching 'out' of your old context takes time.
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kind of the opposite of traditional mental work where context-switching is generally considered an unalloyed evil—a cost to be avoided at all costs.
Here, we hypothesize that it's a necessary good!
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